Four Days Gone

I leave the treatment center to see my spiritual advisor. The phone rings as I am crossing the street. It’s Art. “They want to start chemo today or tomorrow” he says.
I am silent. What about our four days of normality? What about our FOUR DAYS?! I exhale anger and inhale fear.
“They can’t” I say. “Tell them to wait till I get back.” I hang up.
My stomach lurches. I turn, walk two steps to a bush. I throw up.
“Huh” I think, “the connection between body and mind is amazing.”
Fury forces the last bit of saliva to leave my mouth like an arrow from a bow. I reach for my phone.
“You tell them not today. They cannot fucking start today!” The Lord giveth four days and then the Lord taketh away four days. But not without a fight.

I returned to the hospital an hour later. I spoke with the doctor, or rather I sobbed and managed to fit in a few words.
“You have to let him , come home. He, he, he has to see our kids. If he dies, I can’t live with the fact that the kids didn’t get to see him. Can you? You can’t do this! You just can’t do this to them, to me, to Art. Please, you have to let him come home. You said we had four days!”

In mature speak, it sounds like this. ‘You have surprised me and I am emotionally not prepared. I have handled all that you have thrown at me but enough is enough. How dare you! How dare you set us up to have this little dream of a respite and then take it away! You have unleashed the fury of a tired, outspoken, overwrought woman. You have crossed the line.

A compromise was reached. We got 4 hours in place of the four days. They will start with Rituxan, the happy chemo drug, at 8:00 pm tonight. We can go home and spend 3 hours with the kids. Four days to four hours. Allowing time for the cancer to grow to not giving it the opportunity to think about growing. No good choices available. God how I wish I had some kind of vice to drown the frustration and fear in. Should have skipped more therapist appointments!

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