Eyes

The river was more than 100 feet below as I hugged the narrow canyon wall. The first two knuckles of my fingers penetrated the small handholds I had dug out. I used my right foot to kick the soft canyon wall several times to get a small indention. I put the toe of my boot into the indention and slowly put my weight on it. It held. I moved my left foot to the indention my right foot had just vacated, and began digging out another handhold. It was a slow process making my way across the canyon wall. I had been in similar situations before but this time was different. I was not alone. My wife was with me. She was raised in New England, Bermuda and on the East coast. She was not accustomed to experiences like this, or at least she wasn’t until we married. I had taken her on her first camping trip little more than a year earlier. Now we were clinging to the side of a canyon wall in Iceland with no ropes, no rappelling gear and no safety net. A canyon so inaccessible that if we fell there was no chance of rescue and quite likely our bodies would not be found for years. No one on the planet knew where we were and there was no way to call for help. We were truly alone with nature. I again used my right foot to kick the canyon wall in an attempt to make the next toehold. As my kick landed against the cliff wall, a 4- foot by 4-foot section of the wall fell away beneath me. Most of my toehold for my left foot was suddenly gone. My right foot dangled in midair. Both handholds were intact. I watched as a bowling ball size rock bounced off of a small ledge below. It bounced out into the canyon far enough that it appeared it would land in the river. Distances are deceptively greater in situations like this. I watched the rock all the way to the bottom as it smashed against a large boulder more than fifty feet from the edge of the water. I studied the wall carefully before attempting to again make the toehold. This time it held. Several minutes passed as we slowly made our way across the cliff face. I checked the distance to firmer ground ahead. Then pushed my upper body out slightly so that I could turn my head to look behind me. I looked past my wife to judge the distance we had covered in this section. Our trail of foot and toeholds was easy to see across the canyon wall. I estimated that we were about half way across that section. We would be on firmer ground in another forty-five minutes or so. I was in the process of turning back around when our eyes met. Those windows to the soul, which can relay messages and emotion with such efficiency that words, simply fail to compare. Earlier in the day, her eyes had portrayed excitement and adventure. Now they were welled to the point that I felt a tear might drop at any moment. The excitement I had witnessed earlier in the day had been replaced by fear. Up until that moment, I had been oblivious to the fact that she wasn’t enjoying our little adventure at all. I have to admit that it was somewhat frightening, but I knew everything would be fine. She did not. She was following behind me on blind faith. In the 20+ years since then I have paid much more attention to those beautiful blue eyes. From across a crowded room they have said, “lets get out of here”. On a sandy beach, they informed me that my eyes better not lower from hers. I was to not even glance at that bikini walking past. Those eyes spoke to my heart on many occasions. I remember watching her fingers glide softly along an iceberg as we floated past in a rubber boat. I looked up to find her eyes were filled with child like wonder. Together we watched the sunlight provide dancing rainbows inside the ice. In the middle of nowhere surrounded by nothing but ice, we sat, shivering in our parkas sipping Champaign with friends at an oddly placed picnic table. We talked and laughed and toasted, and in her eyes I saw only girlish delight. Walking among huge boulders on a black sand beach in Oregon, her eyes portrayed complete contentment. She was in her element, when I felt out of place. When we dined on food normally reserved for those of a higher station in life, food with names that I couldn’t pronounce. Her eyes told me what would taste good and what wouldn’t. When we looked into each other’s eyes, high above the city surrounded by suits, ties and fancy dresses, her eyes comforted me. Over the years those eyes have spoken to me in many ways. They conveyed to me when she was happy, sad, angry, disgusted or hurt.

Now my wife was looking at me through tearfully hopeful eyes, asking will you do it? I looked at the doctor across the room and then back at my wife. This decision didn’t have to be made at this moment. A month would make a difference, a week might make a difference, but a day wouldn’t. I honestly felt that a stem-cell transplant was not going to help me, but those eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes that had taught me so much about life. Those eyes were pleading with me. I simply smiled and said “yes”.

