Wednesday
Then: The Not-Knowing Days
On the second worst day of my life up until then, December 26, 2001, a month after my 51st birthday, Dr. Bill Utz sent me home with a grim prognosis and the anticipation of confirming this with bone scans and other hospital tests the next day. I told Carla on the quiet ride home that I couldn’t stand the charade we were going through around the kids. I shuddered at the thought as I told her, “I’m going to talk to them when we get home.”
I started with Jessie by asking her to come into her room with me. We sat on the end of her bed facing each other and I think my words went something like: “Jess, I wanted to let you know that Dad has been going to the doctor a few times in the last week or so because there’s something wrong. It’s a kind of cancer. We don’t know how bad it is yet, but I have to go the hospital tomorrow for some tests that will tell us more.”
Jessie’s face stayed expressionless through this part. I continued: “But I wanted you to know that no matter how bad the news might be tomorrow, we’ll still be a great family and we’ll get through this.” With that Jessie simply keeled over face down on her bed and was silent and motionless. I rubbed her back, stretched out beside her to hug her, whispered to her how much I loved her. And she wouldn’t budge. She was trying to process the meaning of my words, but I could sense the calm wasn‘t merely stunned silence. She was sensing the unknown in the situation. After only a minute or so, I knew when it was time for me to leave, and I walked into the bedroom and told Carla she needed to go to Jessie. That’s when Jessie broke down. In Carla’s grasp.
Soon after, I asked Mark to join me in our bedroom and we sat together bedside. I repeated almost verbatim what I’d said to Jessie. Mark stared ahead, but his face and body started to lose shape the more I talked. When I got to the part about not knowing how bad the news was going to be, Mark said: “You mean it could be fatal?” All I could do was start to shrug my shoulders before he collapsed forward, with lanky arms grabbing at me while he buried his face in my chest. We both tumbled back onto the bed.
And, surprisingly to me because all other major events of the year are still so clear, I can’t remember the rest of that evening. I have zero recollection of anything that happened or was said around the house the rest of the day, but I know it was a torturous evening for a couple of kids who should have been reveling in their holiday gifts.
As I sat at Gunflint trying to recollect that evening, my mind wandered to memories of taking showers the week during the most distress. While I did a good job of masking my tumult from the kids and staying positive during the days (they were home from school for the holidays) my mind was not kind to me in the shower. Standing naked in the capsule of a shower and grimacing at thoughts about what was going on inside the groin, I couldn’t fight off the persistent thought-stream of leaving the kids and Carla behind. In fact, I hatched elaborate plans for producing lengthy video journals and snippets of advice for the kids’ futures. Carla was so perceptive about the torture of these shower sessions that at one point she asked me if I was thinking about death and she even asked if I was thinking about making videos.
On the worst day, December 27th, I finally lost it. Not that I had tried to keep the tide of emotions from washing over me prior. I could always stem the tide by resolving to be steadfast in the disbelief that the doctors’ grim musings were wrong. But with the thought of spending the morning for tests to reveal more of the truth, then an afternoon waiting for the test results, and then a trip to the doctor’s office for results, I simply lost it at breakfast. With Carla standing beside me, I became a blubbering fool over my cereal bowl. All I remember uttering was: “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”
Carla steadied me, consoled me and got me moving towards the door and her car. We still talk about The Walk, going from the parking lot of the horrid Fairview Southdale hospital across a long skywalk while facing the prospect of terrible things at the end of the long walk.
Dr. Bill Utz had the day before scheduled the bone scan and other tests because he feared and suspected the cancer had reached the bones. And, with his vacation scheduled in two days, Utz asked me to stop at the hospital a few hours after the tests and pick up the results to bring to his office for the prognosis.
I remember fretting that the scans were going to require me to lie still for 35 minutes or more, and my enlarged prostate pushing against my bladder would likely object to this.
I’d had a MRI before, and even though I’m a bit claustrophobic, at least I knew to expect the clanging and banging. The bone scan brought new terrors to my mind because of its silent and stealthy ‘crawl’ up your body. You’re lying there as a slab of flesh with a large ring encircling you, almost like a magician passes a ring across a levitating body. But the ring moves excruciatingly slowly, starting around your head and then creeping up your full body length over the 35 minutes, which seemed to me like an hour or more. A favorite of mine, the petite but feisty Holly Hunter, described what my mind told me during this scan. In the movie Broadcast News, Hunter, about to walk away from the wimpy hangdog William Hurt says: "I feel like something's wrong with my bones. It's like your organs are shifting in your body."
Again, like the evening before, try as I might, I have no recollection of what I did, thought or felt from about noon that day until 4:00 pm when we went to pick up the results of the scans. Carla and friend Mary Melbo drove me to the hospital, and then we were to proceed to Utz’s office. Crystal clear is the memory of the 10 minute car trip where a couple of times I did the shudder and uttered the guttural sound of someone about to break down in tears and sobs before reeling it back in.
Stopping in the hospital drop off area, I climbed out of the car and made my way numbingly into the hospital and down the hall to the lab. The exact words that hit my mind were: “Damn it, I’m walking in here to pick up my own death sentence.”
