Surviving Cancer, My Story Part 19: 'x' marks the spot

Part 19:  X marks the spot

 August 8^th was the date scheduled for Dan’s “ray resection” surgery.  The family reunion was so uplifting; the timing couldn’t have been better for what we needed. I was so grateful for my family, and what they had done.  Although I felt my relationship with my husband slipping into a coma from time to time, I never remember feeling closer my family, extended relatives, and friends. 

 (My parents, Marlon & Marian Bird, with Cole, Ethan, and my nieces and nephew, Hanna, Kate, and Peyton)

No one was aware that I felt alone in my marriage. I couldn’t admit it to myself, let alone others.  Trials, near death experiences, and cancer were supposed to bring people closer to the ones they love. 

  How could I face that while I was learning to love my husband more, he was learning to love me less? 

My 'loved one' wanted anything but to be closer to me. I’d never put more effort into loving my husband as I had during that time, yet it never seemed quite enough to keep us off the roller coaster of unattainable expectation for one another. I never knew when he was upset with me, or just his cancer.  When your life stops mid-sentence, there is very little that can drag you from your misery, from the inability to progress forward.  

You become stuck.

 The moment we had been working toward since day one of this nightmare was right around the corner.  I was anxious to get the surgery over with so we could formulate some sort of plan to get our lives back, so I would get my husband back. I missed him, was desperate for normalcy, and sleep. I hadn’t slept in 6 months.

Dan’s parents had arranged to come visit before the surgery.  Instead of staying at our house they picked us up and drove to Park City.  A weekend getaway was the plan.  I resolved in my mind to be positive and  go along with whatever they planned.  I hoped for the best.  Maybe after seeing the level of involvement from my family to support their son, new foundations could be set for them to appreciate and start to involve themselves in a relationship with me, and our kids. We arrived at the rented apartment.  I toted our bags, and Ethan up three flights of stairs.  My in-laws had arranged for Dan to sleep in the master bedroom. The other two bedrooms were assigned to Cole, and themselves.  I slept on the fold out couch in the living room with our baby.  It was uncomfortable and awkward, but the only place I could sleep with a 6 month old who frequently woke up, and fussed when he was not at home, in his crib.  I knew Dan needed his rest. Keeping the baby in a place where he could get some would make it impossible for me to be near him.  Sleeping next to Cole and my in-laws room was out of the question.  Ethan would surely wake them up, annoying my in-laws who already made me feel like I could do nothing right.  Ever since I had married their son I had done nothing but disappoint them.  Considering disparagement was a known disorder with Dan’s family among the communities where they lived I tried not to take it personal.  I never felt at ease while they were around.  All visits with them were something I learned to endure, instead of enjoy. I wished for things to be different, but had learned a hard lesson where my in-laws were concerned. 

'To the immature, others are not real'.

(Ethan, 6 months)

As Dan ‘checked out’ in his sleeping quarters, I tried to keep the kids busy. Tension in our marriage was always at it’s peak when we were around his parents. He had left me to the wolves. Exercising patience was all I could do until Dan’s parents decided to tell me what we had planned.  As the day rolled by into the night, my kids became restless.  Watching television non-stop without anything else to do left Cole and I with cabin fever.  I hadn't packed for a vacation locked away in a room, and we weren't used to watching so much t.v..  For an active 3 year old boy, who loved to play outside, I knew he was desperate to leave the apartment.  While others were napping it was impossible for him to obey my requests to be quiet.  With the exception of one short walk for Dan to stretch his legs, our weekend consisted of trying to be quiet and catching up on the latest sitcoms.  I was frustrated coming from a week with my family, where we did activities that allowed us get to know each other, and strengthen our ties, to directly the opposite with Dan's family.  We were stuck in a 3 bedroom apartment with my discontenting in-laws, and of course, the T.V.   Dinner conversation consisted of categorizing the classy from the non according to weather they ate ‘brie’ cheese or not.  I felt myself in my own personal hell, with people who did not care for me, nor my children, and least of all whether my marriage was in tact or not.  My family had accepted, and loved Dan. Why couldn't they do that for me?

