Changing the mantra

Venice, Italy: 2003, perched four or five feet off the ground
on the base of the Campanile in Piazza San Marco

Typically, in difficult times, we'd say, "We'll get through this." We meant, of course, that we'd face the challenge together and come out the other side to resume our regular lives. It was our version of "This, too, shall pass," and the emphasis was on we.

In May 2010, Sandy was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The oncologist told her that she'd be on chemo the rest of her life. Her chemo in 2006/2007 had been nearly unbearable; she remembered well just how miserable she'd been the whole time, how much it had stolen from her. So she was distressed about the idea of ongoing chemo. We instinctively started to say, "We'll get through this," but realized that wouldn't work. This time getting through this would find her dead and me alone. Neither of us had any desire to emphasize that.

Instead, we adopted the phrase, "We'll make it work." We said that a lot in May and June of that year, shorthand for the idea that we'd get her treatment and make sure she had a good quality of life. We looked forward to the "new normal" as she suffered those first few months.

And then we got there. Our new normal involved chemo three weeks out of four, and there were definitely a few bumps, but she was no longer in pain, no longer so fatigued, no longer anemic, no longer having trouble breathing. We stopped having to say that we'd make it work, because we already had.

Things went so well that I began to think we really could keep her alive until the cure. She believed that, too. But when I slipped up one day this spring and said, "We'll get through this," she corrected me quickly. "We'll make it work," she said firmly. I repeated what she'd said, out of respect for her and not wanting to jinx anything.

We did make it work. We found our new normal. In the face of this monster, we regained a significant degree of control and believed our fate really was in our hands. And I know that all the things we did definitely improved her quality of life, and probably kept her alive longer than she would have been. 

Ultimately, though, we got through it, and when the 14-month ordeal was over, she was dead and I was painfully alone.