Looking up, down, and sideways

These days I seem to have a one-track mind--I think about my son's health, his treatment, his prospects, while everything else fades into the background, so that when I actually need to think about something else, it takes a minute to summon the necessary brain cells. 

I'm teaching, of course. On Monday I took my laptop to a little nook in the hospital Visitors' Lounge and taught my class in semi-privacy, which went well enough until the lights went out. I was too far away from the motion-detecting switch to make the light come on again, so for a few minutes I used my phone's flashlight to illuminate my text so I could read the juicy bits aloud to my students. Then a staff person came in to empty the trash, which restored light to the room but created a different kind of problem. 

But now we're in a rental unit with excellent wi-fi, so I'll teach my class from home (home?) this morning and go back to the hospital afterward. My husband is here for a few days so he'll be at the hospital this morning. It's possible that the next round of chemotherapy will begin today, a powerful drug with potentially dangerous side effects, so we don't want our son to be alone. Well I mean of course he's surrounded by highly competent and helpful medical people all the time, but sometimes you want to be near family.

The good news is that the treatment is working. The latest scan shows that the tumor in his chest is shrinking, taking some pressure off his heart and airways. One of these days he may be allowed to sleep lying down! But cancer treatment is not a straight, smooth path; potholes and obstacles pop up out of nowhere, like the blood clot that suddenly appeared in his leg. But we carry on, doing what we can, which often feels pretty inconsequential.

Yesterday, for instance, I changed my son's socks, the most intimate act I've performed for him in years. He's not much of a hugger but we've ramped up our hugging game considerably. On Saturday his sister came for a visit and helped him wash his hair, which wasn't easy because of the need to avoid getting the central line wet. Then yesterday the central line (in his leg because the mass in his chest squishes some blood vessels) spawned a blood clot so it was removed. Today's goal: new central line in the arm, following by infusion of a really nasty drug.

But first, says the little nagging voice at the back of my head, I have to teach my class. Flannery O'Connor, "Good Country People." Why is it sometimes difficult to distinguish between good and evil? What does it even mean to be good? Discuss.

Yesterday we found a way to quiet the buzz in my head or at least mute it for a bit. We sat in comfy chairs in the big airy hospital lobby and listened to a piano player accompany an excellent violinist in lovely soothing music, including a rendition of "Ave Maria" that brought me to tears. We could look up and see the columns stretching toward the roof, hear the gentle buzz of people passing by, and lose ourselves in the music for a moment. Things are looking up, I keep telling myself, but there's still a long road ahead and we have no idea when we'll crash into the next massive pothole. 

In the lobby, looking up

Exploring the angles

This time of year I would normally go tromping in the woods to take photos of pawpaw blossoms, buckeye buds, and spring ephemerals, but instead I'm spending too much time indoors and noticing intersections of interesting shapes. One of these days I'll see trilliums again, but for now it's all about the angles.

From my son's window, I see the OSU library where I did research 30 years ago

Reflections and distortions

Columbus sunrise

Going places

Friday poetry challenge: mysteries of the human heart

When we looked into our son's heart, we couldn't agree on what it resembled. My husband said squirrel on an exercise wheel but I though jellyfish. Either way, it looked like a miracle.

They performed the echocardiogram right in his room, with the blinds pulled down and the lights dimmed to keep glare off the screen. The room was hushed as a chapel, the only sound from beeping machinery and the tap-tap of the sonographer's fingers on the keyboard. Pulsing blobs appeared on the screen, some as graceful as floating balloons while others performed a frantic tarantella. I wondered how anyone could possibly see sense in those vague shapes.

Fortunately, the cardiologist saw something more rational than squirrels or jellyfish. He saw fluid surrounding our son's heart and he immediately ordered a pericardiocentesis, a procedure to drain the fluid, to allow the heart to beat more freely before my son starts chemotherapy.

Many of the new words we're learning sound lovely as long as we don't think about what they mean. Pericardiocentesis. Sonographer. Lymphoblastic lymphoma. Sounds like poetry, but I'm not ready to write any right now. 

Okay, maybe just a haiku:

Dancing balloon or

jellyfish, squirrel on a wheel:

mystery and marvel. 

That's the best I can do right now. Anyone else want to give it a try? Describe one of life's great mysteries in seventeen(ish) syllables.

