Part 11: One down, five to go…
I walked into the hospital room and said good morning to my in-laws who were shocked to see me back. My husband on the other hand seemed relieved I was there. A scowl darted across the face of my mother in law as she let out an exaggerated sigh. I was used to her abrupt expressions of unhappiness by now. She was an older mother by regular standards as Dan was her youngest child. She had behaved this way before, like the time Dan told her we were getting married. It became standard for me to envision her with hands upon her hips and stomping her foot while saying, “Well I never…!”, like a scene from a black and white movie from her time.
I chose to ignore her pouting. I knew it only worked on the men in her life. The baby needed to be held and I took him out of his car seat and handed him her direction. She refused to take him, leaving me with only a second option to pass him to his grandfather. Although both of Dan’s parents were as equally difficult as each other, his dad was somewhat softer when it came to his grandchildren. He would always hold them when asked. I don’t remember Marjorie ever holding either of my children, during the year we had cancer, or before. She possessed such a disapproving attitude all the time. I had never seen this woman smile, and after each short visit over the years it left my husband feeling disappointment. His own mother showed such little excitement or happiness for any of his real achievements or proud moments as an adult. It was a huge let down to him, which gave me little hopes to have the relationship I’d so desired to have with a mother in-law once I got married.
“My dad tried to give me a sponge bath”…..he groaned and rolled his eyes at the same time….
A huge smile crept upon my face. When he glanced over and saw my expression we both started laughing until we settled upon just looking at each other with only smiles on our faces remaining. Earlier in our marriage it was impossible for one of us to look directly at the other and keep a straight face. We shared a bond that needed no words to say ‘I love you’ when a smile was all that was required. During an argument or a fight I knew it was impossible for him to look at me even when he was mad and keep a straight face if my lips were grinning from ear to ear. “If you smile, it’s over”, would be my frequent phrase, when a cold war was in outbreak between us. I knew I had him every time as he desperately tried to keep his lips from turning up. Most fights between us ended this way and my ignorance couldn’t allow me to appreciate how simple the love between two people could be.
“Why would you let your dad do that?” I asked while still laughing at his confession…..
“He just started doing it”, he explained, “ I told him to stop, that you would help me shower when you came back, but of course he wouldn’t listen.” We both knew a sponge shower was probably the last thing any man would want from his dad.
Since the Hickman was inserted taking a shower was a tedious chore. We had practiced the sterile routine several times in the week before we went to the hospital. His Hickman would get a ‘dressing’ change. The large stick pad would be removed and the area cleaned with alcohol. Orange surgical soap was applied to the skin surrounding the opening, and a new clear stick pad would be replaced with no air or water trapped between it and the skin. Hepron shots would be administered to the tubes twice a day and for showers Dan would get a ‘press n seal’ wrap 4 or 5 times around his chest to seal off the area from getting any water within a 12 inch proximity to the open wound. He would need help whisking the water off the plastic before cutting it down the back and peeling it away from his body. The doctors had scared us enough about ever getting it wet that we took all necessary precautions to avoid irreversible infection.
I asked him if he felt sick yet from the drugs, and wondered if he had started throwing up. I listened to him tell me it started in the middle of the night, how horrible it had been. After being done with one session he still felt sick and knew he’d be back in the bathroom within hours for more. The visions of sitting on the edge of the tub at home, holding my hair back with one hand came to my mind from when I was pregnant the year before. Throwing up for nine months gave me some sympathy for the anticipation of knowing your going to be sick for a while and not being able to do anything about it.
We could hear his parents talking loudly in the hall and knew they were coming back. I prepared myself to be nice but firm, as I knew they would try to continue controlling the situation. Sitting on the end of Dan’s bed I watched his mom walk to the only seat next to the bedside. I tried to avoid conflict, where they were concerned, and took the baby and sat on the couch and played with him while he was awake. Dan’s mother started to force feed her son, shoving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into his face, “here, eat this!”, she demanded as she let out a chuckle and watch her son move his head out of the way. “Mom, stop!”, he pleaded. She continued to chuckle and pursue her efforts while her husband looked up from his computer to also let out a low below in support of her comical behavior.
Dan was annoyed even though he tolerated her abusive joking. I knew how condescending they were and it made my blood boil inside. The nurse came in to check Dan’s vitals and told him he would probably go home in the late afternoon when his treatment was over. As I spoke with the nurse my in-laws could see I planned to retain my position of ‘cancer patient’s wife’ and that meant I wouldn’t just pack up my intentions, go home, and give into their desires for me to disappear.
His mother scoffed loudly to draw attention to her announcement that she and her husband were leaving. “Good”, I thought. The comforting words took on double meaning for me and would have been more appropriate if she would have just said, “at ease, soldier”, even if not followed by a salute. 