There was no turning back now. I was committed. The plan was that I would enter the hospital in about a week. I would receive chemo 24 hours a day for 4 days through a central line, which would be placed in my neck. I would also be taking several different types of chemotherapy pills for 5-7 days. I would then remain in the hospital for another week while my blood counts dropped, bottomed out and then began to recover. They would then swap the central line out with a larger line, which would enable them to harvest stem cells from me. Then I was to return home and rest for a couple of weeks before returning for the transplant. When I returned for the transplant I would be given high doses of chemotherapy and then the stem cells that they had collected on the previous trip would be given back to me. I learned that the transplant wasn’t the cure for the cancer. The dose of chemotherapy that I would take when I came in for the transplant was actually a lethal dose. By giving me the stem cells at just the right time in the treatment it would allow me to survive the “lethal dose” of chemotherapy. After I received my stem cells back, I would again remain in the hospital while my blood counts bottomed out and then began to recover. Then I had a 50/50 chance of going home to a more normal life.

That was the plan, but reality was a little bit different. I had been taking an alternative treatment that I had found on the Internet. It was a mixture that I drank twice a day. Recently I had begun to have stomach pain. The pain continued to get worse, so I quit taking the treatment. My stomach pain was manageable as long as I ate at regular intervals. About a week before I was to go into the hospital I was having a rather long day. I finished up work just in time to head into Missouri for a meeting where I was expected. No time for dinner, it would have to wait until after the meeting. About 10:00 P.M. my stomach pain was severe and the meeting was still going on. I wasn’t able to really concentrate as the others spoke. I found myself asking people to repeat them selves when I realized that they were asking me a question. This is the worst that the pain had been thus far. Finally the meeting ended and I quickly made my way to my truck and began the thirty-minute drive home. Once home, I washed down a couple of pain pills with large amounts of milk and began eating. The pain was back under control within a couple of hours and I was able to get some sleep. The day that I was to go into the hospital I was also scheduled for a PET scan and a CT scan. This meant no food or water after midnight the night before the scans. The day of the scans was finally at hand. I packed my suitcase, kissed my wife goodbye and headed for Little Rock. It was late morning when I arrived at the hospital. The stomach pain was back but manageable. I completed the first scan and then had a 2 and a half hour wait for the next one. By the time I finished the next scan the stomach pain was debilitating. The scan had taken longer than expected and I was now late for the appointment with my oncologist, so there was no time to eat. I made my way across the hospital to his office. I think when the staff looked at me they knew something was wrong. They quickly brought me into an exam room and the doctor was there within minutes. I told him about the pain and he handed me some pictures from a test that had been done earlier. The pain was too distracting for me to really look at the pictures. He sent me down to another part of the hospital and told me that he had made arrangements for them to give me something to help with the pain. I went where I was instructed. After a 30-minute wait, my name was called. I followed the nurse into a room full of recliners surrounding a center counter with computers and nurses. There was an IV pole next to each recliner. I recognized this as a chemotherapy room immediately and knew which recliner was mine. It was the only recliner without a body in it. This was much larger than the chemo room back home, and much more busy. The nurse worked quickly and had a needle in the vein of my arm within seconds. She told me this was a large dose of morphine and asked if I had taken morphine before. I said “no”. She said that if she gave me the entire dose I would be asleep for a while and suggested that I take only 1/3 of the dose. I agreed. She slowly injected the miracle juice into my arm and I felt my face flush and warm, then relief. Instant relief. She had me set there for a few minutes while she monitored my vitals.

