INDIE TWO YEARS AGO
INDIE
TWO YEARS AGO
“I’m afraid I have some difficult news. The scan shows that the cancer has come back.”
Barbara Greene blinks at my words. She’s looking at me with a disbelieving smile, as if waiting for my punchline.
It’s an expression that I’ve seen many times on patients at Hyde Cancer Center, where they come determined to fight this vicious disease and win.
There is a careful protocol to follow when you tell someone that they are dying.
I’ve brought Barbara into one of the offices for privacy. It’s bright with natural sunlight, which I’ve found helps. You always sit so you are at eye level, and speak plainly. You’re not trying to show off your medical knowledge.
You’re delivering a terminal diagnosis.
“I don’t understand,” Barbara says slowly. “Did… did I do something wrong?”
That question always hurts the most.
Patients want to believe that there’s a mistake they made, because mistakes can be fixed most of the time.
My eyes flick to Barbara’s scans on the monitor behind her, showing the gray mass around her lungs. Barbara never smoked a day in her life and was never around smokers.
And yet she was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer six years ago, completed treatment, did everything right, and entered remission.
Two months ago, she came back complaining of shortness of breath and periods of confusion.
Her general practitioner thought it might be early-onset dementia and sent her to a neurologist. The neurologist ruled that out and sent her to psychiatry, who then referred her back to her general practitioner.
He simply told her to drink more water and suggested it was probably menopausal symptoms.
No, it wasn’t menopause. The cancer had metastasized, spreading to her liver. Stage IV. She has months left, if she’s lucky.
It's not fair.
“No,” I say, trying to infuse that combination of gentle, yet firm in my tone as my mentors taught me. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Cancer is unpredictable. Sometimes it just finds a way to grow.”
Barbara studies me for a long moment, then straightens in her chair.
“Give it to me straight, Doc,” she says, her voice no-nonsense. “How long?”
“Five months,” I say quietly. “Maybe seven with treatment.”
Barbara’s gaze shifts over my left shoulder as she processes the news. Various expressions cross her face—stages of grief blending together before, inevitably, acceptance.
Barbara sighs with a short, humorless laugh.
“Well...” she says, leaning back in the chair. “That’s a hell of a way to start my Tuesday.”
“I am so incredibly sorry, Mrs. Greene.”
She waves a hand dismissively. “Nah. Don’t waste time feeling sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you,” I shake my head. “That’s an insult. I feel sorry that this happened to you.”
Barbara smiles at me after a few moments, a genuine one.
“I liked you from the start, kid.”
Kid. I haven’t been a kid since I was eleven, maybe ten. When I started cooking my own dinners because my parents were out at the bar.
Barbara leans back, glancing out the window. The sun is high in a cloudless sky. I guess this is as good a day as any for the worst news. If only we could all be so lucky.
“Life moves fast,” Barbara muses, her voice barely above a whisper.
I wonder if she’s talking to me anymore, but I stay quiet, listening fully because maybe that’s what she needs right now.
“One day you’re a hot young thing with your whole life ahead of you,” she glances at me with a crooked smirk, “and the next you’re an old bird with months to live. Though you’re probably used to this, huh? Telling people they’re going to die.”
I don’t tell her that, while you do get used to telling patients the bad news, it never gets any easier.
There’s something strange about working with a deadly disease: you end up forming a relationship with death itself.
I keep my voice soft when I ask, “I’m assuming you don’t want to move forward with treatment.”
“No,” Barbara shakes her head firmly. “No, my time is running out. I don’t want to waste it here with you—no offense, Dr. Miller.”
“None taken,” my lips twitch.
The sense of humor always gets me. The way I can deliver horrible news to someone, and they can crack a joke after. It feels like superhuman strength.
“I’m going to go home. I’m going to spend every goddamn second with my family,” her face collapses for a moment, and I’m already moving, grabbing the tissue box and pushing it toward her. “God. How am I gonna tell my kids? My grandbabies...”
Barbara sniffles and wipes her nose, taking her glasses from her face and dabbing at her eyes.
Give them time to cry. It’s a part of the process. It’s your body's way of releasing your emotions. Just be there with them, because crying by yourself can feel lonely.
“I think,” I start once Barbara’s crying has softened. “Many of us don’t choose how our lives end, but we get to choose who sits beside us while it does. I think your family will just want to be by your side. And I think that’s what matters most.”
The corners of Barbara’s lips curve into a small smile, and she nods.
