Lucky

“We’ve been together forever it seems,” she told me that first day with a smile on her face and a tear in her eye. They had met in England 50 years ago when he was in the army. Both were smitten. “And still are,” he informed me. Their eyes danced with years of laughter and kindness. “I wondered how I could ever live without him,” she said. Not the last time I would hear that.

Taxotere was on my agenda for the day. Prostate cancer. Bone metastasis. Taxotere. That, I understood. Facial flushing. Shortness of breath. Pre-meds. I was ready. We were ready.

They had lived here for many years. He owned his own store. She worked in a dentist’s office. They were happy. You could feel it. She hovered and talked a lot, the worrier of the two. He smiled and soothed her. They both loved.

Just like I had been taught, it happened right away. His face turned the color of a tomato. He said his chest felt tight. He told her he was okay. He was. She worried anyway. Minutes later, he looked like himself again. Physically, back to normal. They were reassured by me. I was reassured by my colleagues. We would try again tomorrow. We would think positive.

If any of us thought positive thoughts that first night, it was a miracle. I lay awake thinking of them, the tears in her eyes, the worry in his. The way his touch reassured her. They had so many questions. I wondered how I could give them answers when I was just learning myself. I hoped they were sleeping. I fell asleep with them on my mind.

The next day was better. He had a successful treatment. A plan was followed. Hope was restored. We all smiled. That day feels like forever ago. It’s been ten months today.

Ten months.

I’ve learned a lot in that time. I learned about Taxotere, Mitoxantrone, Zoladex, Samarium, and Zometa. I learned about treatment plans and expectations. I learned about metastasis and low blood counts. Hope and pain.

Time passed. We grew closer. I was their nurse. They trusted me to answer their questions. I surprised myself by being able to. We learned together.

They traveled and shared stories with me. They immersed themselves in my stories of home and family. They ate great meals. Drank great wine. They laughed with their friends. They made plans.

His disease progressed. Cancer doesn’t care about plans.

He lost weight. His pain increased and spread. His blood counts were slower to recover. His PSA (prostate-specific antigen) count got higher and higher. They never doubted.

He wasn’t going to get better. We had done everything we could, and it wasn’t enough. It hurt.

Every Monday, they arrived after lunch. Blood and platelets. We kept his heart beating while hers slowly broke.

“When do you think his counts will get better?” she asked me. A million times. A million ways. She couldn’t understand why it was taking so long. She never wanted to hear my answers. The doctor’s office was for tough answers. From me, they just wanted smiles. Every week, it got harder. He weighed less. He slept more. She slept less. On Monday nights, so did I.

It became a routine. I’d spend hours having the same conversation with her. Or rather, she would have it with herself. What? When? How? She would never let me answer.

One day, after the doctor told them again, there was nothing else to do, a Limitation of Life-Sustaining Treatment order was signed. I was sure our talks would change. Again she asked, “Don’t you think, maybe, his counts will come up on their own?”

“Well...”

“Maybe?” she cut me off.

“The things is...”

“No one can say for sure, right?” she pleaded.

I wanted to scream. I didn’t have the answer she needed. I couldn’t make it better. I searched my mind, my heart, my faith for something to say. I found nothing.

She grabbed my hand and looked at me through a veil of tears. “Please,” she said, “just hope with me. Just hope with me.” I told her I would always hope.

It was the first time she saw me cry.

It’s funny how those months, those Mondays, felt like a lifetime to me. And to them, it was all happening so fast. Cancer doesn’t care about time, either.

To say this experience taught me a lot is an understatement. I learned about the course of death and dying, the physical things that keep a body alive. I learned about the treatment of a disease and how to comfort an ailing body. More than that, I learned how difficult it is to soothe an aching heart.

This wasn’t my first experience with cancer or death. I understand the emotions. I appreciate the process of grief.

When I think of this couple, and the long, full life they shared, my heart aches for their loss. Every Monday, I cried thinking of how much this was going to hurt them. That might be the biggest lesson I learned this year.

When I looked at him, near the end, I saw a dying man. She looked at him and saw hope. When you love someone that much, that long, that deeply, you don’t see anything else.

He passed away one night in August. I had seen them that afternoon. Her new questions were more difficult than the old ones. “What am I going to do?” “How will I live without him?” It was the first time she had acknowledged that hope was lost. She knew he was going to die. It was a crushing thing.

Still, she worried. Could he hear her even though he wasn't responding? Was he upset he was in the hospital and not at home?

I reassured her. I believed she was home to him in every sense of the word, and as long as she was near, he was okay. I told her he could hear her and encouraged her to tell him everything she wanted him to know. She did. Mostly, I tried to convey what I saw when I looked at them. The depth of their love. Her quiet strength. Faith. Devotion. Kindness. Hope. Peace.

I cried with her. I had stopped trying to hide it long before. Then, I said good-bye.

“I love you.” That was the last thing he said to her. She cried as she told me.

When I left that last day, my heart physically hurt. I thought a lot about our ten months together and wondered if I had done enough. It’s hard to feel you’ve helped when the outcome is the same. I remembered a conversation we’d had a few months earlier. He was sleeping and she was crying. I hugged her and told her I wished there was something I could do to help.

“You care about us,” she said. “What more could we ask for?"

I’m a very lucky girl.