Don’t wait
JUNE 13, 2014
The doctors were evasive.
We won’t really know till the first round of chemo is done. “We’ll see how she responds,” they said. They used phrases like quality of life and prolong life—euphemisms for too soon and incredibly painful. I resisted those phrases at first, but then realized why they exist: they helped pacify the chasm of sorrow cancer carves out.
Two weeks after my mom’s first chemo treatment she was very ill. It was so hard to gauge that kind of illness. They send you home with a long list of side effects, and they say it will be hard. Well, it was hard and then some. She couldn’t get comfortable. She couldn’t eat: between the pain and the metallic taste of everything, she was lucky to keep down a few teaspoons of food. Then there were bed sores and back pain. To top it all off she was exhausted and weak. We took her to the hospital. She had an infection, and she was dehydrated. They put in a feeding tube (the split kind that goes into the stomach and the intestine), bypassing the throat and thereby eliminating the stress of forcing food down.
They ran tests all day. She was tired. I was tired. I just sat there and looked at her, so small in that big hospital bed. Her red blood cell count was too low to release her, so she was admitted. It was a relief because she felt better knowing she had constant care. Before transporting her to a room, her nurse came up to me and tearfully said, “Don’t wait. Don’t postpone any of the things you plan to do.” I barely held back the tsunami of grief that hit me. I wanted to find a dark corner and collapse. Cry. Wail. Cry some more. It was real. My mom was dying, and she was dying much more quickly than I had thought. I took a deep breath and returned to action: I signed papers, talked to nutritionists, updated my family, and kept holding my mom’s hand. I knew that I was only pushing back the grief, and I knew I couldn’t keep it at bay forever. The awareness of imminent loss came in waves. There were the initial hits and then the deeper strokes. Finally, raw and exhausted, the rush of reality pulled me under and I was submerged—the grief strangling and strong. I fought against it until I couldn’t fight anymore. There is no relief, just sadness. Always sadness.
We had been making lists of what we would do when she regained some energy. There was a road trip, a return to her job at the library, and just time to be together. We ended up with time and not very much. These were the thoughts that propelled me into the decision to quit my job, take time off, reignite my soul, and change things I’ve been putting off. Some people questioned whether I should make major life decisions while immersed in grief. It is definitely safer not to, but maybe great loss can catalyze great change. The grief illuminated the changes I was already thinking about, and it gave me the perspective to act.