Seasons (33 page)

“That’s me,” I say, standing to follow her.

“Have a seat in exam room three, dear.” She directs me to a room.

Why does it have to be three?
I dislike odd numbers,
I think idly as I walk in and have a seat. The nurse takes my vitals, and then lets me know that Dr. Rochelle will be in shortly.

After waiting what feels like hours, Dr. Rochelle knocks and then enters the exam room with his nose in a file. He’s a short, balding man with bifocals. “Mrs. Madden?” he questions reaching out to shake my hand. I nod. “I’m Dr. Rochelle. It looks like you just had a baby recently and are having some hip pain as a result?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“First of all, congratulations. Boy or a girl?” He smiles warmly at me.

“Thank you.” I beam back at him. “A little girl, Abby.”

“Very pretty name. Now, your hip, can you tell me, is it a sharp pain or more of an ache? Does the joint itself do any popping or anything funny when you walk?”

“I don’t know if it’s even worth looking at, but my gynecologist suggested it when I mentioned it at my six-week checkup. It’s more of just an ache in the joint. No, no popping or anything odd, just a constant ache.”

“When did the ache begin?”

“Sometime during my third trimester.”

“So we can rule out the cause being from labor itself. I’m going to have you lie back, and I’ll take a look at it. I’m going to move it around a bit and you let me know if anything hurts.” I lie back and Dr. Rochelle moves my leg from side to side and pushes on the sides and inside of my hip. “Does any of that hurt?” he asks.

“Not really hurt, just feels like its adding pressure to the ache.” I shrug.

“I think just to be safe we’re going to do a work up. We’ll do an x-ray before you leave today and see what we see. Then, we can go from there.”

Once the technician is done taking pictures of my hip in the x-ray room, I’m shown to an office to wait some more. Dr. Rochelle enters with his nose in a file again moments later. He has a seat and looks up at me from the file smiling, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes like the warm, cheerful smile earlier.

“Mrs. Madden, looking over the x-ray I’m a little concerned. It looks like there is some fracturing on your hipbone. Where it’s at isn’t what I would expect to see if it had occurred from pregnancy or a fall. I want to do an MRI, which will show us more of the whole picture. It could very well be nothing, but I’ll feel better if we check it out. I’m going to send you over to the lab. I called down, and they have an opening in an hour.”

“Oh…okay…” I’m confused. What will an MRI tell them that the x-ray couldn’t? I have fractures in my bone? That sure explains why my hip aches. “I’ll need to call work and let them know.”

An hour later, I’m put into a huge tube where I’m told to hold as still as possible. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic or I would be totally freaking out. There is this loud knocking while I’m in the machine that is unnerving. About a half an hour later, I’m taken out, allowed to dress, and told that they will call me with the results.

I go back to work for about two hours and then home to my baby. Mom and I order some junk food and catch up while ogling over Abby. It’s nice to have my mom around I have missed having her close by, but my life is here now.

I didn’t tell Chris about any of this because I’m not worried yet, so I didn’t want to worry him either. He’s focused on the baby so he probably forgot I had a doctor appointment anyway.

The next morning, I’m at work when I get a call from Dr. Rochelle. “Mrs. Madden?”

“Yes, this is her.”

“I would like to discuss the results of your MRI. I was hoping we could set up an office appointment to discuss it.”

Panic sets in at his words. “Okay, sure. Is something wrong?”

“We found something in your scans. I think it’d be best if you came into the office and we could talk about it.”

He fits me in that afternoon, and again, I have to take off work in my first week back. My nerves are all over the place when I wait for the doctor. What could they possibly have found in my hip? It’s just a hip ache.

Dr. Rochelle comes into the office and shakes my hand with the usual pleasantries. He’s looking at me with that pity look you give someone who just lost a relative, though. The same look everyone who knew about the first pregnancy gave me when they heard. Something is very wrong here.

