Grateful for support

A year ago today, Sandy was not lucid; she was barely conscious much of the time. She didn't even know when they took her down for an MRI, and she was asleep or otherwise out of it when the doctor came in and, pretty casually, told us he'd looked at the MRI and it "looked pretty bad."

"This is no benign headache," he told us. And then he described little dots of cancer throughout Sandy's brain, and the obvious involvement of the meninges, meaning the cancer had invaded her spinal column as well.

Since we'd arrived at the hospital, the doctors and nurses on the oncology ward had acted as if Sandy's prognosis had always been dismal, as if we should be expecting death to be imminent. But I had more information than they did; I knew that the scans from just six weeks before had been good, and that her oncologist had considered everything to be on track just four days before she was admitted to the hospital. I knew that the reason I assumed her head storms were caused by migraines were because I'd been told that the day before by multiple doctors (her radiation oncologist and a neurologist), and that the CT scan on the 16th had shown only the same two lesions we knew about in her brain.

I had the information, and yet they were right and I was wrong. Sandy had been independent until the day before she arrived on the ward. I'd watched her go from confused and not-lucid to fine on Thursday, so I kept expecting her to recover. But when they first saw here there at the hospital? She looked pretty bad indeed. 

So the doctor comes in and drops a bombshell without apparently understanding just what a bombshell it would be. I understood at that moment that we had lost. I saw that she would die, and that I couldn't save her, and that I would be left horribly alone.

They're a supportive bunch — and a little wacky.

Had Sandy been awake and lucid, we'd have comforted each other. But she wasn't even aware there was a doctor in the room. I was fortunate, then, that her mother and sisters were there with me. Over and over again throughout those four and a half weeks, Sandy's family was there for her, but especially for me. I am so grateful for that, and so grateful that at the moment that doctor breezed in with his devastating news, I was not alone.

Sandy became lucid later that day, and the next day, we were able to share the plan to continue radiation at the hospital with her and catch her up on how she'd gotten there. By Monday, I could tell her about the MRI and its results, and she was present enough to absorb the news (and marvel that she'd had an MRI she knew nothing about). She was back, and as she came back, she appreciated having so many people who loved her in the room with her at various times.

In fact, she said several times that if you have to be sick, "it's good to be sick in the summer," as schedules were more flexible so friends and family could visit from out of town more easily, and folks in town could spend more time with her, too.

None of it played out the way we thought it would, and I still ache for what we lost. But through the pain, I can see the blessings, too: the timing, when I was already planning not to work for months; Bailey Boushay House with its supportive and generous staff and encouraging environment; and mostly, the people — the friends and family who swarmed around us, propping me up and helping Sandy know just how much she was (and is) loved.