Bitter & Sweet; A Family’s Journey With Cancer

Chapter 3

The Truth (It Doesn’t Always Set You Free)

When you are waiting, days can seem to take lifetimes. I made several phone calls directly to the pathology lab to try and get results, but mostly we had to wait. There was some mix-up and the labs went to California or something goofy like that. We found ourselves facing one of the greatest challenges life throws at us.

How do you balance all the information? On the one hand, you don’t want to be negative or pessimistic. And you certainly don’t want to create any self-fulfilling prophecies.

On the other hand, you can’t pretend reality isn’t reality.

Fighting is an admirable stance. Acceptance is also equally admirable. How do you ever manage both?

It brought back memories of when we lost a baby in 2001 before we had Frankie. I had gone for my checkup to hear the heartbeat for the first time. There wasn’t one, but my doctor told me not to panic (yeah, right) and sent me for a sonogram. The sonogram showed that the fetus was not developing. He suspected I would miscarry but asked if I wanted to wait another week to see what happened.

Of course I did. If there was any chance they were wrong, I wanted to wait. This was on a Tuesday. Funny how you remember weird details like that. Being a counselor, I was well trained to know that men and women process grief very differently. I was about to understand that on a much more personal level.

After the news at the hospital, I immediately began to grieve. Whether I wanted to or not, I started to process the possibility that we could lose the baby. I’m not sure if I had an intuitive instinct that the miscarriage was coming or not, but I started to grieve.

Tim, on the other hand, refused to believe in the possibility until it happened. To some extent, I admired his positive energy. But the next couple of days became conflict-ridden as our different ways of dealing with it were at odds with each other. Tim truly believed that if I was sad and upset, believing that the baby wasn’t growing, that any chances the baby had would be lost. So my grief caused him great anxiety and anger.

I couldn’t blame him, but I couldn’t blame me either. It was just impossible information to process.

On that Friday we went out of town together alone. We sat on a rock at the beach and talked about our hopes and dreams for the baby and the future. In our own way, we came to a meeting of the minds and had some precious time together.

Saturday morning I miscarried. We made it through but it was a very instructive experience for us. Little did we know we were also being prepared for future difficult medical information.

May 13, 2010: Poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma. There. We had the official lab results. Dr. Wright called me to let me know. Another fancy word for cancer. Poorly differentiated is the part that extra stinks. It means it’s a bad case of it.

I thanked him for calling and then sat at my desk. Okay, this is the second time now I have been faced with having to tell my husband that he has cancer. How do I word it? How do I bring it up? As I sat with the pit in my stomach, it hit me that I shouldn’t have to do that. That’s the doc’s job.

As much as I’m sure he doesn’t like that part of his job either, it’s still his job.

Tim will have a boat-load of questions anyway so it’s better if it comes from him. I call his office back and ask them if Dr. Wright can call Tim directly. I gave them his cell number and of course, they had no problem doing it. I hung up and was relieved, although I didn’t relish waiting by the phone for the call that I knew would come from Tim.

Life often throws us those moments where we say, “Are you kidding me?” or “Really?” or “This is like a bad movie!” We were about to have one of those moments. Tim got the call.

He happened to be driving home from work. Hindsight is 20/20, but looking back he wishes he would have just pulled over when he got the call. He got the test results and while they are talking… Get this… Tim gets hit by a truck. No lie. Isn’t that ridiculous?

It was 100 percent the other driver’s fault, but what are the chances? Throughout our years together, we would often banter about driving. I thought Tim drove too fast, too close, blah, blah. He would then remind me that he had NEVER had a car accident in his entire life. That would immediately shut me up. I had several fender benders under my belt and I couldn’t argue with his logic.

Forty-eight years without an accident. Until today. What a bitch. Tim described it like this: “So, I’m on the phone being told I have cancer when a truck hits me. It’s like getting punched in the face and kicked in the balls at the same time. That’s special.” Couldn’t disagree with him there.

Keeping up with family and friends who want to know what is going on is already getting difficult. I talked with one of Tim’s relatives who would like to be updated as often as possible. The problem is, he ends up getting upset at the information and the call becomes stressful.

In this case, he was furious with the surgeon. In his opinion, it was the surgeon’s fault that Tim was in a car accident. I tried to explain that Tim and I work hard not to “shoot the messenger.” An accident is an accident. It’s unfortunate, but there really is no value in getting angry about it.

Besides, underneath that, we are quite sure our anger is really at the disease but you get more satisfaction yelling at a human I guess. It’s ok, but it does make it hard to call people that you know are going to end up yelling. Even if they aren’t yelling at you per se, it is still so energy draining.

Later that night, Tim hopped on the computer to see what he could find out about “poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma” as it related to gallbladder cancer. The internet is a double-edged sword. It’s incredibly informative, but sometimes you need to be careful what you ask for. You have to be prepared for the answer.

I distinctly remember one page talking about the statistics around prognosis. It said people generally have four to six months left after being diagnosed. That flipped me out and I thought it was ridiculous.

I knew Tim had something wrong, but he functioned almost completely normally. I told him kindly that I was done reading internet stuff. It would just cause me needless worry. He agreed but said he wasn’t too concerned because he was fairly certain that he must be in stage I. He felt too healthy and besides, he just knew it in his gut (no pun intended).

If this diagnosis was accurate, he couldn’t be more than stage I. Unfortunately, in my gut, I was worried he was at stage IV. I put in another call to Dr. Wright. I assured him I realized that he could not offer an accurate diagnosis, but I also knew he was experienced and could give me his best guess. He obliged and told me he thought Tim was at stage IV.

I hoped he was wrong. But there was no reason to share the conversation with Tim. Tim was very hopeful and there was a chance he was right. And if he’s wrong, I’d rather have him be in good spirits for as long as possible anyway. At any rate, with the official cancer diagnosis, we were being referred to Roswell.

They are the best cancer hospital in our area and the appropriate place for us to be. So as we try to figure out the balance between optimism and reality, we are aware that cancer treatment grows in leaps and bounds every minute. Lots of people live long lives, go into remission, and even get cured. No reason to jump to any conclusions.

On the other hand, we are primarily influenced by the experiences we have in our lives. Our personal connections with cancer are as follows. Tim’s dad died of pancreatic cancer at age 53. Shortly after that, his mother died of stomach cancer at age 59. Obviously, both were very young. It had a tremendous impact on Tim and his three brothers. When his older brother turned 60, it was such a celebration because he seemed to have broken the pattern.

My mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and died three weeks later. Three weeks later. Talk about traumatic. So while Tim and I tried to put up a brave and not-overreacting front, inside we were terrified.

May 17, 2010: Dr. Wright has received the final pathology reports and has forwarded them to Roswell Hospital. He told Tim to be sure and let him know if there are any other records or information he needs and he will act as quickly as possible for him. Good guy.

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