“Mrs. Madden, I’m glad you could make it in today.”

“Sure,” I attempt a smile, but I’m thinking
why the hell am I here
.

“You are probably wondering why I couldn’t just tell you over the phone. We have found something in your scans that is probably the cause for weakening your hip and the fractures were the result. There are two tumors on the bone and in the cartilage of your hip. They are small, but we can’t tell if they are cancerous or not until we do a biopsy.”

I feel like all the air in the room has just been sucked out of the room. “Cancer?” I manage to choke out. I feel like something is gripping my throat, keeping air from entering.

“We won’t know until we do a biopsy. We can get that in this week if you would like, and then once we have the results from that, we will decide how to proceed.”

“Cancer?” I squeak out again.

“It is a possibility.”

“Dr. Rochelle, I don’t have time for cancer. I have a newborn at home.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Madden. I know this must be a shock. Let’s do a biopsy before we worry. It could still be nothing, just a pain in the butt.” He attempts to comfort me, but I see it in his eyes. He thinks it’s cancer. I’ve met all kinds of people in my years and learned to read them well. He has already condemned me in his mind.

After nearly a week of waiting and wondering and trying to pretend that everything is okay when my stomach is in constant knots, Dr. Rochelle confirms my worst fears. I have cancer. It’s in the cartilage of my bones. There is a laundry list of treatment options he gives me. I hear none of them.
How am I going to tell Chris
is all that keeps running through my mind. How do I tell Chris that his wife is terminal?
Terminal
. What an ugly word. I have heard it before but never thought much about it. It means my life will end. I’m dying. How can I be dying? My life just started? I have everything I ever wanted...

“Have you told your husband?” He pauses. “Mrs. Madden?”

“Yes, I’m sorry. No, I haven’t told Chris anything yet.”

“You may want to bring him in, and we can all discuss treatment. These have some really good information about the disease for you and your husband,” he says handing me some pamphlets. “These have some excellent support groups that can be very helpful, also.” 

“I need to go,” I say standing up, grabbing my purse and the pamphlets. “Thank you, Dr. Rochelle,” I say in a haze. I haven’t cried. I can’t cry. I feel nothing, just numb. I know there is a mountain of anger and pain hidden somewhere, but it’s dormant at the moment.

I go back to work and try to bury myself in work to keep my mind off the shit pile that just landed in my lap, but I can’t. Instead, I spend the entire day researching. There has to be a way to fix this, a treatment, something to cure it. What I learn is that there are treatments to help, possibly give you more life, but nothing will cure it. The testimonials all show that while it may prolong my life, that life will be miserable.

At the end of my search when I’m about to give up all hope and accept that I will die within a year or two, I find a natural healing page. Prior to today, I would have probably laughed at this and called it hocus-pocus. At this point, I’m desperate. I read testimonials of the holistic healing. The patients seem to do well and the families say the patients lived longer. There is nothing about the pain or suffering like the chemo and radiation patients I had been reading about earlier. I print some information on it before heading out for the day.

I have to tell Chris tonight. How can I destroy him like this? It feels as if I’m about to tell him I had an affair. I called Mom earlier in the day to ask her to watch Abby for me so Chris and I could go out to dinner. I meet Chris at a small local restaurant we love. He’s already there when I arrive after work. Standing, he pulls out my chair for me, kissing me before I sit. He has a seat next to me.

“How was your day, babe? You look tired. Have they been working you hard since you went back?”

“No, work has been fine.” I try to smile, but it doesn’t take. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay…that doesn’t sound good.”

“It isn’t.”

“Brynn, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me.” He looks sad and reaches out for my hand.

I clasp his hand tight and begin. “I went to the doctor early last week for my hip. They did an x-ray, found something. So I went for an MRI…then a biopsy.”

“A biopsy? I don’t understand. For what? And why didn’t you tell me any of this before now?”

“I didn’t want to worry you if it was nothing.”

