Chapter 4: Friday, December 23, 2005 Swimming In Fish Bowls

I meandered around the house. I kept checking the clocks as I wandered in and out of each room. I had grown to perseverate on punctuality so I had put a clock in every room of the house including hallways and bathrooms.
My Step Father last called around 2:30 AM. The ambulance had left with my mother, ETA 6:00 AM Albany Medical Center. I had showered and dressed; ready to go when the call comes in.
By 6:00 AM, I called the hospital. She was not there yet. Bobby eased half way down the stair well. “Is she there yet?” he inquired as I gently placed the cordless phone back on its base.
“No” I said frustrated and worried, “they left around 2:30 AM. Where could they be?”
“They are coming from the north, it maybe icy up there.” Bobby reasoned. “I’ve called into work; I just have to go shower and dress.”
By the time Bobby had finished his personal care regiment, the hospital had reported Mom had arrived and was in the emergency room; the first of many visits.
When we arrived at the hospital, a clerk behind a glass window questioned our presence and then buzzed us into the emergency department. As we followed the clerk through a maze of hallways, I looked through the fish bowl rooms. Some had curtains pulled across the front concealing its contents. But most rooms were wide open revealing suffering and fatigue.
When we got to Mom’s “fish bowl”, it was dark and I could make out a body under the white sheet. I walked to her side and with gentle touch I stroked her hair. “Mom?” I whispered. Bobby stood right behind me.
My Mother looked at me revealing those grayish transparent eyes and smiled, “Hi honey. Thank you for coming.”
I turned on a light and leaned over to embrace her. “How ya feelin Mom?” I noticed how good she looked. In the last couple years, my mother had lost weight and became an exercise freak. Even now, she did not look like a sick person, maybe a little pale, but not sick.
She commenced to go into the details of the prior week. At sixty-six years old, my Mother was lively and active. She told me the week before, she had gone to water aerobics three times, twice at the gym, volunteered at the nursing home, volunteered at the veteran’s café and went Christmas shopping with her daughter-in-law. Not to mention, my Step Father was still recovering from a pace maker implant. She said as the week went on, she was tired. For most forty year olds, that level of activity would make them tired. But for my Mother, this was business as usual. Yesterday was quite bad. She said she felt like she was going to pass out all day. Finally, she asked my Step Father to take her to the emergency room. She reinforced the discussion about Leukemia in the emergency room in Carthage and how they did not have the resources to make a diagnosis; but it looks like Leukemia. Her red cell count was dangerous low and she would need at transfusion to endure the trip to Albany.
Always trying to be an optimist, I tried to down play possibility of Leukemia and stay fixated on the combination of her medications was the root to her illness. They had already started doing tests. Around 8:00 AM, I walked outside to have a cigarette and call my supervisor to let her know what was going on. Just before noon, they moved my mother to a private hospital room.
Around 1:00 PM, the doctor came in and told us, early blood tests are in fact indicating Leukemia but they did not know the type yet. The type of Leukemia along with my Mother’s age would determine how they would next treat the disease. The only way to determine the type of Leukemia my Mother had was to do a spinal tap. My Mother flashed back immediately of when my brother had to have spinal taps. According to Marriam-Webster, A spinal tab is a “puncture of the subarachnoid space in the lumbar region of the spinal cord to withdraw cerebrospinal fluid or inject anesthetic drugs”. In other words, it sucks! My Mother instantly recalled my Brother screaming and then echoes of his pleads to stop. In forty years and in today’s modern medicine procedure, this has got to be one of the more barbaric procedures. I believe the doctors who have to perform this procedure would agree with me.
Before the doctor would do this, he wanted Mom to go have a PIC Line inserted. This time with the help of Wikipedia, “A peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC or PIC line) is a form of intravenous access that can be used for a prolonged period of time (e.g. for long chemotherapy regimens, extended antibiotic therapy, or total parenteral nutrition”. A catheter will be inserted into the inside of my Mother’s left arm and run directly into her heart. It would stay there for at least six months (unless it became infected).
I followed my Mother done to have the PIC Line done. While they were doing the procedure, I sat in the waiting room. At this point, the reality of the situation was setting in along with extreme fatigue; I felt tears welding up around my eyes. I got up and went into the bathroom. I washed my face with cool water and dried with a brown paper towel. I went back out to the waiting room and sat in the same chair I was before. Two seats from me was a young woman of thirtyish. She was young but looked old and tired. She wore no makeup and just stared into another dimension. Preoccupied by her thoughts. I continued to struggle with my display of emotion. I had become so desensitized over the years; I could not remember the last time I had cried. Now, I was fighting to stop it. I could not let Mom see me crying, I thought to myself. I have to be strong for her! Stop this foolishness! As I continued to scold myself, tears were flowing freely. The young woman became aware of my battle. She reached into her purse and unfolded a couple tissues and handed them to me. I accepted them and thanked her. She gave me a couple more tissues.
“Here, always keep a few tissues in your purse, this is just the first of many” she said with kindness and understanding. Before I could thank her again, she was gone. I still think about her today and hope her plight was positive.
Still trying to control my emotions, the specialist who put Mom’s PIC Line in came and got me to be with my Mother. When I got to her, I lost control altogether. I started crying out loud. This display caused Mom to lose it. Now the two of us were weeping unhindered by our surroundings. I kept apologizing to Mom. “I’m so sorry. I should not be crying like this. I’m supposed to be here to support you, not make you feel bad.”
Through her own tears Mom cried, “Its o-k, we’re going to fight this! We’re going to fight!”
I nodded. The specialist was now running around the room searching for tissues. By the time she found and brought the tissues to us, she was crying.
Back in Mom’s room, the doctor came in with a nurse to do the spinal tap. He explained he was going to inject Novocain into Mom’s back. And then with a needle, he was going to pull fluid from the outer layer and then penetrate spinal bone to pull marrow out. My Mother was deathly fearful as she turned on her left side. I knelt on the floor, held both of her hands in mine and looked directly into her face. The doctor introduced the first needle. Mom’s face twisted slightly and then relaxed. The Doctor said “Are you o-k?”
I thought he was talking to Mom but he was looking at me. “I’m o-k, why?” I said. In a condescending way I thought to myself “what do you expect?’
“You don’t look so good.” He said concerned.
“I’m fine, lets just get her through this” I focused me attention back to my Mother.
“One down; one more to go. This one is going sting a little more.” The doctor said.
Mom and I fixed our eyes on the each other. The needle went in. As the doctor applied pressure to penetrate the spine, my Mother’s face became disoriented. “Hurry up!” I yelled and cupped her hands to the point of cutting off blood flow.
“We are done. We will have the results of the first test in an hour to proceed with treatment but we will not know the specific type for a couple days” the doctor said.
Within the hour as promised, Acute Myelogenous Leukemia was the diagnosis. Thirty percent chance of full remission (full remission is defined as being disease free for more than five years). Chemo was to start immediately. Induction (first round of chemo) would start that night. One week of chemo treatment followed by eight weeks of rest. Then this rotation will repeat three more times. That night before I left, Mom had started her first treatment.
That night, I thanked my husband for being there all day with me and for his support. Bobby was always my pillar of strength. When things didn’t make since, he made it make since through humor and sometimes plain bluntness. Little did I realize what lessons laid ahead for the both of us.