I’m sure I appeared nonchalant standing at the counter and asking for my folder. When they pulled it out and one tech said to the other, “It’s not all here, yet. We’re still printing the report.” I remember the slump of body and mind. But quickly the missing fateful piece of paper was inserted in the sleeve and handed over. Yes, my first thought was to reach in and pull out the report. But fully expecting to collapse in a heap at the words, I resisted. ¶ 1:07 PM
I started with Jessie by asking her to come into her room with me. We sat on the end of her bed facing each other and I think my words went something like: “Jess, I wanted to let you know that Dad has been going to the doctor a few times in the last week or so because there’s something wrong. It’s a kind of cancer. We don’t know how bad it is yet, but I have to go the hospital tomorrow for some tests that will tell us more.”
Jessie’s face stayed expressionless through this part. I continued: “But I wanted you to know that no matter how bad the news might be tomorrow, we’ll still be a great family and we’ll get through this.” With that Jessie simply keeled over face down on her bed and was silent and motionless. I rubbed her back, stretched out beside her to hug her, whispered to her how much I loved her. And she wouldn’t budge. She was trying to process the meaning of my words, but I could sense the calm wasn‘t merely stunned silence. She was sensing the unknown in the situation. After only a minute or so, I knew when it was time for me to leave, and I walked into the bedroom and told Carla she needed to go to Jessie. That’s when Jessie broke down. In Carla’s grasp.
Soon after, I asked Mark to join me in our bedroom and we sat together bedside. I repeated almost verbatim what I’d said to Jessie. Mark stared ahead, but his face and body started to lose shape the more I talked. When I got to the part about not knowing how bad the news was going to be, Mark said: “You mean it could be fatal?” All I could do was start to shrug my shoulders before he collapsed forward, with lanky arms grabbing at me while he buried his face in my chest. We both tumbled back onto the bed.
And, surprisingly to me because all other major events of the year are still so clear, I can’t remember the rest of that evening. I have zero recollection of anything that happened or was said around the house the rest of the day, but I know it was a torturous evening for a couple of kids who should have been reveling in their holiday gifts.
As I sat at Gunflint trying to recollect that evening, my mind wandered to memories of taking showers the week during the most distress. While I did a good job of masking my tumult from the kids and staying positive during the days (they were home from school for the holidays) my mind was not kind to me in the shower. Standing naked in the capsule of a shower and grimacing at thoughts about what was going on inside the groin, I couldn’t fight off the persistent thought-stream of leaving the kids and Carla behind. In fact, I hatched elaborate plans for producing lengthy video journals and snippets of advice for the kids’ futures. Carla was so perceptive about the torture of these shower sessions that at one point she asked me if I was thinking about death and she even asked if I was thinking about making videos.
On the worst day, December 27th, I finally lost it. Not that I had tried to keep the tide of emotions from washing over me prior. I could always stem the tide by resolving to be steadfast in the disbelief that the doctors’ grim musings were wrong. But with the thought of spending the morning for tests to reveal more of the truth, then an afternoon waiting for the test results, and then a trip to the doctor’s office for results, I simply lost it at breakfast. With Carla standing beside me, I became a blubbering fool over my cereal bowl. All I remember uttering was: “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”
Carla steadied me, consoled me and got me moving towards the door and her car. We still talk about The Walk, going from the parking lot of the horrid Fairview Southdale hospital across a long skywalk while facing the prospect of terrible things at the end of the long walk.
Dr. Bill Utz had the day before scheduled the bone scan and other tests because he feared and suspected the cancer had reached the bones. And, with his vacation scheduled in two days, Utz asked me to stop at the hospital a few hours after the tests and pick up the results to bring to his office for the prognosis.
I remember fretting that the scans were going to require me to lie still for 35 minutes or more, and my enlarged prostate pushing against my bladder would likely object to this.
I’d had a MRI before, and even though I’m a bit claustrophobic, at least I knew to expect the clanging and banging. The bone scan brought new terrors to my mind because of its silent and stealthy ‘crawl’ up your body. You’re lying there as a slab of flesh with a large ring encircling you, almost like a magician passes a ring across a levitating body. But the ring moves excruciatingly slowly, starting around your head and then creeping up your full body length over the 35 minutes, which seemed to me like an hour or more. A favorite of mine, the petite but feisty Holly Hunter, described what my mind told me during this scan. In the movie Broadcast News, Hunter, about to walk away from the wimpy hangdog William Hurt says: "I feel like something's wrong with my bones. It's like your organs are shifting in your body."
Again, like the evening before, try as I might, I have no recollection of what I did, thought or felt from about noon that day until 4:00 pm when we went to pick up the results of the scans. Carla and friend Mary Melbo drove me to the hospital, and then we were to proceed to Utz’s office. Crystal clear is the memory of the 10 minute car trip where a couple of times I did the shudder and uttered the guttural sound of someone about to break down in tears and sobs before reeling it back in.
Stopping in the hospital drop off area, I climbed out of the car and made my way numbingly into the hospital and down the hall to the lab. The exact words that hit my mind were: “Damn it, I’m walking in here to pick up my own death sentence.”
I’m sure I appeared nonchalant standing at the counter and asking for my folder. When they pulled it out and one tech said to the other, “It’s not all here, yet. We’re still printing the report.” I remember the slump of body and mind. But quickly the missing fateful piece of paper was inserted in the sleeve and handed over. Yes, my first thought was to reach in and pull out the report. But fully expecting to collapse in a heap at the words, I resisted. ¶ 1:07 PM
