Chapter 17

March 10, 2007

In the morning, Don woke up and smiled tiredly. He seemed worn out, which wasn’t surprising, but he seemed okay. He smiled faintly, and tried to crack jokes occasionally, but mostly he was quiet.

I called the pastor and gave him an update, and he told me he’d be by later. The parents-in-law were still watching the kids.

When the cardiac surgeon came by, he told me Don had been in a state of cardiac tamponade, which is a form of heart failure. I’d read about this on the internet, and knew it was considered a medical emergency. I was grateful I’d gone ahead and had the doctor take a look at him, because if I hadn’t, I had a suspicion he wouldn’t have survived the night, let alone the weekend. At least now, no matter what happened, I wouldn’t have to blame myself for not getting him to the doctor.

I spent a quiet afternoon talking with Don, and reading a romance I’d brought when he got too tired to talk. I was happy just to be with him, but he seemed awfully listless. Then again, if I’d had major heart surgery, I supposed I’d be listless too. But he was still struggling to breathe, despite still being on oxygen, and despite the surgery, which should have improved his breathing.

Later in the afternoon the parents-in-law came by. We played shuffle-the-kids so they could have a chance to visit him, too. I came home for a while and wrote the following hopeful note on my LiveJournal:

The cardiologist was very worried about the hubby's accelerated heart rate when he called after the operation, worried enough that they permitted me to come spend the night in the cardiac ICU (something they don't usually allow). But hubby's heart rate slowed down, and this morning he was doing okay. They took about half a liter of fluid off his heart, and a liter off his lung. The left lung, unfortunately, has been permanently scarred by the earlier operation and won't reinflate, so it's pretty much useless. But his heart's apparently okay, so with any luck he'll be getting around better soon. They're taking him out of ICU sometime today.

When I got back, though, they'd decided not to take him out of ICU. His breathing still hadn't improved, and they wanted to keep an eye on him. I handed the kids off to their grandparents again, and settled down to spend the evening. The ICU nurses had agreed to let me spend the night again, and I had an uncomfortable feeling that might be a bad sign. But I wasn't going to complain about any arrangement that kept me next to my husband.

When it was time for bed, I curled up on the chair again, waking up every so often to observe him, and to reassure myself he was okay. His breathing was soft, but it was steady.

They'll move him to a different ward soon, I told myself. They'll move him out of ICU tomorrow. Tomorrow, he'll be better.

*****
March 11, 2007

In the morning, he still seemed too quiet. I'd been mostly living on soft drinks and crackers from the vending machines, so I scooted downstairs to the McDonald's and grabbed a decent meal. Just as I got back upstairs, the oncologist came by Don's room.

“How are you feeling, Don?”

Don rolled his head listlessly on the pillow and looked at the doctor. “Not any better, I don’t think,” he answered.

The oncologist studied him for a moment longer.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last, “but I’ve seen this before. The way you look—I don’t think you’re recovering.”

Don gazed at him steadily.

“Are you saying I’m dying?” he said.

The oncologist looked back at him, as calm and placid as ever. “I think so, yes. Unless you rally unexpectedly. But the way you look—I just don’t think you’re getting better.”

I sat there quietly, not saying anything. But inwardly I was rioting with a mass of emotions. Dying? How could he be dying? They’d done the surgery and drained the fluid off his heart and lungs, and I remembered a doctor telling me what usually killed lung cancer patients was the cancer spreading into the brain or liver. Was his liver involved? His brain? What the hell was the problem?

Don’s eyelashes fluttered, like he was blinking back tears. “Are we talking weeks or days here?”

“It’s hard to say for sure. But I’m thinking days. I’m sorry.”

I looked at the oncologist, still so calm, and I wondered suddenly how often he had to say these words to people. A specialist in oncology must have to deliver bad news all the time. But a specialist in thoracic oncology? He must lose the great majority of his patients, eventually. He’d obviously learned to be calm and matter-of-fact about it.

But I couldn’t help but wonder how often he went home and cried on his wife’s shoulder at night after delivering news like this.

The doctor left, and Don and I stared at each other. I got up and put my arms around him, and he hugged me as best he could, with all the various tubes in the way.

“I’m sorry,” I said into his hair.

“Yeah,” he said, his voice gruff. “Me too.”

I left the room for a little while to get a grip on myself and grab a soft drink. Armed with soda, I went back into his room. A nurse was there, fiddling with the medical paraphernalia in the room.

“I guess we need to call your parents,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could. Don didn't need me to have hysterics. “But we can’t give them news like this on the phone.”

“No,” he said. “But someone has to watch the kids.”

“Actually,” the nurse said, “I think we can make an exception, considering the circumstances. The kids can come visit.”

