Nothing goes the way you’d expect with cancer. Nothing is simple, or easy, or straightforward. I’m sure this is a lesson that cancer patients and survivors learn quickly. It takes a little longer for loved ones to learn.
When Doug’s dad announced the weekend of Father’s Day that he would be going into the hospital for his first round of chemotherapy on Monday, I was glad to hear it. I thought, “Good, he’s going to fight this.” His first treatment would be entirely in-patient. Apparently this is common for the first few treatments, so the doctor can keep a closer eye on things and there is staff on hand in case anything happens. He’d had a transfusion a few weeks before to up his white blood cell count and that had gone well. The Thursday that we went up there his dad and I sat on the couch talking about Scotland and work. He’d gone through the past few weeks putting everything in order at his work and at home. They got him a La-Z-Boy to sit in the bedroom so he could relax and watch TV but didn’t have to sit in the bed. Doug and I stayed at his parents’ place that week, but came into the city to work and bring his parents anything they needed or wanted from the house. His mom stayed at the hospital with his dad. We helped out with the cleaning and anything else they might need.
I realized this was going to be more difficult than I thought when we went to see him in the hospital last Thursday evening. He was loopy, not only because of the chemo, but also because of the sedative they were giving him so he would stay in bed most of the time. While we were there, he made a few wisecracks, and even managed to sit up and eat dinner. There were a few drawbacks, but the hospital was handling it. They were expecting to discharge him Saturday.
I don’t like hospitals. I never have. I can tolerate a clinic setting, like when I go to my doctor, but visiting people in hospitals just feels wrong. Even if I’m visiting a friend that is there for good reasons, like having a baby - I can only stay there so long before I just have to GO. The smells of disinfectant and waste, of human flesh and fluids, that sticky-sweet smell of sickness…I can’t deal with it. I want to go draw giant breaths of outside, to run down the street with my arms stretched out wide like a madwoman, to talk and scream and laugh and cry. I don’t associate hospitals with life and health, I associate them with death and weakness. When I walked in and saw Doug’s father, who was always so full of life and laughter, dozing in a hospital bed, plugged full of tubes and IVs…the desire to turn tail and run leapt into my throat. I didn’t see Doug’s dad, I saw Paw-Paw.
Paw-Paw (my mom’s father) died in 1996 of lung cancer. I don’t want to call it lung cancer, because by the time he passed his whole body was riddled with it. I saw him in 1995, before the diagnosis. Due to college and my foolish desire to play around with friends, I didn’t see him again until two days before his death, in the hospital. His legs and arms were sticks. He had extreme dementia and didn’t recognize anyone most of the time. My mom told me not to cry in front of him. When I saw him, he was having one of his lucid moments, and asked me why I was there and not at work or school. I ran outside when Paw-Paw said that, and sobbed until my tear ducts were bone dry. Only since Doug’s dad was diagnosed, did I find out that my grandfather tried chemotherapy. He hated it so much, he decided to stop. This was why he went from healthy to dead in a year. I just thought the cancer was so far along that the treatments didn’t work.
Doug and his family knew basically what to expect when his dad was discharged from the hospital. His dad would be extremely weak at first. He’d probably lie around, need help moving, and wouldn’t want to eat very much. After a week or two, his body would recover from some of the poisons, and he would feel better. Well, until he had to go in for his next treatment, that is.
Doug’s dad came home Saturday. I was out doing some shopping for work clothes and meeting my mom for dinner. When I got home, he was watching TV on the couch. He was weak and needed a little help moving around, but he was doing well, all things considered. He’s gone dramatically downhill since then – he hasn’t been drinking water, hasn’t been eating, and he refuses to get out of bed. All he does is sleep and take the pills the doctor gave him. He’s not fighting anymore, and we don’t know what’s changed. Mrs. B doesn’t know what to do. She said she was going to call the doctor this morning and find out what we need to do to get some kind of nutrients in him, and Doug and I really think he may be re-admitted to the hospital for dehydration.
Part of me wants to go in that bedroom, shake his frail shoulders, and tell him that if he won’t eat, I’m going to force food in his mouth and move his jaw myself. That if he won’t drink, I will pour water down his throat. That if he won’t move, I will pick him up out of the bed and drag him around the house until his legs move themselves. I want to ask him that if he hates the goddamn hospital so much, why is he forcing himself back in there? If he hates the chemo, then he needs to speak up and say so – but if he wants to fight, he has to at least make an attempt, not lie down and let the cancer and poison run ramshackle over his system. I want to scream YOU CAN FIGHT THIS, GET UP AND FIGHT GODDAMMIT!
Another part of me wants to run. I want to pack my bags and go home, play on the computer, watch TV, drink myself into a stupor, make love to my husband, throw myself into my job, get on a train and go to California. I just want to GET AS FAR AWAY AS I CAN. I feel like a cornered animal, eyes wide, looking around for a way – any way, any direction – to run. Just fling myself at the nearest road and look forward, not back.
The third part of me – the rational thinking part – says I should stay out of this because this is not my birth family, be there for emotional people, and just let Doug’s dad choose his own path. It informs me that I’m a terrible person for even entertaining these thoughts. As each day goes by, this part gets just a little smaller. I don’t want to snap, I really don’t, but if I stick around I’m going to lose it on the people that don’t deserve it. Who the hell would I lose it on anyway? If I need to take this out on anybody, it needs to be that damn cancer. So here goes:
Get out. You are not welcome here. Leave and take all the pain and sorrow you’ve toted in with you. Give us our loves and lives and families and joy back. I will wrestle you to the ground and kick you out the door myself if I have to. Get out and don't come back.
FUCK YOU, CANCER.
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