I looked at the other patients setting around the room. This had become an all too familiar scene for me over the last year and some months. I had developed categories to fit each type of patient. First there were the discounted. I called them that because they always exaggerated their discomfort level and one never really knew which category they belonged in so they were discounted altogether. These were the hypochondriacs who were lucky/unlucky enough to have a serious disease. They craved and fed on attention. They would need pillows behind them and under them and around them. They would need blankets and more blankets. They would often sit and gag and spit up throughout their treatment. Simply put, they were annoying and disgusting not only to the staff, but also to the other patients, visitors and even their own family members. They really put a downer on the whole chemo experience. That may sound odd, but often times the chemo experience could be quite rewarding. The chemo experience was visiting and bonding with others in a similar circumstance. You shared in each other’s highs and lows. It sometimes felt as though you were all on the same sports team, trying to accomplish the same goal. When things went well and one of your teammates finished their treatments and was not expected to return. You were happy for them, but at the same time, a little sad. They wouldn’t be in your little group anymore. The next category were the freaked out. These were usually but not always newly diagnosed. Nothing could be said to them or done for them to provide any level of comfort. They perceived their situation to be somehow different and worse than everyone else’s. They often times graduated into the discounted category. I fell into the next category as most cancer patients did. They may or may not have been bald and they appeared fairly healthy. They read or talked to each other or family members while receiving their chemo. One might notice an occasional twitch or spasm. Nothing more. The next category was the unhealthy but alive. They were thin and hairless, but their eyes were open and still held life in them. They joined in the conversations or read. They were sometimes on oxygen and often might have other health issues. Then there were the half-dead. Their wheel chairs sat next to the recliner they were in, or sometimes they received their chemo in their chair. Some of them had additional problems such as diabetes. One such woman was skeleton thin except for her legs, which were swollen beyond any point that they might be useful for anything except holding up a blanket. Her arms were so thin that one could easily discern the two distinct bones running lengthwise in her forearms. No blood veins were visible. She was receiving her chemo through a port in her chest. It would have been impossible to find a vein large enough to get a needle into it. Her skin was wrinkled and sagged on her arms, neck and face. I wandered about her age. She looked like she must have been over 100 years old, but in truth she was probably less than half of that. Her head hung down and to one side. A caregiver wiped drool from her mouth. She rarely looked up and when she did, she didn’t make eye contact with anyone or anything. Her head would swing in a wave like motion and it was clear that her neck muscles were too weak to control her head movements properly. Her eyes were grayed with no spark left within. Those eyes did not speak to me, but her face told an endless tale of agony and misery and suffering. I wondered why she continued with treatment. Wouldn’t a seat at the feet of Jesus be better? I wanted desperately to get up and ask everyone to gather around her and then ask her if she was saved. If she answered “no”, we would pray for her to be healed to give her more time to come around. If she answered “yes”, we would pray that Jesus take her away to a better place. I wanted to, and I should have, but we do not live in that world. I rationalized there must have been some reason for her to hang on like she was doing. Who was I to interfere? I continued scanning around the room to what I thought of as one of the rolling dead. They were all the same. They received their chemo in a wheelchair or in a bed. Their heads hung straight down in front of them and they never looked up. Their eyes were closed. Those windows to the soul were forever cutoff from this world and would relay nothing more. They were often hooked up to an oxygen machine. They sometimes had a belt around their chest to keep them from falling or sliding out of the wheelchair. A caregiver might lift them up every once in a while as their limp body slumped ever lower. The wheelchair footrests would be pushed as close together as possible and I wondered if their legs weren’t sometimes tied to the wheel chair to keep them from sliding out. They rarely moved. When these people died there would be no outwardly visible sign. I wondered how long it would take someone to notice when they did pass on. These people did not appear to be able to communicate with anyone. No one talks to the rolling dead. They talk at them in a patronizing high-pitched tone normally reserved for very young children. What right does anyone have to subject these people to this type of living hell? The rolling dead do not live. They simply exist. If anyone there was truly compassionate, they would have rescued them from their rolling hellish prison with a lethal dose of morphine.

