We’ve Only Just Begun
Avoided it for several days. Wouldn’t write it. Refused to even think about writing it. Didn’t know where to start.
Pamela questioned me.
“You are writing this, aren’t you?”
Then, after all the tests and tears, decided against the path of avoidance. Pamela was right. It was time to face the monster and describe him.
The Big C.
Barb found a lump in her breast, decided to have it checked out. It had been two years since her last mammogram. Mammograms and ultrasounds were ordered post haste. That was last week, and yes, it was cancer. Sh*t, I don’t even want to give it respect by capitalizing its name.
Biopsy was next. In the meantime, there’s a lot of waiting and nail-biting to do. This nail biting is compounded if your significant other is any good at using Amazon prime, because slews of books are about to arrive at your door. And all of them scare you. Not to death, but close enough.
Barb cries on and off for days. Each time she cries it tears me up too. But I don’t wail. Men aren’t supposed to wail. And besides, I can save the wailing for later if I need it. But I know what Barb is crying about. She wants to see Judith, our granddaughter, graduate. Hell, I want us to be at her wedding.
And what about us? What about we two? As the song says, “We’ve only just begun.”
“The odds are with us,” I tell her. “If I had to bet, I’d bet on it.”
They called and said it was the size of a pea. Barb and I wonder.
But what stage of a pea? What kind of a pea? Where is the pea… exactly?
Hope Hospital is organizing and marshaling its forces of good. The soldiers take their places. For the biopsy we have Dr. P, the radiologist, and Mary and Jane, the oncology nurses. Mary is a survivor herself. That’s inspiring news. They numb her left breast after she lies down stretched out on a table. Not one of them is wearing white, none wear grotesque masks, and the lights dim and flicker like candles. The room grows hushed as a monastery while they bow reverently over their healing machines. You imagine you smell incense and hear Gregorian chants, but it’s only the rhythmic rush and whoosh of their miraculous machines, and the frankincense and myrrh that comfort and surround you, only the fleeting scent of Mary the Survivor’s perfume.
Numb turns the sickened breast. In goes the device. It’s a tube, and it clips out a piece or two using ultrasound to locate the microscopic infidels. They plunk the slim clippings into a plastic container and snap on the cap. This particular battle is over, but not the holy crusade for Barb’s life. I pray to our Lord the medical team gets it right.
We wait a couple of days for the results. As Tom Petty sings, “The waiting is the hardest part”. And that’s true. But he also sings in the same song, “Don’t let it get to you.” I pray Barb takes that advice. Barb’s heart knows no fear. Together, we’ll mold a new reality closer to the heart. Barbara is strong, and refuses to live in a land of fear. That’s the part of Barb I can always count on, the fighting part.
“I’m going to be a ninja about this and kick this cancer’s butt,” she told me as they rolled her off.
“No, you’re not. You’re going to be an up-front warrior, more visible than that. You’re going to be a samurai. Tishiro Mifune is going to be jealous of your Occidental butt.”
But nobody sleeps. This endless waiting is a trial by fire. My formerly stiff upper lip is getting weary.
It’s Wednesday, we’ve got the call, and just pronouncing ‘invasive ductile carcinoma’ makes me shiver.
Friday is the big meeting where they’ll discuss how to treat it and have more info on her HER hormone, some kind of estrogen? I need a medical dictionary to keep all these words straight.
Barb is courageous. To get her mind off her own problems she throws herself into other people’s problems and still goes to work. That’s what she does, that’s who she is. Sometimes I’m so proud of her it hurts.
The Surgeon
It’s a family affair and the kids are here. To a man of my age anyone under fifty is a kid. Dr. M says her breast will be disfigured to an extent, if not from the surgery, from the radiation. She draws a breast on the piece of paper you sit on during the examination. Her ductile tubes look like Broccoli upside down. This is why Dr. M is a surgeon instead of an artist. Said it wouldn’t matter if it was a few inches lower or higher, I can’t remember which. Barbs two daughters and I exchange glances so packed with meaning it’s clear what’s on our minds.
You have a vain woman here, a proud beauty, one that can’t pass a mirror without seeking its approval and getting it. If Barb made a great pile of her vanities and stacked them into a bonfire, they’d outdo Hitler youth burning books in those old thirties newsreels. And when you consider all she’s got to be vain about, the fabulous mug, the hair, the figure, the confidence, the love, the kindness, the total commitment to motherhood and grand motherhood, what’s one tit more or less? I’m going to love her no matter what shape or form she’s in, as long as the surgeon leaves me a morsel to nibble or a place big enough to kiss. My Barbara is never going to suffer from a lack of loving, and that’s a fact.