“They’re all under twelve,” I said.

“That’s okay. They can come.”

I called Don’s parents and asked them to come to the hospital, and to bring the kids. I hoped that would serve as a sort of hint to them that they should hustle.

They didn’t take the hint. They didn’t come till late afternoon. The day stretched by, long and weary, and Don alternately snoozed and talked a little. He was coherent and articulate when he talked, most of the time. But early in the afternoon, he started talking about what he was going to grill for dinner, and advising me to make sure I took meat out of the freezer. There was a vacant expression in his eyes, like he was looking through me.

“Hey,” I said, a little sharply. “Wake up.”

The vacant expression vanished. He lifted his head and looked at me, apparently registering my surprise and worry. “What?”

“What’s your name, and where are you?” I asked.

“I'm Don, and I’m in the damn hospital. Why?”

I smiled wryly. “You kind of faded out on me for a minute there. You were talking about what you were going to grill for dinner.”

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, yeah, I remember that now. I’m not sure why I said it, though.”

I reported the incident to the nurse, and she told us it might just be a reaction to the various drugs he was on. I watched Don carefully, but he didn’t fade out again.

In the afternoon, the parents-in-law finally arrived, four noisy children in tow. I shushed the kids and told them they had to be as quiet as possible, then turned to my father-in-law. “I need to talk to you,” I said softly.

Gammy and the kids went in to see Don, and I stood with my father-in-law in the hall.

“Look,” I said, my voice wobbling despite my best efforts. “I don’t know how to say this, but the doctor thinks Don’s dying.”

He stared at me like I’d hit him in the head with a sledgehammer. “Oh, my God,” he said at last.

“I’m sorry.” My voice wobbled some more. Stupid voice. “He said… matter of days…”

He put his arms around me, and I hugged him back, fighting back hysterics. A moment later, a little calmer, I said, “Okay, the nurse told me there’s a conference room down the hall. I figure we can tell the kids and Gammy there.”

I herded the kids into the conference room. “Your daddy…” I started, then my voice broke. Faced with my kids’ hopeful faces, I just couldn’t say the words. I looked at my father-in-law. “Would you… what I said in the hall… tell them?”

His voice shook too, but it was steadier than mine. Thank goodness one of us was able to speak. “The doctors think your father is dying,” he said.

Everyone cried. The girls came to me and wept on my shoulder, and I hugged them, giving them what comfort I could. Eventually, calmer, we all trooped down the hall and into Don’s room. He flashed a shadow of his old smile.

“Hey, kids,” he said.

My father-in-law started calling Don’s brothers, both of whom fortunately lived in Virginia. My parents-in-law wanted to spend the night in Don’s room, but I managed to convince them that wasn’t a good idea. They were older, and my father-in-law had heart problems, and I didn’t want them getting too worn down by all this. Eventually we discovered there were hospitality suites nearby, and they could stay there. But that meant there was no one to take care of my kids, and I damn well wasn’t leaving Don’s side at this point.

I called my neighbor and left a message on her answering machine. It was terse, but I couldn’t help being terse at this point. Terseness was preferable to having hysterics.

“Hey there," I said. "The doctors say Don’s dying, and we all want to stay at the hospital. Could you possibly take care of the kids tonight?”

A few minutes later she called me back, crying so hard I could hardly hear her. We weren’t close friends, but Don was still young, with four young kids, and she was clearly greatly distressed by the news. Through tears, she told me she was happy to take care of the kids. So later in the evening I sent them back with Gammy.

Gammy returned, and not long afterward, one of Don’s brothers came in. He was a doctor himself, a family practitioner, and he was confused by my vague explanation of what the doctor had said.

“But blood tests showed he doesn’t have liver involvement,” he said. “Exactly what’s killing him?”

“Um…” Ordinarily I asked fairly sensible questions of doctors, but this morning I’d been pretty well gobsmacked, as the British put it. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, it sounds to me like you might have misunderstood.”

I could see my parents-in-law lighting up hopefully, and I frowned, because I was certain I hadn’t misunderstood. I reiterated that the doctor had said Don was dying, but that I wasn’t sure of the cause. But I could see that my parents-in-law now had a glimmer of hope, the reassuring notion that I’d somehow misunderstood everything the doctor had said.

In the evening, they moved Don to another floor. They wanted to move him into Palliative Care, but they didn’t have an open bed, so he went to the oncology unit. I went along with him, and everyone else went their various ways. I was happy to see that the room was semi-private, but that the other side wasn’t occupied, meaning I could sleep on a real bed instead of a chair.

But I didn’t sleep too well, because I woke up frequently listening for Don’s breathing.

Much to my gratitude, it didn’t stop.

Read Chapter 18 here.