Chapter 11

July, 1995

"Push!"

Don had his arm around me, supporting me, and was "coaching" me relentlessly. I'd been trying to push out my first baby for two hours. It was four in the morning, and I was getting very tired. Don was no doubt tired, too, but he was exhorting me to push and counting off ten seconds every time.

I gave one more fierce effort, and the doctor looked pleased.

"That's it," she said. "The baby's coming!"

I pushed again, straining, and felt the baby slide right out of me. Seconds later, it gave a long wail. I fell back, gasping, my eyes stinging with tears. After all our worries about never being able to get pregnant, we'd managed to produce a baby. Don looked down at me, grinning from ear to ear, looking as triumphant as if he'd been the one to push the baby out.

"It's a girl!" said the doctor.

Don grinned even more widely and took my hand in his.

"Now I've got two of you to deal with," he said.

*****

December, 2006

Christmas was subdued-- not quiet, because quiet never happened with four kids in the house, but not joyous, either. Don's whole family came to our house. Don lay on the sofa, taking it easy, while the kids (ours plus their two cousins) and two dogs ran around. It wasn't exactly restful, but Don looked happy to be home.

His dad and brothers presented him with a ticket to the Peach Bowl, where Virginia Tech was playing in a few days. They'd all be going together. It would be a rough trip for Don, but I was sure he'd be happy to spend the time with his family, and I knew he'd be thrilled to see Virginia Tech in a bowl game, too.

He got some Virginia Tech clothing-- a sweatshirt, a t-shirt, a cap-- to wear to the game. One brother and his wife gave him a certificate showing they'd registered a star under his full name at the International Star Registry. I didn't give him anything too memorable-- a couple of movies, a Tom Clancy book I knew he'd like. I'd been too busy to think of anything really huge and meaningful.

That afternoon, everyone went home, and I tried to keep the kids out of Don's hair. Unfortunately, he wouldn't get much opportunity to rest. Don was determined to examine all his options before he started his cancer treatement, and that meant traveling.

On the 28th, we drove all the way down to Duke in North Carolina to talk to a major cancer center there, leaving the kids in the care of one of Don's brothers.

We didn't learn much. The doctor had the same grim expectation of life expectancy that the others did (although he did tell us about a few patients he'd had live a few years under these circumstances), and the chemo regime he suggested was fairly standard, judging from what we'd read and heard so far. Don took careful notes.

Afterward, I drove home, stopping every hour to let Don stretch his legs, because my doctor brother-in-law had warned me Don had to be careful of developing blood clots now. Once we got home, Don collapsed onto the couch and took it easy.

The very next day, Don's dad and brothers-in-law came to get him, and they all took off for Georgia. Don looked skinny and tired, but the drainage from his incision had mostly stopped, and the brother who was a doctor could change his dressing easily enough. I understood the desire for them all to have one nice trip together, just in case this might be the last time, and I thought it was a great idea. Don seemed to be looking forward to it, too.

Unfortunately, Virginia Tech lost. Don came home three days later, looking thin and fragile, and collapsed on the sofa, exhausted. He'd had fun with his family despite Tech's unfortunate collapse, so the trip had been worthwhile.

On January 11 we flew up to New York to a cancer center there, Memorial Sloan-Kettering. I'd never seen New York City, and despite the circumstances, I was excited. New York was, I thought as we flew over the biggest buildings of Manhattan, really quite amazing.

Our hotel room had a great view of the surrounding buildings. It all looked tremendously urban. We'd left the kids with their grandmother, so it was just the two of us for once. It was late, and Don was tired, so we crashed out and went to bed.

The next morning, after we checked out, I wanted to walk around and look at the big city, but Don was finding it slightly more difficult to walk around by this point. He just wanted to sit in the hospital's waiting area and wait for the doctor to see him.

"Come on," I said, pestering him hopefully. "It's only about ten blocks to Central Park. I've never seen Central Park. We can sit down as many times as you need to."

He huddled in on himself defensively, wearing his Virginia Tech jacket like armor. "I don't want to go for a walk. If you want to go for a walk, go ahead."

Sighing, I walked down and took a look at Central Park by myself, and soaked in the ambience of the big city for a while. It was a bummer, I thought with a touch of bitterness, that my first trip to New York with Don (and without the kids, even!) couldn't be more romantic. But poor Don wasn't in a romantic mood, and I couldn't blame him.

Eventually, I walked back to Sloan-Kettering, settled into a chair next to Don, and read. He didn't even have the energy to read . He just stared at the television, looking tired.

Eventually the doctor saw us. This one was slightly more optimistic than the others, putting Don's chances of surviving a year at 50%, rather than the 20 to 25% the other doctors seemed to expect.

"You're not typical," he explained to Don, "so there's really no way of knowing for sure. Most lung cancer patients have badly compromised lungs already, and most are quite a bit older than you. But you-- you're young and healthy. You don't fit the usual profile, so we really can't apply statistics to you."

He was very helpful about detailing treatment options, and Don took copious notes. We left feeling somewhat more hopeful-- not in the Don's-going-to-live-forever sense, of course, just the maybe-we'll-get-a-little-more-time-together sense.

We hailed a cab and rode back to LaGuardia through rush hour traffic, with a stereotypical New York cab driver who was absolutely the craziest driver I've ever ridden with in my lifetime. I wasn't sure Don's potential lifespan mattered all that much, because I was beginning to suspect neither of us was going to survive the next half hour. But eventually the cab driver dropped us at LaGuardia, still alive.

Our flight was massively delayed (as it had been coming in) and I began to develop a real hatred for LaGuardia. Apparently delayed flights were the norm there. But finally we got on the plane and flew home. Don actually snoozed a little, something he never did on airplanes. When we got home, I drove us back to the house, and we relieved my poor mother-in-law.

The next day Don went to work in the morning, despite all his traveling, and despite his clear exhaustion. It turned out to be a wise decision, because both the boys threw up the moment they got up.

Back to normal, I thought with a sigh as I scrubbed up their rooms.

Well, as normal as possible, anyway.

Read Chapter 12 here.