 (Cole, 3 years old)

When the weekend was over and they drove us home, I was relieved.  No matter how I tried to hide my unhappiness, Dan was aware and brought it up in moments we were alone.  These small conversations between us left him unsympathetic and bitter toward me. Whenever he was in a "mood",  he started adopting his parent’s attitude toward me, that 'I was the cause of his misery'.  In their mind the cause of his cancer was from stress, and a lack of sleep. To them I was the cause of both. Becoming his wife and having his children demanded that he work many hours to provide financial support for his family. Although he had willingly participated in his marriage to me, and the decisions for us to bring children into the world, his parents wished no real responsibility to be placed upon his shoulders, especially if it was hard.  

  Being a part of the Merrill Family is no easy task.  

It required perfection, or in the very least, the appearance of.

(Dan and his parent, Marjorie, and Will)
 
After they headed back to Denver things began to settle between Dan and I.  98% of the time I was the only family member he had to count on.  My loyalty prohibited me from ever letting him down or not seeing him through whatever he was up against.  Dan was in a desperate time and no matter how he was feeling, he knew he needed me.  We both knew.

Surgery day came. We found ourselves in the surgical wing of the hospital, both scared, nervous, and stressed out.  Emotions were high.  I downplayed my worry to Dan as he was coming unglued from anxiety. “It’s going to be okay you know”…I said reassuringly, as he lay in his hospital gown staring up at the ceiling with his arm draped over his eyes. “I’m just nervous, I’m scared”, he replied, “At least it’s just a finger, maybe two…and it’s on my right hand….at least that is what I keep telling myself”, he rationalized as a left-handed person would do. His verbal thoughts were more for his benefit than for mine. 

In effort to take his mind off it I told him the benefits would eventually outweigh what he was feeling now. “The cancer will be gone.  We can get back to the rest of our lives”, I said as the nurse began to prep him for surgery.  His breathing began to slow down.  He was pale as a ghost. The look of shock and amazement when the nurse put the temperature gage on his finger said, ‘this is really happening’.

He held up his hand, looked at it, and then at me.  I felt like I was going to be sick. Dr. Randall and his team of surgeons had told us when we arrived at the hospital that they wouldn’t know how much of his hand they would remove until they were performing the actual amputation.  He could come back with as little as one finger gone, or three, and most of his hand.  Dan would find out when he woke up, and I while he was still asleep.  An “X” was marked on his affected finger, making the spot well-known, preventing any error during surgery.

“It’s just a finger”, I said.  “They will make it look good, I know they will.”

Dan looked horrified. He would hardly look at me, until his 'team' came to collect final signatures and wheel his bed away. Dan signed the papers donating his finger to research, and received a large amount of medication to calm his nerves before anesthesia. This was the point of separation I knew would change everything.  I hugged him, and told him I loved him.  He clung to me with the same response to say goodbye.  I stood and watched as they wheeled him out the door, and down the hall.  I followed the procession of doctors and my sick husband a few feet to say my goodbye.  The doctors turned his bed around the following corner, and were soon out of view, leaving me standing there alone.  Depression immediately came over me. Time was now my immediate enemy.  I turned and walked back down the hall, looked at chairs in the waiting room, and continued walking, toward the elevators.  I had to leave the hospital.  I couldn’t sit there obsessing for hours what was going on in a room I had no control over, or say in.  I got in my car and drove until I saw Walmart.  I pulled into the parking lot, parked the car,  and watched people walk in and out of the store. ‘He’s not loosing a leg, or a whole arm like most people with sarcoma’s”….I told myself, “or even his life.”

I walked into the store.  I picked up biking magazines, popular old school movies, snacks, a comfy shirt for Dan to wear after surgery, and a card.  A care package was all I could focus on.  I added items that would either bring Dan comfort or distraction while he was in the hospital. I knew he’d be there at least a week.  The checkout lines were long and I listened to people chattering on about their day with the cashier.  What would I say if I were asked how my day was going?  ‘Good, my cancer ridden husband is getting body parts chopped as we speak’….and then grin as wide as I could? 

