Husband's view of breast cancer

One husband’s view of breast cancer

It’s hard to believe it was eight years ago that we went through the absolute worst experience of our marriage, and there have been some pips. 

It was just before New Year’s Day, 2008 that I received the call I had hoped wouldn’t come. I had changed jobs four months earlier and was working for an investment company, trying to sell stocks and bonds out of the back seat of my Chevy HHR. 

“Psst. Hey, Bud, wanna buy a bond?”

There was more to it than that but that’s the way it felt at times as I walked the streets and roads of Fountain County during a cold, cold winter. One day, the temperature never rose above zero. I was thankful that day that I had made friends with a nice couple in Covington who shared a steaming hot beverage from their new Keurig coffeemaker with me. 

But on this day, I was driving down the road on my way home and was approaching a bridge when my phone rang. A glance at the screen told me it was it was my wife, Linda. 

We had been expecting to hear the results of her biopsy. She had prepared our family on Christmas Day. 

“We have the results,” she began. “It’s not good.” 

She had breast cancer and would face several surgeries in 2008 at St. Vincent Hospital, Indianapolis. We became very familiar with 96th Street and the hospital that year. I came to know what to order in the cafeteria and I even ran into a man who attended our church. I had not realized he worked for St. Vincent’s until I saw him in the cafeteria one day, he with a mop in his hand and me with our future on my mind. 

When we first visited Dr. Schmidt’s office, I went in after Linda had some time alone with him. 

“Do you have any questions?” he asked me. 

“Should I take family leave?”

I thought Linda would be incapacitated by her surgery. 

Mom had a mastectomy and went straight to a nursing home. Dad had lung cancer and became practically an invalid at home with terrible reactions to chemotherapy. 

I remembered him vomiting in the middle of the night and seeing the ambulance pick him up early in the morning  on more than one occasion to take him to the hospital. Then there was the time he spent one day in a nursing home before returning to the hospital where he died. 

“Should I take family leave?” I asked. 

“Why? Are you sick?” Dr. Schmidt replied. “No, Linda is not going to be an invalid. We want her up and returning to her normal activities as soon as possible.” 

Then he turned to her. 

“You can probably get him to help out around the house,” he said to Linda. 

We have come to deeply appreciate Dr. Schmidt in the years since that initial conversation.   

It was difficult for me to think about the unknown future before Linda’s first surgery.

I was working for a newspaper and the day before surgery I was asked to put together the page filled with weddings, anniversaries and birthdays. 

I usually do a pretty good job with that sort of thing but that day I think I messed up every caption for every photo on the page. 

Our editor and publisher were kind and understanding, but we all agreed I would take the day off if personal problems prevented me from concentrating on my work in the future. 

Linda was on a pain pump right after the several surgeries she had that year. I was glad I could help in some way. One of my jobs was to strip her drainage tube. By forcing liquid out of the tube, we kept it flowing. 

She made up a song. 

“Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands,” she sang to me before I started every time. 

Each time Dr. Schmidt removed a lump, he found the tissue in the perimeter around it was not clear, so he had to go back and remove some more. 

The surgeries were outpatient, so Linda got to go home the same day. 

One time, the nurse released Linda before she was ready.

While coughing, she tore out many of the stitches and had to go back into surgery yet again. 

On another occasion, I had to take matters into my own hands. She was listless and wasn’t waking up. 

Linda’s parents were visiting and none of us knew what to do, so I called her oncologist. 

“I will prescribe a patch you can put on her neck like a Band-Aid,” she told me on the phone. “If that doesn’t work, you will have to call an ambulance and have her taken to the hospital.” 

It worked and Linda perked up. 

I found prayer to be a great source of comfort during those bad days. 

I go to a church that has a pretty informal worship service. I remember sitting in front, near the pulpit, praying silently, while those around me were visiting and laughing before the service. 

All of a sudden I felt a bump as a woman I had known for years slid in next to me. She wanted to visit. I did not.

I nearly lost control of my emotions because I did not need a visit right then. 

