Looks like I’ll be having a roommate during my stay in Milwaukee.  My nephew, Matt, who I haven’t seen since his bootcamp graduation, will be in Milwaukee same time as me.  We’re gonna go halfsies on a room.

The kid is fresh from an overseas deployment, so I can’t wait to hear the sea stories.

The family mood is considerably lighter tonight.  The worst is over.  Today was for tears.  Tomorrow, it’s time for laughter and stories.

My sister Cindi was an incredible person.  Once, I called her “my hero” for fighting cancer as hard as she was.  She said that I was HER hero because of my battle against Parkinson’s.  Dave told my Mom that they got the news on Friday that Cindi’s survival was a matter of days, maybe hours.  That was Friday!  On Saturday, she called and sang “Happy Birthday” to my mother on her answering machine.

When I think of Cindi today, I think of her the last time we were all gathered in one place… and that was at the funeral of my older brother, Jack, who died in early 2008 at the age of 54.  (That’s the picture accompanying this post.  She is on the left.  Then there’s my brother Joe, my sister Becki, Me and my sister Micki.)  She was charming, elegant, beautiful.

She was every bit as charming, elegant and beautiful the last time I saw her in January of this year.

She said she wants her ashes to be scattered in the mountains north of their Rio Rancho, New Mexico, home.

I can see her in my mind and heart, beautiful… elegant… walking through her beloved mountain forests… forever.

I leave for Milwaukee tomorrow afternoon.  I’ll grab a MARC train from nearby Dorsey station, then take the Amtrak that leaves at 4:05 p.m.  I’ll arrive in Chicago at 8:45 am CT and catch the connection to Milwaukee at 10:20… arriving at 11:59 am on Friday.  I plan to stay with my Mom until Tuesday afternoon, catching the train to Chicago at 3 p.m., getting the connection to Washington at 6:40 p.m., arriving in DC at 1:10 p.m. on the 11th.  As the MARC trains won’t be running (Federal holiday), I’ll take the Metro to Greenbelt where Gail will pick me up.

I will relax on Thursday and Friday and the weekend, then get back to my life on the following Monday.

Cindy Schmalfeldt Murphy
Feb. 16, 1952 — Nov. 4, 2009

About an hour before sitting down to write this on Tuesday evening, I got a phone call from my brother in law, Dave.  It was bad news, but not THE bad news.  That will come later, possibly tonight.  Dave just wanted to let me know that a decision has been made to take my sister, Cindi, off the ventilator.  She made it clear to Dave and the kids that if two or more doctors said there was no hope, then she did not want to be kept alive by heroic measures.

I told Dave that sounded like my big sister.

It was about 11 months ago that Sis called me with the news that she suspected — based on preliminary lab results — that she had cancer of the esophagus.  That diagnosis was borne out by further testing.  One of the curses of being a medical layperson and having the access to information that one has as an employee of the National Institutes of Health — I knew what the outcome was likely to be, although I had to be upbeat and optimistic for her sake and for the family’s sake.

This was our last picture together.

In late January, when Sis had a feeding tube inserted into her abdomen, she had complications that almost killed her.  Cindi, Dave and her kids were all confused by the medical lingo and procedure, so I went to Albuquerque to help get things straightened out.  The picture accompanying this post was taken our last day together.

Cindi was later told by her New Mexico doctors after a course of radiation and chemo that there was no hope… the primary cancer was eradicated, but there was still cancer in some of the lymph nodes.  She got a second opinion, and had a minimally-invasive esophagectomy in September.  She bounced back from that rapidly and was soon taking solid foods.