“Thank you, Doc.”
I nod stiffly, reaching out and awkwardly patting her hand. She snorts at my jerky movements and flips her hand over, grabbing mine and squeezing lightly.
There’s something that happens in skin-to-skin contact. It’s why we have newborns do skin-to-skin with their parents after birth. It’s calming.
After a few more minutes, I walk Barbara to the front desk. She gives me a smile, and it hits me as I’m walking away that it’s probably the last time I’ll ever see her.
When I walk into the next patient's room, I paint on a bright smile.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Miller...”
It’s easy to fall into the work, the time being swallowed by another patient, another diagnosis.
Two hours later, I'm feeling excited as I head into the infusion center. This job is hard, but there are silver linings.
“There she is!”
Silver linings like Eleanor Ambrose.
My smile only widens as I walk over to the silver-haired woman reclining in her blue chemo chair.
“Hello, Ellie,” I say, taking a seat in the open chair for our patients' guests.
“I read it all in one day,” she says, reaching for the tote bag on the floor.
Moving so she doesn’t have to, I grab the bag and pass it to her. She gives me a smile of thanks as she rummages through it.
“Ugh! I couldn’t get enough,” she gushes. “You were right.”
She pulls out the book I loaned her two weeks ago and hands it to me.
“Spicy,” she smirks, her voice a hissing whisper.
Ellie fans herself, and my cheeks flame. I had debated whether or not to give her the book because of the rather explicit sex scenes.
But Ellie isn’t a typical grandma. Her once-blonde hair has gone a gorgeous silver, only slightly thinned by chemo. She wears flowy dresses that remind me of a flower child of the sixties.
And when she smiles, she does so with her whole face.
I remember how she made me laugh when I was going over the side effects of chemotherapy.
“Hair grows back, sweetheart. Unfortunately, I don’t!”
It didn’t take long till she stopped feeling like Eleanor Ambrose, my patient, and started feeling like Ellie, my friend.
There’s something about her that just disarms you. I was speaking more plainly than I usually did during appointments, asking questions as she went through her love story.
During our first appointment together three months ago, during the physical exam, Eleanor spoke about her husband—the late, great Theodore Ambrose—with so much love and devotion. Even though she’s been widowed for the last decade, she spoke about him like he was still here.
They met on the beach in Florida. He was surfing, and she was on vacation with her parents. She—rather passionately—recounted that she was wearing her gorgeous new red bikini, and he wiped out when he got a good look at her.
Like something out of a novel, he emerged from the water, came right up to her, and asked her on a date.
It reminded me of a book I was reading, and I soon found myself telling her about the book and my love of reading. That’s how our little book exchange started.
“Did you like Brandon?” I smile, feeling a little excited jolt.
“Loved him! What a sweetie,” she says, handing me back the book. “Loved Candy even more—she didn’t take any of his crap.”
My smile widens. “Knew you would like her.”
“When she told him to crawl if he wanted her to forgive him,” Ellie fans herself, making me giggle. “Lord almighty!”
“Do you think he earned it?”
“Her forgiveness?”
At my nod, she purses her lips, considering.
“Yes. I think we all lash out sometimes, and we say things we don’t mean because we’re hurt and hurt people hurt people. What’s important is the apology. Doesn’t matter if you didn’t mean to hurt your person, you apologize, and you make it right.”
She grins slyly and gestures for me to lean in.
“While I was giving birth to our second daughter, I yelled at my Theodore that I was going to chop it off and keep it in a jar so I would never have to go through childbirth again.”
“Oh my God,” I half-gasp, half-laugh. “No, you didn’t.”
“Oh, I did,” Ellie cackles. “Then after, when I was holding my baby, I apologized. He told me I didn’t have to, and that he understood how much pain I was in, but it doesn’t matter. I hurt my Teddy, and I apologized. And he did the same to me through our forty-five years.”
Ellie’s eyes go a little misty at that, her smile distant, lost in a lifetime of love.
“Thank you for telling me,” I say quietly.
Ellie snaps out of her daze, turning to me with a smile. “Anytime. I love talking about my Theodore. My kids have heard the stories enough; the only one around to tell is my grandson—oh! And speak of my little bear, and he shall appear!”
“Hey, Nana, sorry I got—” I hear a deep, very attractive voice suddenly behind me.
I turn.
And look up... up... up.
Oh.
This is not exactly a ‘little bear’.