On that day, Linda was sick and did not feel up to going to church but she wanted me to go. 

I often sought counsel from others who had gone through cancer. 

The year after Linda had surgeries I was doing interviews with cancer survivors to promote the Relay for Life. 

One day, after an interview, I rode down in the elevator with Janet Dixon who had lost her sister to cancer and was herself a survivor. 

“Every time Linda gets cold, I start worrying,” I confessed to her. 

When she told me that was a common emotion for the loved ones of cancer survivors, I felt better. That 30-second conversation helped immensely. 

Now, nearly eight years later, I still watch out for Linda’s health and I tend to be unduly concerned whenever she gets the flu or has other health issues.

I no longer take good health for granted.

Being Frank About Our Pets

 Now that the election is over, let us turn to real life and death issues.

I opened Facebook this week to read this entry: 

"Megan has cancer and the doctor says she has six months to live if we don't have surgery immediately." 

"OMG!"  I thought in Facebook terms. ("Ohmigosh!") I

Wow! A child afflicted with cancer. How horrible! 

Reading on I learned "Megan" was the family pet. (The names have been changed to protect the identity of the dog. We wouldn't want her to be embarrassed.) If you are a pet owner, you might know cancer can affect those loved ones, too. 

Our Butterball developed cancer, received surgery, lived a short while and then had to be put to sleep. 

Butterball was not our Thanksgiving dinner but our pet Poodle and I did not name him. 

He was named by his previous owner who gave him to us because the dog was malformed. One of his testicles was up inside his body instead of hanging in a manly way. The owner wanted dogs to enter in shows and that "problem" disqualified Butterball. It makes you wonder what the judges of Poodle shows are looking at.

Butterball went blind and had been in pain for a while when the vet said the best option was to put him out of his misery and my wife scheduled the day it was to be done. 

Butterball (or simply "Butt" as we called him most of the time) was truly a member of our family. The first year we had him, he played in the snow with us until I noticed how red his little legs were getting. He even went with us to Grandpa's house and Grandpa doesn't like dogs. 

So, it was an emotional time as the awful day approached. 

I was working the night before we were to take Butterball to the vet's office. My commute home from the office took about an hour. On the way home I tried not to think about our friendly pooch on my drive home through country roads long after dark.

About five miles from home, someone's dog ran into the road and I couldn't avoid hitting the animal. It was late at night, there were no nearby houses and I was distraught. 

I started thinking about Butterball and wondered what I could do for the dog I hit. I stopped but I couldn't find him. I turned the car around and shown my lights down that lonely stretch of state highway. Apparently the dog had crawled off into the tall weeds along the road but I could hear no whimpering and could see no bloody trail on the road. There were no nearby houses with lights on that would indicate someone had let the animal out of the house to do its business. 

So, I got back into my car and continued home, upset about injuring or killing someone else's beloved pet while our own Butterball was going to be put to sleep the next day. 

I might have imagined the accident but my car was damaged by the impact and I decided to stop at the nearest police station and report the accident. 

Before I could get to the next town, the image of a woman talking on a cell phone flashed into my view. She was walking down the edge of the road, paying no attention to oncoming traffic. I swerved to miss her. 

I nearly stopped the car to verbally rip her apart. What did she think she was going? Did she want to suffer the same fate as the pooch up the road? 

But I drove on and reported the accident at the sheriff's office. 

Now it was after midnight and later than I had anticipated. I realized my wife would probably wonder had delayed me. 

At home, I told her briefly about the dog and the woman before we went to bed for a few hours of fitful sleep before taking Butterball into the vet. 

But the drama was not over. There was a preparatory shot for pain before the one that would stop the dog's heart, we were told. 

Linda and I were in the room when the vet attempted to give the first injection. Unfortunately, it put the dog into extreme pain and he began screaming in agony. 

The doctor seemed to panic. He threw down the needle and tried another shot. 

"Give him the final shot!" I yelled at the doctor, furious at the whole situation. 

Eventually, our poor, blind, Butterball was out of his misery. Outside the vet's office, Linda and I held each other and cried. 