With his parents gone for the day and his first treatment completed Dan was ready to be released from the hospital. We both knew the next couple of days and weeks would be another hurdle we would need to overcome. We were prescribed half a dozen new drugs and instructions to come back the next day for a Neulasta shot. So many of his white blood cells were killed from the chemotherapy that any infection could be life threatening. The required shot would serve the purpose of reducing that risk by boosting the remaining white blood cells that survived the harsh treatment.
We lived about a 45-minute drive away from the hospital and knowing we’d have to come back the next day made us anxious to get in the car and head home. I called the neighbor watching Cole and told her we were finally leaving. She seemed annoyed that picking my husband up from the hospital was taking so long. I apologized and felt panicked to get back in order to not damage our friendship by inconveniencing her schedule. As we made our way down the road toward the freeway, Dan held the pink bucket gifted to him from Huntsman close to his face. He was already pail from the weekend of getting drugged, but he looked ghostly white and I knew it would be a difficult ride home. He began heaving after the car started moving. I drove slowly in the right hand lane unsure if I should keep going or try and find somewhere to stop the car. The violence and noise he was making startled the baby who was now awake in the back and crying. The only thing keeping this from being a terribly written sit-com on television was that it wasn’t pretend, it was really happening.
“Pull over”, he gasped. I desperately look for somewhere to stop. We were on a main road with no turn offs and I knew he’d have to wait. The first street we came to I found a spot large enough for us to pull over the car. He opened the door and finished the ‘session’ and emptied his bucket before he pulled himself back inside and permitted me to continue driving. I felt horrible, helpless knowing there wasn’t anything I could do to make it stop. He would have to ride this out until the sick feeling abandoned his body. We only made it about 5 miles more down the road before he was begging me to pull over the car again, burying his face in his bucket. This routine continued all the way to the freeway pushing our 45-minute drive to close to 2 hours before we made it home.
My neighbor watching Cole had called us 3 times expressing her upset that we had not been there to pick up our son and that she wouldn’t watch him for us again. I’m sure she could hear Dan throwing up in the background as I explained what was taking so long in addition to more apologies. By the time we made it to her house my gratitude had turned to bitterness and Dan voiced my feelings for me as I was about to open my door to retrieve our son, “We are never talking to her again, she’s not a real friend.”
I pulled into the garage and began unloading all three boys out of the car one at a time, first the baby, then our older son, and finally my weak husband. My arm wrapped around his waist while his draped across my shoulders. I helped him into our room and set up a station of drugs, throw up bins, and wet wash towels to aid his discomfort. My two sons in the other room could hear their dad being sick but thankfully couldn’t process the severity of what was really happening. I made them dinner and gave them the needed attention they deserved while my emotions kept me thinking of my poor husband alone in our room. I had shut the door to keep the noise down and hoped he’d fall asleep. Exhaustion was taking me over, I knew we all needed rest.
The next day we had several visitors. My grandmother and aunt came to check on us while they were passing through town. Dan hadn’t left our room once. He only left the bed to hang his head over the toilet and even then sometimes he just couldn’t make it that far thus enlisted me to exchange him new bucket for old. Taking care of a cancer patient was far worse than the movies made it appear. He was sleeping when our guests came over and I allowed them to peer in at him from the door so as not to wake him up. It was interested to see the reactions on their faces when they would come over to visit and see Dan for the first time. It was like they were getting a close look at something that people rarely saw up close, perhaps the changes that occurred within a cocoon, or when something starts out one way and then ends up something completely different. They were getting a glimpse of the rare process between the two, and I the first hand experience of what he started out as and the different person he would end up. I was blind to this process, frozen to what was really happening around me, only allowing myself to grasp things day by day. I allowed myself only thoughts of good times, of the sweet moments of our young lives and short time together. I remembered the butterflies he gave me at our wedding and the way he held our two sons. I couldn’t imagine a man who might one day be unrecognizable to his own wife and two small children.
Dan got his $8,000.00 Neulasta shot that day and I felt as if round 1 was finally over. If we could survive the remaining 5 treatments, we could get on with the amputation and put this all behind us.
Our son had turned three in the previous weeks following up to chemo day, and commemorating his birthday had been placed on hold as less of a priority. We held an intimate ceremony of mom, dad, and brother singing our well wishes to a boy with a humble heart and happiness to get only one present and a cupcake sized cake not traditionally home-made.
Dan’s affected finger and hand became a nuisance after we had accepted it as a soon discarded part without use. It was hard to wait to have it rid from the equation. Lifeless and in the way it was still connected to Dan’s body and a painful reminder that we had a long journey still ahead.