The morphine nurse came to tell me that my vitals were ok and I could leave any time I wanted. She told me the rest of the dose of morphine would be there for 4 more hours if I needed it. After that it would be discarded. She asked how long it would be before I was admitted into the hospital. I told her that I didn’t know. The oncologist’s nurse would call me when a room was available. I walked to the cafeteria feeling like I was in la-la land. I ate and remember little else. I was still setting in the cafeteria when my mind started to return to the real world and the intense pain that existed there. I sat there contemplating whether or not to get the rest of the dose of morphine. I didn’t really want to go back to la-la land but the pain was bad. I had survived worse pain before though. I was getting soft, I thought to myself. I tried to distract my mind by counting floor tiles, ceiling tiles and what ever else was around. My cell phone rang. It was the morphine nurse telling me it had been 4 hours. She had to throw out the morphine unless I wanted another dose. I didn’t know how long it would be before a room was ready for me and I quickly rationalized myself back into the temptresses chair. This time after entering la-la land I went out to the parking garage where I had parked. I had started smoking at an early age and had continued the habit into my thirties. I had quit for six years, but had been smoking again now for about 2 years. The doctors had told me that smoking had nothing to do with my cancer, but that I still needed to quit. My plan was to quit when I was admitted into the hospital. I lit one up and smoked guilt free for the next couple of hours in la-la land.

The next time my cell phone rang, it was with news from the oncologist’ nurse that my hospital room was ready. I grabbed my suitcase and headed up to the seventh floor. I was greeted by a very nice nurse who showed me to my room, then left me there telling me to make myself comfortable. I had been in a hospital for a few hours once before. That room was much different from this room. This room was nicer and larger than a lot of hotel rooms. The nurse soon returned with a computer on wheels and started asking me questions. One of the questions she asked was “have you fallen in the last 3 months?” I tried to remember and thought to myself; it was winter, it had been icy. I think I recalled tripping over a branch and falling when I was deer hunting. I told the nurse that I couldn’t recall specifically, but I was sure that I had fallen in the last 3 months. This was a big mistake. I was branded as a “fall risk” for the remainder of my stay. A nurse had to come and walk with me before I was allowed to leave my room by myself. “Fall Risk” was written on a placard outside my door and on a wristband that I had to wear. This brand continued to haunt me through every stay that I had at this hospital. The computer couldn’t remember what I was allergic to or what foods I didn’t eat, but it remembered that I was a “fall risk”.

The morphine had worn off and the stomach pain was back to its normal, tolerable dull roar when I awoke the next day. A doctor came in and we looked at the pictures my oncologist had given me the day before. They were pictures of my esophagus, stomach and part of my intestines. They revealed that my alternative treatment had burned my intestinal tract in several places and had actually burned a hole in my stomach. This is what was causing my stomach pain. He prescribed some medication that would help this heal. He told me that it would not completely heal until after I was finished with all of the chemo that I was about to take. I was fitted with a central line and hooked up to chemo. I began taking dozens of pills everyday. Most were chemo, 2 were for my stomach and I honestly don’t know what all the others were for. I would ask about each pill, and if it sounded like something I didn’t need, I wouldn’t take it. This action was mainly reserved for the stool softeners that they insisted I needed. I knew otherwise. The four days of chemo passed by as I got to know the staff. Once the IV chemo was completed, they started giving me a shot twice a day in my stomach. It was a growth hormone, which would force my body to produce stem cells, which would then be harvested. Everything was progressing well and was pretty much what I had expected except that I hadn’t quit smoking. I wasn’t smoking much, but a few times a day, I would slip on my black “cowboy boots” and head for the great outdoors to get my nicotine fix. The nurses had pity on me and brought me some hospital pants to wear with my hospital gown. They said it wouldn’t look as funny with my boots. I didn’t really care about that. I was however grateful for the small amount of privacy the pants provided my caboose. Occasionally I would go a day without smoking, but this was rare.

