The Aerie
Ain't that a cheery title?
Well, went to visit Moldy on Tuesday night. When I got there he was
receiving a full body massage from a Native American masseuse named
Johnny. Blondie had me wait out on the front stoop, and we sat in the
fine spring sunset and talked.
Unfortunately I learned what I had not wanted to know: that they've
stopped treating his cancer weeks ago, that they're only giving him
palliative care until he dies.
I really didn't want to know this. I wanted to think that as long as
his mind functioned that there would be hope.
But I guess there is no hope. I guess his brain is riddled with tumors
and its something of a miracle that he woke up out of his coma.
Harder than learning what I already knew was to sense the feelings
running under the surface. She's a tough German girl, but I could
sense the pain through the cracks in her facade. I suspect this is a
facade that she has to maintain right now, in order to be supportive
for him.
Moldy is meanwhile coming to terms with his condition, too. He's
scared. He doesn't want to talk about it. And his wife is in the
unenviable position of not daring to hope herself. She's doing all she
can to accept what's happening -- if she starts toying with hope
she'll drive herself mad. Meanwhile Moldy needs hope just to get
through each difficult day.
This is harder for me than with my dad. My dad just shut down one day
and never came back. And, as an older fellow who's smoked all his
life, I guess I'd been prepared for something, someday: a heart
attack, or lung cancer.
But Moldy is only a year older than me. It's way too easy to identify
with him. To realize that there is nothing guaranteeing me freedom
from his fate: and if such a thing were to happen, I'd be leaving
behind not only a grieving widow, but three fatherless children.
Unfortunately when his massage was over Moldy was starting to get a
headache. Headaches themselves are bad enough, indicative of further
coma-inducing brain swelling. But Blondie gave him morphine and he
dropped off to sleep while we watched some "Rocky and Bullwinkle"
cartoons that Tim had brought with him. So our visit was somewhat
truncated by the fact that Moldy was doped up and asleep.
Well a lot of this stuff swirled in my head, and I ended up being
unable to sleep. I was up until 3:30 in the morning, dozing off
briefly only to start awake at the notion of me getting brain cancer,
my wife getting brain cancer, my kids... Ugh.
Wednesday was then a complete waste of time. I couldn't think,
couldn't concentrate, certainly couldn't motivate, so finally I put in
a video and ironed clothes in a stupor. Got nothing done all day.
Managed to sleep last night, but was plagued with dreams: I was an
infantryman patrolling a bombed out part of Iraq when we came across
two German looters. They were stereotype-Germans, a big walrus-shaped
"doktor" fellow with a monacle and a droopy moustache, and his weasley
sidekick. One of my troops got knocked senseless by some shrapnel to
the head and (for some reason) we let the German's take his body...
only to have him awaken all bloody and burned in the Doktor's
laboratory and curse me and my troopers out for abandoning him. "I'm
not dead!" he snarled through teeth limned with blood.
Other dreams abounded. Trying to sneak out of a house occupied by a
half-blind old woman. Others I can't recall. I managed to get a full
night's sleep, but it was work to accomplish it.
It's all part of the processing, I'm sure. Part of reluctantly
accepting the inevitable, and feeling the feelings. It has to be done,
but it's not good. Nothing good about this at all.
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Posted by Albatross at April 25, 2003 12:00 AM