Category: family stories

Celebrity, designers, family stories, vintage clothing, vintage fashion

Oscars Season

Lisa

Oscars night is a big deal around here. I call it Pretty Dress Night, and my husband has zero chance of watching anything else as I enjoy the parade of fashion. It’s been this way for years.

When my now adult son was six, he had strep throat on Oscars night. We knew he wasn’t going to be going to school the next day and, being a huge movie fan even at that age, he begged to stay up to watch the Oscars. I think that Harrison Ford was going to be presenting one of the last awards, and he wanted to see him, so I relented. Since that time, it’s been tradition for us to watch them “together.” I have quotation marks because when he went to college, we were on AOL Instant Messager during the awards, and now we might get together, or we might be texting the whole time, but we always watch them together in one form or another. To say that he is a huge film buff would be a gross understatement.

Around the time of the first Oscars we watched together, our video store had a contest for choosing the winners. I got stuck waiting in line and just dashed off my guesses and put them in the box. I won. I got ten free rentals, which the ex used. That was fine, because I didn’t watch a ton of movies — I was working evenings and home schooling three kids during the day. The ex, on the other hand, always tried to see the Oscar nominated films. He couldn’t believe that I won, given my lack of film viewing, so the next year, he brought me the ballot from the video store and challenged me to beat him. I did. And I won another twenty movie rentals, which he again used. Now he was unhappy, because he went to the time and expense to watch all these movies, and I may see one Oscar nominated film a year. So he did it again the third year in a row, and I won again. Twenty movie rentals, but now the video store required showing ID in order to get the free rentals, so he couldn’t get them.

He swore that I told them not to rent the movies to him. I didn’t. I think we eventually used them up, but after that, he refused to compete with me. My oldest, however, did not. It was ON. Year after year, he tried to beat me and failed. Finally, maybe four or five years ago, he finally beat me. I don’t pay as much attention to the buzz as I used to, but now all of the kids and I have a running contest to see who guesses the most accurately. We usually come in pretty close. But really, I’m just there for the clothes.

It’s funny to think that the Oscars weren’t a huge event when they started, and have only gotten huge since the seventies or so. Now, it’s the red carpet night, arguably even bigger than the Met Gala, which is only watched by fashion fans. Oscars night is seen by anyone who loves movies, so its reach is massive. This is huge for the designers who want to get their designs out there. I listed the book shown above in the Etsy shop the other day. It’s a great view of the Oscars up to the early 2000s, and has tons of photos, black and white and in color, of the stars of the day. Meantime, I’ll be on the couch with popcorn, passing judgement on the stars on Oscars night. Who’s gonna join me?

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family stories, Non-Hogkin's Lymphoma, self help, self love, sewing patterns, vintage fashion

All the Love

Lisa
Butterick 3120 , 1944.

There’s a commercial on TV right now that I believe is for a cancer facility. It says that a person never forgets the moment they were told that they had cancer. Let me tell you about that moment for me.

I had had surgery for a large mass in my back that had been causing an incredible amount of pain. Doctors varied on what they thought it was – infectious disease thought an infection, orthopedics thought perhaps it was a hemorrhage (I’d been the chiropractor in search of pain relief), and oncology thought it was a tumor. So I spent the night in the hospital the night before to manage the pain, and they rolled me off to surgery not knowing what was in store.

It was cancer. I woke up from anesthesia surround by my boys and my husband (I can’t remember why my daughter wasn’t there but I think the baby was sick). My husband took my hand and looked very serious, which in itself is a big deal, because he’s a sarcastic nutjob like me. Everyone stared at me very intently as he told me what they’d found. A huge tumor, wrapped around the spinal cord, that they couldn’t remove without a tremendously complicated surgery. They didn’t know what kind of tumor, but they biopsies and closed me up. If they had to, they’d go back in, but we needed more information.

I will tell you that I have never felt more love in my entire life. The looks of concern in those three men’s eyes was something I will never forget. And you know what? I didn’t get upset. I didn’t get worried. I knew we had this, because with love like that, how can anything go wrong?

They didn’t know till later that day exactly what kind of cancer. It turned out to be lymphoma, and there were other tumors. We came up with a plan, starting with radiation to, as my orthopedist said, “melt” the spinal tumor. Three radiation sessions and it was completely gone. Immunotherapy, to kill the rest. A year later, there is no sign of the other tumors, though I have another year and a half of maintenance treatment to keep it gone. I have gone from Stage IIIB to “no evidence of disease.” Yes, it may come back, because with my type of cancer there is no cure, just remissions of varying length. But till then, I live my life and have a lot of fun.

So yes, you really do remember the moment you were told you have cancer. But that’s just the beginning, not an end. And in the middle, have a lot of fun.

Hospital gown pattern from World War II era, likely made for new moms who were in the hospital. Why can’t bed jackets make a comeback? They’re so pretty.

Have a great weekend.