Four or five days into my stay I developed a small amount of pain in my spine. An hour later and the pain had increased dramatically. I tried “walking it out” to no avail. The next time the nurse came in I told her what I was experiencing. She informed me that it was caused by the growth hormone, which caused the bone marrow to work over time. She said some people had no pain and others had severe pain. I was in the latter group, as I would soon find out. She brought me some pain pills and then a doctor came to see me. He asked if the pills were working. I told him “not yet, but I didn’t think they had time to work yet”. He said he could give me something stronger if I needed and encouraged me to take him up on his offer. I thought back to my experiences with la-la land and declined his offer. Thirty minutes later I was regretting that decision. One hour later I was requesting my good doctor friend personally escort into la-la land as quickly as possible. My pastor came to see me at that time. We talked as I squirmed in agony. The pain was constant, but more intense pain pulsed in waves in perfect rhythm with my heartbeat. Frequently a wave of pain would hit me with such intensity that I would experience an uncontrollable gasp as it took my breath away. I had been cut, scraped, punched, kicked, burned and had broken bones and most recently experienced fairly intense stomach pain. Nothing I had ever experienced compared to this. The nurse finally arrived with some morphine and told us both that it would knock me out. My pastor said he would stay until I was out, then he would leave. She squeezed the morphine into my central line and I felt slight warmth across my face. Nothing more. The pain was still there as intense as ever. She returned in a few minutes with more morphine. My pastor again said he would stay until I was out, then he would leave. She injected the morphine, faster this time I noticed. I felt warmth on my face and the pain lessened slightly. This time the miracle juice barely took the edge off. My pastor and I continued to talk and soon I was squirming again. The nurse came in to check on me. She must have known that I would be in pain, because she had made arrangements for a stronger pain medication and had it with her. She said I would be out immediately once it was injected. The pastor and I did our, by now, familiar goodbye ritual again. He talked to me, she injected me and we all looked at each other. All of us were waiting for my conscious switch to be flipped. It didn’t happen, but I did enter la-la land this time and the pain was almost completely gone. The pastor and I talked for a bit more then prayed together. He could see when my eyes were finally getting heavy. He stood up to say goodbye. I never saw him leave the room. I was out. The next couple of days were a blurry haze of semi-consciousness and deep sleep. I vaguely remember nurses asking me if I needed more pain medication. I don’t remember answering them, but am sure that I did. I only remember getting up to go to the restroom once during those two days. I know I went more, but don’t remember it. One of the nurses brought my plastic urinal and hung it on my bed at some point. I came out of a deep sleep and into a drunken slumber long enough to get it back into the restroom. I had to hold myself up with my arms. My legs worked very poorly or not at all for a short time. I remember trying to figure out how to get the urinal back in the restroom since I required my arms to help me walk. I thought it made perfect sense at the time to bite down on the lip of the urinal and that way carry it back where it belonged in my mouth. Thankfully before that could happen, I realized that I could simply toss it instead. It hit the doorframe, but after a round of drunken urinal soccer, it ended up somewhere in the restroom.

During one of my semi-conscious moments I rolled over onto my stomach. This simple action apparently prevented me from getting my next dose of miracle juice on time. I was able to become aware to the point that I could feel the pain again. This time when the nurse asked if I needed more pain medication, I was able to tell him yes but less than before. I made sure to be on my stomach covering my central line when I went out that time. The next time I was asked, I declined the miracle juice. The pain was still there, but not nearly as intense. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to lie there. That is probably just what I would have done if it had not been for an over whelming urge to feed my nicotine addiction. I grabbed my coffin nails, slipped on my boots and stood up. My vision went black and I was instantly dizzy. I steadied myself and waited for it to pass. I stood there for a moment taking in what I was feeling. My spine felt empty, like a hollow tree. It felt like it might simply snap into at any moment. I hadn’t known that it was even possible to feel pain from inside a bone until this experience. I had broken bones before, but didn’t remember the bone actually hurting. I recalled more pain from the damaged flesh around the broken bone. Not the bone itself and certainly not inside the bone. I took a small step. My legs were a little shaky but I was able to walk. I waved at the nurses gathered around their station as I passed by. They welcomed me back to the real world. I thought I saw something in their eyes telling me that the worst was over for this stay. I could have imagined it, but it turned out to be true any way as the rest of this stay was uneventful. The nurses had referred to me as a walkie-talkie before my little bout with the bone pain. This is what they called patients who could walk and speak, as most of the patients in this wing were not so fortunate. I stumbled to the parking garage and lit up. I breathed the smoke deeply into my lungs and exhaled slowly thinking how glad I was to be a walkie-talkie again.