So, yes, I do sympathize with my Facebook friend. 

I won't remotely suggest tragedy of a pet with cancer can be compared to a human with the disease. But we do love our animals, don't we?

Now, we have a cat we would give away in a heartbeat, but that's another matter. 

Frank Phillips is a freelance writer. His blog can be found at frankphillips.blogspot.com. He can be e-mailed at frank.phillips@gmail.com. 

The new swimming pool

Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008
We bought a swimming pool today!
Not one of the little kiddy pools, but onethat is 18 feet across and 4 feet deep!
Linda and I went to Terre Haute today to buy Logan's birthday presents. We ate lunch at Red Lobster (she had the luncheon shrimp special and I had lunch soup and salad. Delicious! I highly recommend it.).
While we were waiting for our food, I told her I watched DIY network while she was at work and they had a show on building a rock garden. I would like to drastically reduce the amount of grass we have to mow (and buy gas to mow) and make our lawn more attractive. I really don't want to have to buy another riding lawn mower when this one quits – and it's on its sixth year.
We moved here shortly after 9-11 (2001). I went home to pack the afternoon after the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. So, next month will mark our seven year in our home and we haven't had anyone interested in looking at the house since two weeks after it was listed ... and that was a couple months ago. So I think we will still be in the house next spring.
When we sold our house in Waveland, it took two years and three offers before we got it done. We had things packed in boxes behind the couch fr two years! We're not doing that again. We will continue living our lives and enjoying the house.
I think Linda's cancer surgeries have taught us to make more of each day. I've also learned what Carol, my old nursing home administrator boss in elkhart used to tell me.
“Don't sweat the small stuff ... and it's all small stuff.”
She was right.
When I mentioned the rock garden, I added, “And, if you want to get a swimming pool, we need to make room for that next to the big garage.”
“It's funny you should mention that,” Linda said. “I almost bought a swimming pool the other day.”
She got my attention. I thought she meant a pool that cost $300-$500.
“It was on sale for $150,” she said.
“Really? How big was it?”
“It was one of those that the wall rises as you fill it..”
Our neighbor across the back yard has one of those. They have put it up every summer we have been here, I think. Theirs is pretty big.
“How big is it?” I repeated.
“I don't know. Sue has one.”
Sue is Linda's office mate. I tried a different tact.
“Is it like the size of Terry and Becca's?”
“It's pretty big. They have them at Wal-Mart. We'll have to check them out when we're shopping for Logan's presents and I'll get my groceries at Wal-Mart.”
My mouth killed me after we ate at Mario Brothers Friday at noon. I have had three teeth pulled in recent days and managed to stab myself in the mouth with a chip. It hurt all day until I got home from work about 3 a.m. Saturday and brushed my teeth and rinsed with mouthwash. Dark blood came out with the mouthwash bt my mouth immediately felt better. So, I got the soup and salad for lunch Saturday. It was delicious and I had no desire to kill my mouth again.
I am glad we bought the swimming pool, though we robably won't set it up until next year.
We are dogsitting for the newlyweds. Ed and Amanda are at the wedding of some dear friends Amanda met when she first went to Purdue. She was so concerned about attending graduate school at a big university but Ted and Maria became two of her earliest friends and Amanda learned her fears over being swallowed by the University were unfounded.
This morning, after about 7 hours of interrupted sleep, I got up and let Happy Dog out of his dog crate. He wanted to play and I was grumpy.
This was not like me. I used to really enjoy playing with Billy, our Labrador Retriever, and with Butterball, Linda's Miniature Poodle (after he adopted me – he was her birthday present).
So, I felt I was really getting the middle aged grumps, even though I turned 56 this month and 50 is supposed to be the new 30.
So, I was glad to buy the swimming pool (it was n sale for $100 – the sign receipt said we saved $149). We will enjoy it. I have new motivation to eat healthy and become a little sleeker.
We didn't get to go to Florida this year, and we might not next year, Linda said. (My banker wife is keeper of the exchequer.)
It was a good day.