Life lessons

By Cara Lyons Legé

The thing about cancer is that you’re caught unaware. There’s no prickling on the back of your neck, no chill bumps on your arms. Words of confirmation in a doctor’s office, and, in the blink of an eye, it’s there, an irreversible moment in your life.

Do you change? Of course you change. Life is now divided in time–before cancer and after cancer.

This is the story of the events that tied my family and other stricken families together during one long, hot summer.

Houston
I left the cool of the air-conditioned apartment and stood for a moment on the stoop, but the glare of the sun and my own dark mood chased me back inside.
Still reeling from my husband’s diagnosis of cancer and the subsequent surgery, he and I had moved temporarily into the Hospitality Apartments (see sidebar) in Houston, to be near M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he would receive four months of follow-up treatment.

We arrived the July following my husband’s operation, and it was steaming hot in the city. But the leaves would be turning in October before we got home to the Texas Hill Country again.

A church-sponsored apartment complex called Hospitality Apartments is a dwelling place for cancer patients who are undergoing treatment.

I had just unloaded our things and was afraid, confused, and weary from speculating and guessing about the outcome of this illness. My thoughts didn’t lead very far, and I closed the door on the world. I missed old friends and saw no need to know the strangers I saw milling around.

But the fact was, they were all in it together—my husband and the other patients. They were bound together by a diagnosis that was the same killer with different names: melanoma, leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, glioma, neuroblastoma.

Our temporary residence sat on a shady street just off a busy boulevard. Looming a few blocks away was the hospital. Hourly shuttle buses ferried patients from Hospitality Apartments to the hospital, where teams of doctors and treatment waited.

On those rides, the gentle rocking of the little bus sometimes lulled me. This balm was short-lived, however, as I watched the faces of other riders—caregivers and patients—locked in their own thoughts, seeing through a glass darkly. These were frightening trips, hope-filled trips. Perhaps a life would be given back in exchange for these hours of radiation and chemotherapy. Or maybe little changed, but we wouldn’t know that until much later.

My husband and I were alone together, and for me, it was best that way. He was still in the early stages of his recovery and too weak to mix with people, who politely averted their eyes when they caught sight of the wound created by the surgery for head and neck cancer. He was too ill for that wonderful, happy spirit of his to jerk me out of my solitary mood and set me straight toward the middle again, that middle ground I never could find without him. I lived in a black and white world. This world of cancer was black with no escape.

Community
When I was wondering if I’d ever again have a trouble-free thought, I didn’t envision having any social encounters in my world gone awry. This was serious business, and I wanted to live in the quiet manner that I preferred.

But as the sun set each evening, the residents began to gather, one or two at a time on the little patio, which, by happenstance, was located just outside our door.

What were they doing out there? Evidently they had formed friendships, bonds, or something, because they were laughing, talking, sharing. Coming in from walks, the hospital, or supper out, sometimes with Cokes or ice cream in hand, they settled into patio chairs or sat on the steps and shared the news of their day.

What did they know that I didn’t? Weren’t any of them like I was, dreaming of happier times and falling short in courage? It’s not that I disapproved of their laughter; it’s just that they seemed to have removed themselves from the harsh realities of cancer.

During those first few days, because I couldn’t avoid them as I walked into our apartment, I nodded, now and then mumbling a greeting.

One evening after about a week, we had just finished a light dessert and my husband was dozing off. I could hear the conversation just beyond our door. There would be nothing wrong with catching a breath of fresh air, so I stepped out and half-heartedly joined them. But even then, I was more of an observer than a participant.

I seemed to be the only angry one. Why weren’t they numbed by this illness that had interrupted their lives? This was not something you could toss aside. Had they not faced all the consequences: isolation, pain, and, a final loss, the staggering medical bills? Or was it enough just to get through the day? I knew very little about cancer, but certainly their anguish was not unlike our own.
I didn’t understand yet that we needed each other in this desperate struggle. Could they be right not to linger a moment longer than necessary on the savage side of this disease?

Slowly, I discovered they were right.

Somehow they knew that we come and go, get well or don’t, live or die. But the victory is in the struggle, going on when you think you can’t and living each day to the fullest because you have finally learned that each day is precious. They would have to take that lesson home with them, loved one by their side, or use it when they were alone, as I am now.

I knew then that I had lessons to learn.

Lesson One: Peggy
The news from the hospital was not good. Stepping off the shuttle, Tim’s arm around her frail shoulders, they walked up to the patio.

I have never been able to remember exactly when I first met Peggy. I heard about “The young mother in Apartment No. 3” before we met.

But today I reached out my hands and gathered her up, for I knew her now. We were all bound together in this game of watchful waiting.

There was no ignoring fact. The melanoma had hopped and skipped through her body and done another evil job. Despite weeks of treatment, she had developed a metastatic brain tumor.

Her young husband, Tim, had earlier shown me the newest pictures of their 9-month-old son, lovingly committed to his grandmother’s arms for the time being. Peggy and Tim were young themselves, but this thing had robbed them of their youth. Their eyes weren’t sparkling with that sense of the invulnerable young, and a final separation could be looming.