Love isn’t just a noun, or even an action. It’s a growing thing and isn’t nurtured on the number of teeth or tits we have. Not after we’ve matured enough to place a value on a spiritual connection, a spiritual connection to our maker through the woman of our species who is therefore a priestess. A man can give up his virility, a woman can give up her tit, but they can never give up that vital connection to spirit we all need. You’ll never let go. Your woman isn’t just a part of your life. Your woman is your life.
The Lumpectomy
Sophie, one daughter is here and after they finish the pre-op she leaves and Natalie will show up later. They roll Barb off and she’s wearing a brave face but a funny hat like a shower cap. This should be easy. I’m hoping it’s easy. They wheeled her in at one o’clock and put her number up on a screen so you can see where she’s at. It says number 3888 is in pre-op, then she goes to op, then she goes to recovery, then she’s sober and ready to see visitors. As far as I know, it shouldn’t take long, usually only an hour and a half. I may be wrong about this. So many times and facts and figures have been flying at my head lately I’m not sure of anything.
After forty-five minutes the surgical concierge comes out from behind her desk and announces they started late, it will take more time than usual. The waiting room is full of people, maybe a couple of dozen. They have an iron cart with a bottle of water with lemons in it and a stack of plastic cups. It looks like an escapee from Mardi Gras in Louisiana. As comfortable as they try to make it, I don’t feel comfortable here. Maybe I’m coming down with something.
After half an hour more she comes out again an announces to everyone that she’s out of here, but she’s going to turn her phone around and if you need anything just push the extension where it says surgery concierge and they’ll hook you up. Sounds good to me, but as time marches on, I grow more nervous with every passing minutes. The people in her are fewer and fewer. Now it’s 14 hundred hours and no news yet. I’ve read three magazines by now and suspect something is up. I walk over to the concierge desk and give the phone extension a try. It’s a case of Hall and Oates No Can Do. It rings and rings but no one answers.
Now it’s almost four and I’m worried about Nat. What must she be thinking. I’ll text her and tell her they started late. Again it’s Hall and Oates. Again it’s No Can Do! My dumb phone says it doesn’t have sufficient funds for texting messages! Why, I’ll just call instead. Again No Can Do!
Then it hits me, like Kurt’s crystalline bullet, it slams into my noggin. About three weeks ago we thought my credit card was lost. We cancelled it, and ordered a new one. The day before it arrived, Barb found the original in her wallet. My phone bill tried to charge that account, but couldn’t, that account was dead, so it cancelled my service.
I took out my composition book and made an entry.
Nat, was going to tell her they started late, but my phone doesn’t work due to me being an unorganized idiot. Sorry, Nat, I love you, but I just pulled a Nat on you. You get no message.
At four thirty-nine a petite woman wearing a blue shower cap and scrubs appears and it’s Dr. M! It’s Dr. M!
Seems the machine broke down twice and the tumor and the lymph nodes were tiny and hard to find. Of course she can be exaggerating, but she isn’t. I can see she’s been through the mill herself. You’d think doing a bit of slicing and dicing was an easy job but this woman looks like a rock star after a stadium concert for fifty thousand people. She takes her job seriously. Would we want our doctors any other way? Women this dedicated remind me of Barbara. You just have to love them. Surgeons are the rock stars of the medical world.
“But she’s doing fine, you can see her soon.”
I take a breath, the first real breath in three and a half hours. You know when it’s time to give thanks.
We meet in recovery and Barb is conscious but still in outer space. I tell her what the doctor told me but as soon as I do she asks the nurse, who repeats it, and then within seconds, asks me again. The anesthetic hasn’t worn off completely.
“It took longer than expected and they took only four lymph nodes. Both cancer and lymph nodes were so tiny they had trouble finding them.”
In a few minutes it’s time to take her home. Time to go get the car. When I get out to the parking structure I take the elevator to level three. It’s not on level three. Maybe it’s four. I go to four and look the same place. No Can Do either. I try five and make the circuit. No Can Do. Level two-the same. Something is wrong I’m beginning to suspect it’s my brain.
I feel aches and pains all over and my nose is getting stuffed. We’ve been out here several times and I can’t remember which time this was. And it’s been over twenty minutes and I can’t call them because my phone is dead and tell them I can’t find the car. Yet I know it must be here somewhere. I make one last circuit of three and there it is. It takes even longer because the parking attendant is having trouble making her little barrier stick pop up to let the cars through. She has to jump out of her glass box and lift it by hand. People behind me are honking like geese.
