A journey through uncertainty – Part 1
The plan seemed impossible. Out of the question. It relied on an if, stacked on more ifs, teetering on maybes, balanced on assumptions. With the bones of the plan laid out, the voice paused. A thousand questions bloomed in my mind – too many to sift or sort or raise right now. Phone to my ear, I remained silent and rose from my desk to pace and continue listening.
The caller resumed their monologue, layering ever more detail into various parts of the plan. I stood in the kitchen and stared out the window. Gazed into space from the edge of the couch. Rose again to wander back down the hallway, floorboards creaking beneath my heavy woollen slippers, my feet carefully tracing the least-creaky path.
The caller paused again.
“Perhaps this is too much to discuss right now. Can you come to my office? Wednesday?”
Six months earlier I’d been told I had terminal cancer. It was treatable, with palliative, not curative, chemotherapy. Without treatment I had a few months left to live. With treatment, perhaps two or three years, give or take.
To the uninitiated, chemotherapy is altogether alien. It begins by setting foot in a large, modern, shiny cancer centre. Inside there are waiting rooms full of people, some pale and poorly and beanie-clad, others outwardly healthy looking. All are edgy. Shocked to be here. Inside the treatment room there are special chairs lined up in long rows against a wall spanning the entire length of the building, enough to treat thirty or forty at a time. All manner of gadgetry and gear lays scattered about the place. Observation doodads, ultrasound machines, trolleys, pumps, sinks, sprays, bins, scanners, cows – Computers on Wheels.
A squadron of nurses scurry about. They consult with patients. Tap on keyboards. Don and un-don gloves and gowns, masks and shields. Confirm details. Check protocols. Calculate doses. Stick things down. Peel things off. Swab, stab, wipe and flush.
Over time, you get to know some of the other patients, whether you chat with them or not. Side-by-side in our treatment chairs for hours on end, you can’t help but overhear things. Diseases. Symptoms. Side effects. Struggles. You see bags of toxic chemicals drained into them. See them in pain. See them shit themselves. Hear them vomit. Suffer seizures. Panic and call for help. Pass out and be revived. You see a guy eat a whole bag of MacDonalds while his chemo pump fills his veins, before getting up and cheerfully walking away. You see their partners, their children, their carers. You learn which are the believers in God, which are the fighters, and which just want to keep to themselves.
You watch one day as a nurse tries again and again to put a cannula into an elderly gentleman’s arms, only to fail as they just can’t find a vein. You watch him be so stoic, so encouraging, until the repeated stabbings become too much, and he begins to cry, causing the nurse to cry, causing me to cry. “Please don’t cry”, he gently tells us both.
You overhear briefings for newcomers. What their treatment will involve. How long it will take. Which drugs they’ll be given. The risks involved. How toxic they’ll be. Side effects they can expect. Precautions they must take. Procedures for when things go wrong. The pills they’ll be popping. Oh, the pills.
Some patients want to chat. To share stories. Trade support. I don’t. I’m sorry. It’s not that I’m not interested. I do care. I just need in and out. I need to focus on my breathing, stay calm, stay centred, get through, and get home.
Volunteers do the rounds offering tea, cake, sandwiches and meals. I find the smell of the food deeply nauseating. Trapped in my chair, reeling from the chemicals coursing through my body, I decline their offers as politely and quickly and firmly as I can, thanking them for their service, mentally willing them to wheel their carts away.
At the end of each day, everyone staggers from the building, patients and nurses and doctors alike. Us patients have received the best of care. The nurses, at times literally running to keep up, delivered everything demanded of them. And much was demanded. Lives have been inched forward. We are gifted another day to go home to our loved ones.
Wednesday arrives. Seated in my oncologist’s office, he quickly resumes where our phone call left off – the plan for a transplant. A transplant! The idea still seems incredible. Doesn’t this only happen on reality TV? Isn’t there no cure? I was just getting used to no cure. This is new though. They’ve just started doing them for patients like me. They did a couple last year.
He explains that my treatment is working better than expected. That the tumours in my liver are shrinking. With this, I might now be eligible for a transplant. But there are ifs. A transplant can only happen if my cancer remains stable, if my primary tumour can be dealt with first, if I recover well from that, if tests show my body will accept a new liver, and if a suitable liver can be found in time. In other words, all of these ifs must come to pass, and someone out there, alive and well and walking around today, must die, at just the right time, in just the right way, and give themselves to me, so that maybe I might live.
If it works, I could be cancer free. Cured! That is, assuming my body doesn’t reject the new liver, assuming I cope with the immunosuppressive drugs, and assuming the cancer doesn’t return all by itself.
And thus, the plan is laid. A year in the undertaking, two specialist surgeons, three major surgeries, lashings more chemo, and a lifetime on drugs. The word “radical” is used to sum it all up. I am stunned. Frightened. Elated. Daunted. Suddenly not terminal? I’ve gone from facing one extreme – death – to having one extreme option for survival – the plan. This is good, right? How could I not roll with it? I confirm my understanding, give the go-ahead, thank my doctor, and leave, immediately calling my partner to break the news before it all leaks from my head.
Part 2, coming soon…
Thoughts? Email cam@camgrant.com.