M y neighbor Sharon Hall has end-stage cancer.
Treatments will moderate the pain and lengthen her life a few more months. Or they may make her feel even worse.
When an aggressive, fast-moving cancer silently invades your personal space and a trusted oncologist talks about months not years, it’s a crapshoot. That’s what she’s decided.
“And I never was all that good at shooting craps,” she says.
One day she thought she’d pulled a muscle tugging the lever on her recliner. When the pain didn’t go away, she saw her doctor. An X-ray revealed the large tumor in her lung already advancing on her bronchial tube. That was in late November.
There have been many tests and procedures since then ordered by her family physician, the oncologist and the radiologist.
Cancer is in her spine, female organs and bones: so many dark spots on the printout images she carries in the three-ring notebook. The notebook, prepared for her by the oncologist and his staff, contains information about cancer, treatments and side effects as well as pages where she can record questions she wants to ask.
The notebook is part of my job. I listen with her when the oncologist and radiologist discuss protocols and possibilities. I ask questions. I write down answers.
“You’re good at that,” she informed me. “I need you to do this.”
And so I do.
Sharon is 68. We’ve been neighbors and casual friends for half a dozen years or so. She is single, long-ago divorced, without family. Her support system is a small circle of friends, me included, who accept her choices and help her find laughter whenever possible.
At first she insisted on driving by herself to radiation therapy, but the daily 120-mile round trip got to her quickly. She took pain meds and went to bed immediately when she got home. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally.
So friends offered to drive.
Sitting in the waiting room of the radiology center morning after morning becomes much like a spiritual experience. Miracles come and go. Brain tumors caught in time. Surgery followed by radiation. Cancer wrestled into submission, even defeat.
The waiting room is a place of hope. People smile and greet one another. They are assigned the same time during their weeks of radiation so it’s a familiar group. Sharon has been 10:30 for three weeks. Rose in the red turban, on my right, is 10:45. The retired Marine a few seats away is 10:15.
They are warriors all, engaged in the same battle, needing and sharing encouragement. A dozen fresh doughnuts to go with coffee are presented with a flourish by a new arrival. Sharon is enthusiastic.
“I haven’t had a sugar doughnut in weeks,” she says licking her fingers.
When a young mom comes out from the treatment rooms carrying the mask that pressed hard against her face, day after day for weeks of radiation, there is a small cheer.
It means her radiation is over.
“We’re burning that sucker tonight,” her husband, holding their small son, says. Smiles all around.
Red-turban Rose has such a mask and weeks of radiation ahead. Surgery removed cancerous tumors from her lung and brain. Seeing a “graduate” gives her a boost, she tells me.
The young man with a thick scar on his shaved head nods. “That mask hurts like the devil. I can’t wait to burn mine.”
Sharon too is at the end of this round of radiation to reduce the tumor in her lung. She comes out for the notebook and me. It’s time to talk about what’s next.
If she agrees, she will begin chemotherapy in a few weeks. The oncologist wants to start immediately, but Sharon wants time to “breathe” and “room to think.” Her physicians understand this.
Chemotherapy may extend her life a few months. It may help with pain. There are drugs to help with the nausea. They can’t promise those drugs will work for her. She is more interested in the quality of the life remaining rather than the quantity of days.
The radiologist tells her there may be more side effects from the radiation in the weeks ahead. She leaves with prescriptions to relieve the pain in her throat and other side effects. She is very, very tired.
Sharon is determined not to hold pity parties.
“I’ve had a really good life,” she says. “There isn’t much I haven’t done that I wanted to do. After all, we’re all going to die, I just have a better idea about the when and the why.”
She has, with more treatments, perhaps seven months. That will take her to peach season. Her best friend from Arizona visits when the peaches are ripe. Her friend would come right now if Sharon asked, but asking is among many decisions she is considering.
She may choose to do nothing more.
Her oncologist has helped her complete a list of “directives to physicians” outlining her choices for care as death nears. Knowing that directive is in place comforts her.
“You should write about me,” she says as we are driving home.
“What would I write?” I ask.
“You could say how good the doctors at the clinic are and how much everyone on the staff cares about each patient. People need to know that. Cancer isn’t always like mine. Some cancer patients leave that clinic with years left in their lives. It is a place where you can still hope.”
“And I will say you hope to pick peaches with your best friend,” I tell her.
“Yes,” she says, “I’d liked to be here for the peaches.”
Linda Bryant Smith writes about life as a senior citizen and the issues that concern, annoy and often irritate the heck out of her now that she lives in a world where nothing is ever truly fixed but her income. You can e-mail her at ljbryantsmith@ yahoo.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