Finally we make it home and go to bed. I start to have uncontrollable shakes. We take my temperature and it’s 99.9. Thinking I’m having something communicable, and I don’t blame her, I’m banished to Sophie’s old bedroom upstairs, where I spend the next morning alienated from my Honey, which is pretty weird for a guy who is always so near.
Now we’re home and have more visitors than the San Diego Zoo. Flowers arrive in droves. Cards arrive in stacks. Elizabeth, Nicole, Michelle, and Pamela arrive. The phone rings off the hook. Texts text all over the place. Barb is kept busy with e-mails and calls all day.
“Everybody wants you, babygirl with a small b.”
Shaky Jake should repair to Hillcrest to see his doctor with no appetite, a runny nose, and shaking all over. At this point his idled brain is asking, “Where are my flowers? Where are my cards? What about me? It’s an odd thought that’s been running around in my brain all day. Barb is getting all the attention. Where’s my attention? I mean, I have a virus, and I have a nasty sty in my eye, I have South American quality runs. Barb only has one thing… cancer. No matter what I do I just can’t compete. And at this very moment, Me, Mister Helper Supreme, is on the outside. I can’t even get near her. I have to use sanitary hand-wipes on everything I touch, the doorknobs, the light switches, the toilet bowl lever, the refrigerator handle, the towels, which have to be washed now, and I can’t be the one to wash them. Barb’s plan is for me to order the doctor to,
“Just draw some blood.”
She puts out her fingertip as if she’s diabetic. I picture something like a big tube sucking blood out of a vein in my arm, leaving a bruise the size of Oklahoma. My reptilian brain sings No Can Do. I Can’t Go For That.”
“By the time they get the results back, I’ll be over it.”
“Never mind that. You’re going.”
So I go. Down the 163 I sputter, praying to God my latest bowel attack isn’t ill timed.
The parking lot guy calls me Boss. I like it when people call me Boss. The receptionists are pleasant and pretty.
I ask one of them if they have a record of my latest flu shot. Barb would be happy to know I asked this question. It shows I’ve learned organizational skills.
“Yes, you had it last October.”
In a few minutes I see Dr. B. He’s dark-haired, handsome, and stylish to boot. His shirt is blue in a tartan design with three shades of blue. It’s almost exactly like the one Barb just gave me! He’s wearing navy blue Dockers and a brown leather reversible belt. His shoes are two-toned variations on brown leather and suede wing-tips.
We sit down and I tell him why I’m here. I tell him the whole Barb story too. That’s what I do. When I meet people I end up telling them the Barb story. It’s a fascinating story about how we met, or about her accomplishments, or her daughters’ accomplishments. I have bragging rights on them all, even though I didn’t contribute to their success. Their dad did that. But I brag on all three of them anyway and on my son and two daughters too. They’re all my family at this point. I get to brag about all of them. But this was about Barbara, and our closeness and how I’m miserable being banished, even though it’s for both our own good.
He grabs two long cotton swabs and sticks them up my nostrils. “This is to check for flu.”
“For a particular flu?”
“More like a generic flu.”
“I see.”
No Can Do. It turns out negative. I draw his attention to my sty. His eyes widen. I notice he uses product in his hair. That’s what Barb calls it, product.
“I’d like to poke that with a diabetic syringe and drain it.
“Do it, Doc,” I say, rather heroically. That was my idea, but I wouldn’t trust a rusty old sewing needle so near my eye myself.
Out comes a itsy bitsy needle and some gauze. He pokes it, and gives it a squeeze with this blue-gloved fingers but nothing much comes out. Finally I’m ready to go, but as usual, have to make a comment.
“You know, I expected an old man with grey hair dressed in a white lab coat,” I point at my head, “as grey as mine, and wearing wire rimmed glasses. And your staff looks like runway models. Instead, I get a doctor who could be on the cover of Gentleman’s Quarterly like Robert Palmer.”
“I sometimes wear a lab coat.” He smiles slyly, “But not often.”
“Not fashionable enough?”
We laugh.
In the hallway he hands me a prescription, and being me, Chameleon Man, like George in Seinfeld, decide to go out on a high note.
‘Thanks, Doc, and just keep on stylin’ the way you’re stylin’. You’ll make the cover of GQ yet.”
We laugh again. We bond. Now I have a favorite doctor. This didn’t turn out half as bad as I thought it would.
Of course… it’s not over.
Like Karen Carpenter once sang, “We’ve Only Just Begun.”
©Steven Hunley2017
https://youtu.be/4lWKdZv6hZA Hall and Oates I Can't Go For That
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