One year ago today

Gayl's surgery was on the 31st. She had a utrerine sarcoma, which is rare and there is no prescribed treatment for it. Its very aggressive. We were at the hospital at the end, I (and she) so much wanted to get her home. The memorial and internment was in Michigan. I have the specifics on the location if you want them.

I guess there were several shocks. Gayl had a biopsy for uterine cancer in June, and it was negative so we thought she was OK. Her doctor at that time offered an explanation and recommended a hysterectomy, which we had been working toward since January. But, the bleeding kept getting worse, so on August 27 she had more tests. We found out it was cancer on the 28th. I flew back on the 29th to be with her. We spent the 30th together in the hospital, that's our anniversary, and her surgery was August 31. She got through it OK, and our hand signals we had worked out beforehand came in handy (1 ginger for cold, 2 for pain, 3 for dry mouth), we had been through this so many times before. When I finally got into ICU to see her after the surgery, they had her restrained since she was reaching around. Well you know Gayl, she was trying to figure out what she was hooked up to. So, I cut the restraints and talked her through everything, and she was fine after that. The nurses about had a cow though.

The second shock was her intestine. You know all the pain she had for the last 19 years and how we tried and tried to get someone to treat it. Well, when they got into her abdomen, they saw the reason for her pain, her large intestine was twisted through a complete 360 degrees around the medial axis (the line along the center tube of the intestine) within 18 inches. As the doctor saidd to me, her pain from this must have been excruciating. No kidding!!! Well, she had always feared another surgery cause she thought she would have a long bout of trying to get her stomach to work, but all was back to normal in 3 days. She was walking the day after surgery. She even told me that for the first time in 19 years, her tummy did not hurt and she could eat OK. But the pain she endured for 19 years because they srewed up her appendicitis is unbelievable. At one point, the total width of the tube was less than the width of a needle. But, she was feeling less pain, so I thought things were looking up.

The bad part was that the doctor could not get everything in the surgery, so Gayl had to have chemo and radiation. And the prognosis was not good, the doctor said that she would not last 5 years, maybe less. But I thought we had time to fight and find things and do things. We decided not to give up. I was able to take her home the Saturday after her surgery. Since I thught we had time, and we needed money, I flew back to DC on Sunday to try to keep my job while her dad spent the week with her.

The following week started out OK, but she seemed to keep sounding weaker on the phone, and she started to complain of pain, which confused me. She went back into the hospital the following Saturday cause of pain, and I returned Sunday. Her dad left then.

By Tuesday, Gayl was hurting a lot, and the doctor said told us that he thought she would not last two years. Apparently, the tumor had regrown in the intervening 2 weeks since the surgery to twice the size it was when she had the surgery to remove it. She got an infection and her kidneys started to lose function, so we could not start chemo right away. We got through that, but it took a week. I asked about using dialysis, but was told it was not an option. By the following week, though, Gayl was a bit better, enough so that she could start chemo on Wednesday the 27th and do radiation on the 28th. I wwas worried, though, and asked the doctor how bad things were. I asked him, straight out, if she had days, weeks, or months. He said months, it all depended on the chemo. Our goal was to get the chemo done, get her out, and find some place that could treat her type of cancer (I found out later that no such place exists). But, I thought we had time at least. I screwed up, I thought I had to be ready to keep up a 18 hour day at her bedside for a long time, so we decided I should sleep at home instead of there; I really regret that). When I left at 3AM on the 29th, she was OK. I was back by 10AM, and she was nauseated. Things just went downhill from there. She started to throw up at noon, and by 1pm we had filled everything in the room and the sunction machine had failed. Her pain, by then, was really bad. She was getting 2CC of dilaudid every 2 hours as a maintenance dose, and her pump failed so she could not get anything for pain even though she was supposed to get whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it. I could not get a nurse, I was literally running up and down the hall in the ward looking for someone and then running back into the room to help her with her pain and throwing up. This went on for a couple of hours, until at about 5 pm I just disconnected her monitor. I knew that would bring people, cause it would look like her heart stopped. That worked, we got a room full of fols in no time flat. After I convinced them that her heart was not the problem and got them straight on what was wrong, things began to happen. I got a few doctors to talk to me, kicked a nurse out of the room, and got her the pain medication and medical support she needed. Her heart rate, which had been up around 130 since noon, dropped back under 100 and she seemed better. Then, the throwing up started again, and it was bad, At about 7pm, she grabbed my arm really hard, and I mean really hard. I knew the pain was back, and it was bad. Shortly after that, she reminded me of my promise to her, not to let her die in pain or go onto life support for no purpose. Then, she got a lot worse, heart rate up and everything just went downhill. Again, no nurse to be had, so I went runnig around the ward till I got one, and she called Gayl's primary cancer doctor. His resident came in to see Gayl and then went to talk to him on the phone. Gayl and I had our last talk then. Then Gayl got really bad, and her docctor wanted to talk with me. He said that the cancer was destroying her faster than he thought it would, and that he could maybe keep her alive for a little while (not even a day), but in ever worsening, continued pain. Or he could stop the pain and the vomiting, but he did not know how long she could tolerate all the pain medicine and anti-vomiting medicine. I told him to keep her out of pain, and when back in to hold her hand. I wish I had been able to get into the bed to hold her, but she could not move enough for that. They started giving her medicine, and she looked at me before she closed her eyes and fell asleep. I just kept holding her hand while the nurses and doctors did what they did. I finally let go about a half hour after she met Jesus.

I think Gayl suspected somethng bad was happening, she was too good a doctor not to. She put on about 100 lbs of water weight that last month. The day before, she had me write some checks into her back account for her. On the afternoon of the 29th, she asked me to promise to do some things for her; thngs which in retrospect she would only have asked if she thought she was approaching the end. But I was not expecting it. I was counting on those months that the doctor promised, and did not expect the 29th to be the end. So, that was the third shock for me.

There are two wonderful coincidences about the 29th. One is that on 29 Sep, 490BC, the Greeks won the Battle of Marathon (yes, the same as the race today). After the battle, and to prevent the Persian traitors fro taking Atehens, the runner Phidippidies was sent from the battlefield to the city to tell them of the victory. As he ran, the Persian fleet was sailing round the point to attack the city, neither could see the progress of the other. Phidippidies won the race, ran into the city gates, cried "Nike" (Greek for victory) and then died. As a Christian, no better analogy for Gayl's life could me made.

The second is for Lord of the Rings fans, of which Gayl was one. On 29 September, Frodo boarded the last elven ship to leave MiddleEarth for the West, which is to say, Heaven, after accomplishing all he was to do.

I teel myself that the date is no coincidence, that God was telling us all what a wonderful person we had here with us, and telling us in a way that no one could misunderstand.

The only problem is that I miss her and love her; life is so bleak without her.