He swallows hard. “Is it…something?”

“Chris, I have cancer.”

“Cancer?” he asks in a barely audible whisper.

“It’s in my bones. They can help it, help me live longer, maybe,” I say as the dam finally breaks and the tears filling my eyes spill over in droves. Chris pulls me to him and I throw my arms around his neck. I can feel Chris crying. “I’m so sorry.” I quietly sob into his neck.

“Sorry? What are you sorry for?” We are both silent for a long while. We just hold each other and cry quietly in our own thoughts. I don’t know what I’m sorry for really, but I feel like I just ruined Chris’s life. “Brynn, I’m sure there is something that can be done. Surgery? Chemo? Some other experimental treatment?” I just shake my head no. “Stop, listen to me, you are going to be fine. You have to be fine,” he says, pleading with me to give him a different answer.

“I spent the entire day researching after I met with the doctor. I don’t want to see a doctor about it again. They will want to give me drugs and chemo and other painful things that may make my life longer, but I will want to die. I don’t want to live like that. I found some holistic treatments. I want to give them a shot. The studies I found on them showed the same results as far as giving you more time and they seem…gentler.”

“We will do whatever you want, just give me more time with you. We just had a baby, Brynn. I need you. Abby needs you.” I think that if the restaurant had been quiet, you would’ve actually been able to hear both our hearts break when he said her name. I grew up with a wonderful mother, but my baby girl won’t have a mom. We share a bottle of wine and skip food altogether before going home.

*   *   *

When we get home, I go into the nursery and hold my sleeping baby in my arms. I rock her in the glider and just smell her baby scent, memorizing every single detail about her as I cry until I fall asleep holding her.

The next day, I quit my job at the firm. Chris agreed it was best. We tell our family and friends little by little what is going on. Each time, it’s heartbreak all over again.

Telling Mom was the hardest. At first, she tried to be the commanding voice of reason and insisted I go back to a doctor. When she realized the decision was already made, she held me and we cried. She ran her hand down my hair over and over saying only, “No mother should outlive her child.” 

After that initial shock, Mom became my rock. Really, she always has been. She was there through everything. Always a gentle hand providing me just enough guidance to teach me how to do things on my own.

For weeks, I stay home with Abby, crying and being angry. Chris tries to comfort me, but how do you comfort someone who is facing death? How do you comfort someone when you need comforting yourself?

One day, I wake up and I just feel different. I don’t cry that day. Something I dreamed changed things.

I was a little girl again, back in Maine. I was running down my winding street, and I dipped under the pine trees giggling. When I got there, Devin was sitting on the rock. I went to sit down next to him and he put his arm around me. “I’m dying, too,” I said to him.

“Brynn, we’re all dying. Everyone dies sometime, but you’re not dead yet. So stop dying and live.”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be. There is much more to be scared of in life than in death. Just live, Brynn. Be happy and live. Make the time you have count.”

For the first time since finding out, I woke up without the heavy weight on my chest. I rolled over and made love to my husband that morning. I spent the day with my daughter and my mom shopping. Stopping at a travel agent that afternoon, I booked our first family trip. In the years after quitting my job, I took the time to do things I wanted to do my whole life but was always too busy studying and working to actually do. I converted our office into an art studio so I could paint. I painted anything and everything beautiful that I loved. It was therapeutic, and in a way, it was my way to leave reminders around the house of me for Chris and Abby.

I enjoyed every single snuggle, every kiss with my daughter. I reveled in lovemaking with my husband and the quiet moments between us. I took in everything, committing it to memory. I worked hard for so long and all the money we made, instead of racking up doctor bills, we spent money going on trips and making memories. We spent days at the beach frolicking in the sand. At a fair one time, we had a mold made of the three of our hands holding each other. I hope the mold of our hands makes them smile when they see it. I hope it reminds them that I’m still around, even when I no longer am, and of the infinite love that our little family shared.