Teetering

                                                               


The full moon illuminates the cottontail of a rabbit as it zigzags through the tall grass. A coyote is in chase. He is running as straight as an arrow, slowly gaining on his prey. The rabbit is only feet away from its hole, it’s den, safety. Suddenly another coyote appears, blocking the path to safety. The rabbit is mid stride in the air, between leaps. It has a split second before it lands and must leap again. In that split second, it must decide to continue towards the safety of its den or turn towards a pile of logs nearly 75 feet away. Neither choice is an easy one. Neither choice will ensure life. There is the rabbit in mid air, teetering on the brink of the abyss. What to do?



A stem cell transplant? I don’t think so. From what I hear that is like going to hell and back. This was my reaction to the news that I needed a stem cell transplant. I had been in treatment (chemotherapy) for about a year at this point. I finished the first 6 cycles (twelve treatments) of chemo and was told to go home and enjoy life. That’s it? I was skeptical but amazed and happy. Two weeks later I noticed the lymph nodes in my neck were getting larger. The third week came and the lymph nodes in my neck were easily visible to anyone who looked. I called the oncologist and was hooked up to more chemo within hours. I took 3 more cycles, and was told I was at my lifetime maximum dosage for one of the chemotherapy drugs I had been taking. There was nothing that my oncologist could do for me at this point that he felt would do any good. He recommended a stem cell transplant in Little Rock. What happens if I don’t get the transplant? I asked. You get sicker. He replied. How much sicker? You will die. Ok, how long do I have? This is like pulling teeth, I thought to myself. He said I had something less than a year. He gave me the information on who to contact to start the process of getting the transplant. He had already talked to them and they were expecting my call. Well that’s it then, I thought. I went home promptly discarding the information he had given me. I had read about stem cell transplants. I had seen patients who were going through it. I had talked to people who had gone through it. I wanted no part of it. On the way home, I called a customer who had turned out to be a friend. I knew she had worked in hospice. She had told me once before, that if I was ever told that I had x amount of time left, to come see her. We made plans to meet a day or two later. We had lunch and discussed my situation. She was one of the few rational people that I talked to during this time. She was just matter of fact and had good information. I recommend anyone who gets this kind of news talk to someone in hospice. This conversation was invaluable to my wife and me.



I started preparing myself and trying to prepare my wife for the inevitable. I remember thinking that this is apparently God’s will and I just needed to trust him. I had a healthy respect for death but not an irrational fear of it. This would most likely be much harder on the people around me than it would be on me. I have to admit, I was saddened by the thought of not accomplishing the things that I wanted to do. Things that I had fully expected to do in the near future, and in the long term. I wanted to build a house. I had cut down several trees in order to clear a space for this house more than a year earlier. I looked out the window at those trees, which still lay where I fell them. Partially de-limbed, as if I had simply stopped for the day. I had stopped that day and never went back to finish the job. I remembered how tired I was when I cut those trees down. That was the point at which I had realized that something was seriously wrong. For the first time in my life I had found myself in a situation where my body and mind were failing me. My body was simply not strong enough to do the job, and my mind was too tired to make it. I actually felt much better at this point than I had back then. That didn’t matter now because that house would not be built.



