Abstract
There she is: emaciated, sinking into rough uncomfortable sheets, staring off into space. Her hair is thinned, her breathing raspy. She is more comfortable now with the right drugs dripping through her IV. I think to myself: I can't believe she's still alive; I can't believe she made it out of the ICU. It might have been easier for everyone if she hadn't.
There is her family: her husband, still with that look of shock, as if repeating to himself, “What do they mean, no more chemo?” There has been chemo for two years now, how can there suddenly be “no more”? Her two children (how old are they? I never can remember…12 and 9, perhaps?) quietly watch a video on a laptop. Her mother sits alone by the window.
“I think she's still fighting,” the husband says. “She was always a fighter.” I do not mention his use of the past tense to describe her.
“At least she's comfortable now,” says the mother. “That's what's important now.” I feel grateful that she said that.
“But she's a fighter,” he repeated. “We cannot let the cancer win.”
In this moment I sit in the chair and listen to this conversation. I want to make sure she is indeed comfortable. That is all that we can do for her right now. It is very important, but it is all that we can do for her. I sit here and wonder again about all these fighting words. Where did we get this battle language in the first place? I think of an old photograph of Richard Nixon initiating a “war on cancer.” Was that it? Why must these people hold onto these words? It is so much work to undo them. Didn't they ever understand it was a losing battle to begin with? What a setup for unfair expectations and disappointment!
In the evening, I am sitting at one end of a sofa in our living room, across from my wife.
At last, our five-year-old daughter is asleep in her bed. The steroids always make it hard. For over an hour I laid down next to her, coaxing her to relax. For the last year she has lost the ability to fall asleep on her own. She still depends on the concrete experience of physical protection by a parent, arms wrapped around her beautiful, ill body. I could feel her quick breathing slow down as my chin rested on her thinned hair.
“Did you give her the pill?” my wife asks.
“Which one? I gave her the 6MP. She got the methotrexate earlier on.”
“I don't know. Whichever one she was supposed to get. You know the pills.” I think, I am not sure what I know anymore. We sit in silence.
“I can't take much more of this,” she says.
“Yes, you can,” I reply. “So can I. And so can she. She is so tough. She is a little warrior.”
“Yes, she is a little warrior.”
“We are beating this thing,” I say. “We have the best oncologist. We have a plan. We will beat this.” I know I need to reassure myself as much as my wife.
Time passes.
“Hey, are you going to sleep soon?” she asks. “You have to get up early.”
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
“What were you thinking about just now?”
“Just now? I was thinking about the water bill. I forgot to mail it.”
But that is not true at all. I was contemplating my recurring fantasy: I am in some kind of a blind alley. Sliding across the ground in front of me is this enormous blast cell. Perhaps it is four or five feet wide. We recognize each other and it tries to dash past me. But I catch it and step on it. I am kicking it mercilessly. I want it to burst. I can sense it begging me to stop, even apologizing. It didn't mean anything by it, growing and multiplying, taking over everything in its way! It was an accident, a freak of nature! But I am not listening. I will tear it apart until there is nothing left before me.