Bullet-brain; Or, my list-making mania

I keep asking my son if there's anything I can do for him, and this morning I told him it's perfectly fine if the answer is Go away and leave me alone. Sometimes the sick guy needs company and sometimes he doesn't. But I'm here for the duration with little ability to make him better, so instead I'm making lists.

What I need from campus:

• permission to teach my class online for, possibly, the rest of the semester
• a webcam
• my Norton Anthology of American Lit, which has been slowly disintegrating since last year but I didn't buy a new copy since this is the last time I'm teaching the class
• the exams my students will take in my absence on Friday (so I can grade them)

What I need from home:

• more clothes because I packed stupidly and I'm already running out of clean underwear
• the book that should have arrived in the mail yesterday
• the mail, because how will I pay the bills if I don't see them?
• assurance that the house is surviving without us and that any dead mice have been properly disposed of

What I need in Columbus:

• a place to stay for, maybe, a month
• a visit with my former student who's letting me do laundry at her house
• an excursion up Pierogi Mountain
• better weather so I can go outside and touch grass once in a while

What this ordeal has already revealed to me:

• I have the best colleagues on the planet
• my night vision, barely passable at home where I know the roads, is worthless on unfamiliar city streets, especially when wet roads reflect all the lights
• it really is worth paying a little extra to stay in a hotel that doesn't trigger my gag reflex

Things that have made me feel like crying:

• a visit from my son's pastor, who knows the right words 
• smiles from my English Department colleagues who crashed my class this morning so they could wave at the camera and wish me luck (Best. Colleagues. Ever.)
• a text from a relative offering my son financial support when we don't even know what the bills are going to look like after the insurance company does its part
• a few quiet moments in the chapel holding my husband's hand

Things I need to stop doing if I'm going to stay sane:

• seeking info about T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma from Dr. Google, who doesn't have my best interests at heart
• recalling all the horrors of chemotherapy treatment and side effects
• compulsively making lists as if they're going to accomplish anything to help

I guess I'd better go ahead and check that one off my list.

  

Weather and elevators and worst-case scenarios

Yesterday at The James--and everyone calls it The James because the full name is a bit unwieldy--The Arthur G. James Cancer Center. Who wants to say cancer all day long, and who is this James dude anyway? I looked him up: Arthur G. James spent 35 years raising money to fund a cancer hospital at The Ohio State University and was surprised when his name was plastered all over the front of the building. He was a small-town Ohio kid who eventually served as president of the American Cancer Society and, in 1987, was inducted into Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. Local boy makes good, and it's a good thing he did because now his hospital is in charge of my son's health.

So anyway: yesterday we were sitting in the Terrace Cafe on the second flood and watching through the windows as workers in parkas stacked up chairs and tables to take them to safety in advance of an impending winter storm, and I was suddenly thankful for people who see a storm coming and know how to prepare for the worst.

Today's weather is not the worst I've experienced but it was strange to see snow blowing on magnolia blossoms and painful to feel the bitterly cold wind whistling through the parking garage. The view from my son's 18th-story room has veered sharply all day between sunshine and snow, sometimes both at the same time.

And speaking of worst-case scenarios, you know you've entered an alternate reality when the doctors tell you lymphoma is the best-case scenario. We're still awaiting results of tests, but everyone is thrilled to be leaning toward lymphoma because it can be treated, and while the treatment isn't fun, it can be quick and effective.

Nobody's naming the worst-case scenario, and who can blame them?

Tests continue at their own peculiar pace, hours of blank nothingness and then suddenly the room is full of people who need something right now. Lots of waiting and boredom tinged with terror. No one is sleeping well. 

I've been distracting myself with a book, Still Life by Sarah Winman, which is simultaneously a paean to impermanence and a celebration of the joys of human connection. But now the book is done and I need another, or maybe a magazine full of frivolous and unmemorable articles, because otherwise I will be forced to read the academic journal article I so foolishly agreed to review last week when the topic seemed fascinating.

I had to leave the nothing-happening room on the 18th floor and take a walk for a while, ostensibly to scope out a good quiet location where I can teach my class via Zoom tomorrow morning. Helpful colleagues covered my class yesterday, but my students have an exam on Friday so I'd like to make sure they're ready to roll. Besides, this is my final opportunity to teach Faulkner's "Barn Burning" and I wouldn't miss it for the world. 

The sky was clear and blue when I left the 18th floor but by the time I got down to 2 the entire outdoors had disappeared within a solid block of gray and snow was blowing in every direction. The elevator took the scenic route, stopping at least half a dozen times on the way down, which sparked a few light comments from passengers. Mostly people don't look too closely at each other in the elevators for fear of bumping up against a raw nerve. The elevator descends with a muted whoosh that whispers cancer cancer cancer cancer.