I couldn’t dwell on these selfish thoughts; there were things to do. I knew that my wife would be unable to manage our place on her own. I attempted to convince her to sell our place and buy something in town. She wasn’t having any part of it. We had some time yet, I thought. When I got sicker and was unable to do things around the place, then she would see that it just made sense to move. A thought then crept into my head. She would remarry. The new husband would take care of the things that she couldn’t, just as I had done. A flash of jealousy, a little anger. The thought of that bastard using my tools, taking care of my wife, well…... Then reality. Till death do us part. That was the vow. This was death. With my death so died the vow. I would die, so she would probably remarry. She was still young. I wanted her to be happy, didn’t I? I did, I truly did. This is a lonely world when one attempts it without a partner. I would never ask or expect her to do that. Snap out of it, I thought. Then as quickly as the thought had appeared it was gone. It was replaced by an even more concerning thought. What would happen in the afterlife? She would want to be with her new husband. After all I would be a distant memory, he would be fresh in her mind. Maybe this process was going to be harder than I thought. It is a good thing for me that the bible addresses every issue one might have. It has a way of solving problems and clearing irrational fears or thoughts from one’s mind.



The next week I was walking through the lumberyard buying materials for a job. I was in the cedar isle picking out some lumber, when I noticed the cedar 1 x 10 x 12’s’s had a price on them of less than $3. This was something more than 90% off I thought. That couldn’t be right. I finished getting the materials I needed for my customer and headed for the check out. The thought of those cedar boards kept coming back to me. I didn’t need them. What would I use them for? Maybe, if I was going to be around for a while, I would buy them and someday a project would come along for them. But I wasn’t going to be around much longer. What would I use them for? A coffin? Yes, that’s it, my coffin. I didn’t want some fancy, shiny coffin. What could be more therapeutic than building my own coffin? I could decide where this body would spend eternity. This was a project that I could do in my shop. Later when I was weaker and unable to work for customers, I could do this at home, in my shop. It would give me something to do. I decided I would get one board and ask the cashier how much it really was when I checked out. If this really was the price, I would buy them and build a coffin. If not, so be it. The clerk explained that they were no longer going to carry this size board and the price was correct. I bought the boards. That evening I took the boards and put them in the overhead storage in my shop. I placed them directly beneath the hoist. Later on when I was ready to start building I may be much weaker. This way, if I was too weak to carry them down, I could hoist them down. It may sound weird, but the thought of building my own coffin was very liberating for me. It was a way of preparing for the transition from this life. I have often thought that we need things, ceremonies or events in our lives to help us make transitions. For instance, at what point does a boy become a man, or a girl become a woman? Puberty? I don’t think so. Many cultures throughout history have had some sort of coming of age ceremony. Why don’t we? Building my coffin would be my transition event.



My wife and I discussed many things over the coming weeks. There were things that she needed from me. Where did I keep this or that? What should she do if this or that happened? In the past, when she had a flat, she called me. Maybe she needed to learn how to change a flat or maybe it was time to get AAA. The power goes out allot in the winter. How should she hook up the generator? I wired the generator into the house wiring and typed out written instructions complete with photographs on how to use it. She needed to know all of the details of normal life that I normally took care of. It felt as though I were going on an extended trip. I would have no cell service on this trip though. Whatever I needed to tell her, I had to tell her before I left. I didn’t have a will. There were things that she wouldn’t want after I was gone. Not many, but a few. She wouldn’t want all of my tools. I started making a will and then the thought came to me of her new husband. That jerk would probably want this stuff. I didn’t really care about him, but he would be using it to take care of her. I didn’t discuss this with her but decided the only thing I would put in my will were some of my guns. Everything else would stay put. We discussed who would be interested in buying certain things if she should want to sell them later. This person has been trying to buy this for a year. That person offered this much for that. Watch out for this person. That person will help you do this or that if you ask. This person has offered to do anything we need. Etc…