Back at the hospital I picked a chair in the waiting room and sat down. I tried to pass the time by reading Dan’s magazines.  Four hours went by before I saw our surgeon walk out of the operating room, and down the hall toward me.  This was it, the news was finally here. I sat up, took a deep breathe, and prepared myself to hear what he was about to say. “We had to remove a little more tissue around his pinky knuckle than we thought”, he began, “We didn’t remove that finger mostly for cosmetic reasons, but it will most likely have very little function ability.  The whole finger will curl into a hook shape when he tries to use his hand or make a fist.” He continued to talk about the surgery as I try to grasp what he had already said.  They had amputated his ring finger and about 20% of his hand in a pie piece shape from the top of his finger down to his wrist.  He continued to tell me that with therapy he might be able to correct some of the defects from surgery on his pinky finger and then finally told me at first glance, the tumor looked like it was contained. The margins they took, and the chemo Dan underwent had prevented the cancer from spreading.  As he spoke a nurse wearing a surgical mask, holding a paper sack, walked briskly out of Dan’s operation room, down the hall, past us, and got into the elevator.  I felt ill.  I knew what she was carrying in the paper bag.  Dan’s finger and parts of his hand were headed down to pathology for final testing.

“When can I see him”, I asked the doctor.  "I want to be with him."  He referred me to the nurses station, and I found myself in another waiting room for several more hours.  Dan had reacted badly to his post surgery medications giving him uncontrollable vomiting for several hours. At 5:00 pm that night I was permitted to be with Dan in his room.  He wasn’t awake yet, but they expected him to be soon.  I walked into the familiar looking room, to an unfamiliar looking man.

 (Dan's new hand hours after surgery) 

He lay asleep in his bed, body, and face swollen, and puffy in reaction to the drugs and blood transfusions he was undergoing to keep him stable and alive.  His white and red blood counts were very low for someone having surgery and there were complications during the process.  His face looked jaundice.  It was silent in the room with exception to the clicks and beeps from the machines he was hooked up to.  His feet and legs were wrapped in pressure socks, air pumped in and out for circulation every few hours. A large foam block encased his entire arm, stabilizing his hand in an upright position from his elbow.  A hole at the top is where is his hand came out, mangled, and wrapped tightly in bandages.  I counted the fingers….one, two, three.  The third finger where his ring finger used to be was the pinky, short and out of place.  His entire hand had been shifted from one place to another.  A large cut out was taken from his hand to the wrist, and the outer remains had been connected and sewn together.

Tubes came out of the block carrying blood into drain sacks.  I sat down and took his good hand into mine gently.  I stroked my thumb over his veins and joints trying to imagine how they put his hand together so that it would all function properly once it had healed.

He began to wake up.  The surgical block they had given him for pain was not totally worn off.  He was in obvious pain, and mostly incoherent. The nurse came in and tried to talk to him.  The drugs still in his body had spread to his face not only making it extremely swollen, but temporarily half paralyzed.  He looked like a stroke victim when he spoke.  Dan was aware of the ‘cheese block’ his arm was in but refused to look at his hand.  He was more nauseated with the surgery, accumulative drugs and transfusions than he was with chemotherapy.  The first three days after surgery were the sickest days Dan ever had.

 (Dan, post amputation)

After his body stabilized enough for him to want to stay awake he started to inspect his hand from the distance the cheese block kept him at.  He touched his remaining fingers one by one.  They were lifeless.  I knew he was depressed to know his finger was gone.  I was thankful for the amount of bandaging that was on his hand preventing him full view of what his new hand would look like for several weeks.  No matter how good of a job they did, repositioning his hand the way they did undoubtedly was going to be scary at first view.  Neither one of us were mentally prepared for that.

What I was prepared for was therapy, on his hand, on our marriage, and our life. 

 The worst was over.  No matter what was ahead, it would never get worse than what we had just gone through. Modern medicine had given my husband a new hand, and a new chance at life. 

How could I have known that modern medicine couldn’t heal wounds of the heart,
and repair undetectable damage to a young marriage
unprepared for an uphill battle.