When I was 17 and nearing high school graduation, my beloved paternal grandmother, Myrtle the Turtle Traffic Light (I’ve talked about her before) was nearing the end of her life. She had cancer that she’d hidden from us for reasons she didn’t, perhaps couldn’t, explain. We didn’t find all this out until she called my mom for help with pain that she could no longer endure silently.
It was 1984 – there were no PET/CT scans for cancer detection yet so Grandma Myrtle was admitted to the hospital for exploratory surgery that determined cancer was consuming her body. There was nothing they could do but try to keep her comfortable. She had a stroke while her body was healing from surgery. It took her voice, though she was able to gesture and listen to my chatter. The second stroke took her awareness. As I sat beside her bed, holding her hand, I could see that she had already left her body. But still, I held onto her until her last breath left.
My sister and I had spent significant time with her as young children. She was busy, charismatic, active in her community, a widow for 15 years before she died, and a bit of a mystery to me. Nothing phased her. She could organize bus trips for seniors, run her local political chapter, take walks with her granddaughters, and teach her apartment neighbors how to play crazy bridge.
How could anyone as strong be bested by illness? There was a lot of death in my childhood but somehow, perhaps because she was so easy to love?, her death hit harder. I worried about how she had endured the painful months leading to her call to my mom. When we cleaned out her apartment, we discovered dozens of empty liquor bottles in her storage. She managed the pain with alcohol. This, with the mental acuity of hindsight, is exactly the sort of pragmatic, low fuss solution I would expect of my grandmother.
I’m halfway through week two of my first round of chemo. Have I explained the chemo pill treatment before? It’s simple – four pills twice per day for two weeks, then one week of no pills, then four pills twice per day for two weeks and on and on through the end of August.
Last night, for only the second time since starting chemo, I was hit by a nausea brick. One moment, I was talking with my daughter. The next, I was standing, ready to race to the bathroom but deep breathing in hopes of preventing the forceful return of the single lemon Oreo I had just eaten. This is not a critique of Oreos. They are – aside from some of those misguided new flavors (pop rocks? In an Oreo?) – the perfect blend of crunchy cookie and creamy center. A lemon Oreo had seemed like a good mid-afternoon snack. Turns out that it was, instead, the day’s regret.
While I was deep-breathing, my daughter was grabbing the Compazine. It helped enough that I was able to eat a very, very light meal (rice, just rice) so I could take my next round of chemo. That’s the important thing, you know. If at all possible, the chemo should continue. And so it does.
Next time, how about a story of my daughter’s cat, who waits for my middle-of-the-night bathroom visits to grab me around my ankle and attack? Every single time. Since he’s all black, he blends in. I’ve convinced myself that I could, otherwise, dodge his attacks. He’s a kitten and faster than the speed of sound. I definitely will never dodge his attacks.
Much love.