Well-intentioned people had bombarded me for about a year at this point. There had been an attempt to convert me to almost every religion under the sun. I had a stack of books that I would never be able to, or even care to read. I had been given multitudes of website addresses for treatment centers and sites which claimed to have a cure for cancer. I had been trying some remedies that had been recommended to me and they were not working. In fact, they were making things worse. We no longer answered our phone before seeing who was calling. There was no longer a normal conversation on the phone. Every conversation was really an interrogation about what symptoms or treatment I was having, or what were the results of this test or that scan. Every conversation started the same way. They would ask how I was feeling. I would respond I’m feeling good. How are you feeling? There was often an irritated pause before the interrogation got under way. I could make as many attempts as I liked to change the conversation, but it would always come back to my health. Many times an attempt to change the conversation would simply be ignored. Many times we let the phone ring because we new it was more advice on what drug to take, or what remedy worked for a friend of a friend of a friend, or the number of someone to call. I talked to 2 survivors during this period. One was a stranger who had an irrational fear of death. He would have done anything under the sun, no matter the consequences or the odds in an attempt to stay alive. The other was my aunt. She was calm. She and I had very similar outlooks on cancer. It was refreshing to find one little nugget of sanity in what had become a world in need of white padded walls. Most importantly, part of our conversation was just a normal conversation that she and I might have had at any given time. I can honestly say that this was the only rational conversation I had on the phone in over a year. I learned to hate the phone.



I stopped in to pay a bill at the oncologist one day. How is your treatment going? He asked. There was silence as I tried to gather the words that I would use to tell him that I was not going through with the treatment. I knew he would be disappointed. When I had left his office that last day he and particularly the nurses had really encouraged, or in some cases insisted that I go forward with the transplant. I haven’t called them. I said. He told me that he knew because he had called to see why they were not forwarding information to him. He then told me that he had made an appointment for me and told me what time and where I needed to be. I started to protest. He said. Just go talk to them. It doesn’t hurt to see what they have to say. They may have options other than a transplant. If they can’t help you, they will tell you. What ever they recommend, you can decide if it is right for you. Just get all of the information before you make your decision. I reluctantly agreed to go to the appointment.



It is a 3 and a half hour trip from here to Little Rock. The hospital in Little Rock was huge. The appointment lasted all day. We saw the doctor for only about 10 minutes. There were assistants, nurses and social workers and insurance people and the list goes on and on. At the end of that appointment all we really new was that she agreed that I had less than a year to live. That appointment led to a battery of tests. They were unable to give me any information until these tests were complete. Then there was the appointment to get the results of the tests. At the end of that appointment I knew I didn’t like this oncologist. She appeared extremely arrogant to me. She referred me to another specialist and said the odds of a stem cell transplant working for me was about 15%. 15% was going to make my decision very easy. No transplant. No way. There were more tests before I was allowed to meet with the new specialist. He couldn’t tell me anything until the tests were completed. Then finally we met with him. The first thing he did was to give us a tape recorder to record this appointment. It lasted for more than an hour, just talking and discussing my case and the options. He recommended a stem cell transplant. Big surprise. He told me that he disagreed with the other oncologist and that it had a 50/50 chance of working. He said my life expectancy without it was a few to several months.

This was consistent with what the other oncologists had said as it had been several months since I had first been told “less than a year”. The most important thing that I got from this doctor was that there was hope without many of the side effects that I had been led to expect. Still I was getting the feeling he wasn’t being entirely honest about how bad it would get. He put an end to those concerns when he said “or you might die during the transplant”. It sounded almost funny when he said it because of his East Indian accent. I might die during the transplant? I asked. Yes, he said. You could get an infection and die, because you will have no immune system. I felt like he was being honest with me at this point. He had done a good job of explaining how my case was different from the people I had seen in wheelchairs who appeared to be worse than dead. My wife also reminded me that the chemo had not affected me like it did most people. I had yet to lose my hair even after a year of chemotherapy. In the beginning I had gone directly from my chemotherapy treatments to work. It had only been in the previous three months that I had quit my full time job and started a small handyman business, where I could limit my hours if needed. It did get tougher with each treatment. The doctors were also telling me I would not be able to work at all if I went through with the transplant. I had more test and another appointment with this oncologist. Then came the day when it was time for me to make a decision. It had a 50/50 chance of working. It all came down to the same odds as a coin toss. My wife was looking at me through tearfully hopeful eyes.  Asking "will you do it"? This was my cottontail rabbit in mid stride moment. What to do?