On the second floor I walked around a bit and grinned again on seeing the Chlapaty Terrace, which transported me back to my campus office just upstairs from the Chlapaty Cafe. The dude gets around, or I guess his money does.

Everywhere at The James I see scarlet and gray colors and buckeye motifs representing The Ohio State University, and it's possible to sit down and take a selfie alongside a statue of Brutus the Buckeye. Eventually I may give it a try.  

Today, though, I sat near a window where a sudden ray of sun warmed my legs. Blue sky again, and a pair of Canada geese flying low just above the level of the traffic lights outside, looking out of place in the city. Of course the Olentangy River is just a few blocks away so the presence of waterfowl shouldn't be surprising, but for a moment I hope I'll flying through this city just as quickly as those geese.

But soon I have to go back up to 18 to see what's happening, or not happening, as the case may be. I'll look out the window and marvel at the blowing snow, thankful for the people ready to cope with every possibly scenario. I'm hoping for the best-case scenario but if the weather shifts, I trust that Arthur's people will know what to do.

Stuck in a time tunnel

Yesterday when I went through security at the James Cancer Center, the scanner detected the shape of a weapon in my purse. Today I left the "weapon" behind. Who knew a glasses case could be so dangerous?

The friendly person at the desk had to issue my official visitor badge, which required taking a photo at a time of day when my face wasn't quite ready for prime time. I wasn't sufficiently caffeinated and I haven't slept much since Saturday, which was how many days ago? Hospital time is fluid; sometimes it passes very quickly and sometimes it seems to stop.

They moved my son to a different room at 3 a.m., which explains why he hasn't slept much lately either. The biopsy either will or won't take place today and we either will or won't learn what's what with the tumor in his chest. Meanwhile, life goes on--slowly, and then quickly. Who knows which way the clock will turn next? All we can do is wait and see.

Danger, danger!

Yeah boy I'm happy to be here.

Trusting the Team to fix a massive mess

My eyes lit up when the nurse said helicopter--a horribly inappropriate response, I realize. This was serious business! My son was sick! We'd been in the emergency room for hours awaiting word on the next step! Some toxic combination of boredom, stress, nervousness, and fear had turned my brain to mush, so when the nurse came in and said they'd be transporting my son to Columbus by helicopter, my first response was: neat!

My son says the helicopter ride was interesting but uncomfortable, and the discomfort has not decreased. He's a big guy, just a bit too tall for the gurney in the helicopter and the bed in the ICU. He hasn't eaten for close to 24 hours just in case they get a chance to do a biopsy today. And he's not allowed to lie flat because the gigantic tumor in his chest presses against his heart and restricts his airways, a situation that could turn deadly very quickly.

And in fact it's a wonder that it hasn't already. The mass in his chest was initially discovered last November, but the biopsy has been delayed by an insurance company that kept rejecting the need for a PET scan. He'd had some shortness of breath and pain while skiing in Banff last week and more after he got home. Yesterday it got to be too much so he went to the emergency room, where they found that the mass has nearly doubled in size (!) and needs to be biopsied and treated, like, yesterday.

For years he's been a healthy guy whose medical needs were easily met by the local Quick-Care, but now that he's a patient at a world-class cancer hospital, he has a Team, and right now the Team is talking about how they're going to do a biopsy on the tumor in his chest if he can't safely lie flat. They're a smart Team--they'll figure it out. 

I drove up early this morning after not much sleep and now, in between visits by various members of the Team, I'm trying to make myself useful. I'm texting with colleagues to figure out how to cover my class--can't afford to fall behind with an exam coming up Friday. I'm chasing down tissues and a phone charger for my son. I'm offering helpful tidbits from my time in cancer treatment--just now, for instance, I told him that patients leave behind dignity at the hospital door, and if he doesn't believe it, he can just look at the sunny yellow non-slip socks that aren't quite big enoug hfor those size-15 feet. 

Such a big strong guy looks weak and wrong in a hospital gown, but he's in the right place to get the help he needs. If he hadn't gone to the ER yesterday, this could have turned tragic very quickly. Now we sit and wait and listen to the Team and at some point we'll have a diagnosis and a treatment plan and a path toward a future that may or may not include helicopters. My main job right now is to remain calm. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.