From Tim and Peggy I learned that life can be snatched away. Be greedy with it. Become preoccupied with the things that hold families together.

Lesson Two: Judy
Judy left after a five-month stay with her 24-year-old son, who received treatments for leukemia. A bone marrow transplant, interferon injections, none of these things stopped the white blood cells gone haywire. Treatment options were exhausted and he continued to relapse. The prognosis was always doubtful. But in the midst of it, Judy talked the longest and loudest.

At first, I felt an unexplained hostility toward her. I resented her energy and her spirit while I seemed immobilized.

I could hear her, steps firm, walking on the patio when she came in late at night from the hospital, only to be called back hours later. She picked up friends at the airport. She drove family members and young friends back and forth to the hospital in an effort to ease her son’s lonely days. Chin up, head back, long athletic stride—that was Judy. She had no time to be idle.

And one day, they drove away. It was over. They were gone. I only caught a glimpse of the piled-up Suburban as they left, the boy leaning back in the front seat—baseball cap perched on his head, blanket tucked around him.

I’ll never meet her again. She won’t ever know what courage she gave me, but I used it persistently in our month-to-month struggle for normalcy to prevail over the ever-present cancer.

Judy would say, “I can do that.” She taught me that I could, too. I can do that!

Lesson Three: Doris
We gave Doris a birthday party when she turned 85. She shared the care of her ill daughter with her son-in-law. Doris gave I.V.s, cleaned soiled linens, did floors, and cooked. She moved quietly, her steps slow. I watched her doing these household chores each day and then on the next day, silently doing them all over again.

Doris never stopped being a mother, when, by now, the role of caretaker should have reversed for Doris and her daughter.

On the day of Doris’ birthday we sat in the sun and ate hot dogs and ice cream while a few children played nearby. It was like any neighborhood picnic. And for the moment, we were content.

The morning after the party, I met Doris in the tiny laundry room. Face saddened, head bent, she told me that her daughter had been transferred back to the hospital during the night. She lifted the folded towels, tremulous, eyes betraying nothing and walked back to the apartment.

I had been tempted more than once to protest and run back home to my perfect place. But Doris went on.

So did I.

Lesson Four: Lynn
Lynn and her husband had to sell their car in order to raise funds to remain in the city near the hospital. Their 8-year-old son was staying with a friend.

We took Lynn to the grocery store, and, on the days when the shuttle bus would be too hard on her husband, we gave them rides to the clinic.

On the days that he rode the bus and Lynn couldn’t go with him, she sat outside and waited on the bench for the shuttle bringing her husband back to her. She waited quietly—reading, resting when she could.

I never knew what kind of cancer had come to them. I can’t give an account of how it happened, but inquiries were made and a fund was started for Lynn and her husband.

How can it be easy to accept gifts from strangers? What price does your pride pay?

Lynn seemed resolute and didn’t expect much more than the courage to endure.

My memory of those two is clear—strolling in the late afternoons after an early supper, holding hands.

Financial problems are not solved simply, but cancer is the leveler here.
I learned that daily bread must be shared.

Lesson Five: My Husband
Finally, I learned the last lesson—the one from my husband of 37 years, the lesson in personal courage.

The Book of Psalms says that our days on Earth are like grass, a flower of the field, we bloom and die. The wind blows and we are gone.

And if we believe that, why can’t we treasure the days, the hours, and the minutes? I read once that only the very young and the very old enjoy the moment they are in.

But Cal had always instinctively known the value of the moment, at times throwing caution to the wind, grabbing recklessly at life, making friends wherever he went. When this illness struck, he said, almost from the onset, “I’m not going to die everyday until I die.”

He suffered so much from the humiliations of his facial cancer. His wound was grievous, unsightly. When we returned to our home on Lake LBJ from our stay in Houston, he remained closeted for weeks. Now and then he wandered out onto the deck, looking out over the water, watching the boats bobbing on the lake. The water had always calmed him, carried him away. Perhaps it was good that he could fight this battle in the presence of the timelessness of the water.
My own sorrow in his grief wasn’t enough. I don’t know how many times he cried alone. It was a solitary battle. But there came a moment when he decided that he could walk beyond familiar landscapes.

And a wonderful gathering of friends would not let us live behind closed doors. Gradually he made his way back into the world. That spirit returned. His eyes crinkled once again when he smiled. And anyone who loved him never seemed to look beyond that green light in those eyes.

I was reminded once again of the best in human courage. When I longed for those times when days were ordinary and I hung my head, I suddenly remembered how he held his up.

We linked arms and walked out together.

He is gone now. He recovered from his initial surgery and we had several more years together. We were safe for the time being, though I knew the dark days were coming.

As he grew more ill, he continued to find the best of every day. He was able to rule the circumstances and not let them rule him. I was then, and still am, staggered by his courage.

It seemed that nothing could take the dance from his heart. And I am left with a crack in mine.