Silence Is Golden
There was a nurse in Jeff's room when I got there. She told me that he had been restless all night and in a lot of pain. They increased his pain meds to make him lie still. I was told that he would probably sleep most of the day and that his recovery from the surgery would be somewhat slow because of the amount of his colon that was removed and the fact that he still had cancer throughout his body. Just looking at his face was enough to tell that his pain level was high; instead of having no expression, he had a scowl on his face. She said that he had not spoken and had never been fully awake.
I sat on the sofa in the room and turned the TV on with the volume down low. I just wanted a distraction. There were many things that I probably needed to be thinking about, but I didn't. I wasn't concerned with what would happen to me after Jeff died. I was more concerned with the hell he was going to have to deal with before he died. I was angry that this horrible thing could happen to him, but there was no one to blame. I had not witnessed the demise of anyone with cancer before; I had only seen the end result of what it did to people. I knew it would be terrible for him; I just didn't know how bad awful it was. I would soon find out.
Jeff started stirring around and moaning, and my attention was redirected to him. I bent over him to try and understand what he was saying. He kept saying, "hurt." Then he started fumbling with his IV and his dressing. I hit the call button for the nurse. I told him that he was okay, that he was in the hospital, and he needed to stop grabbing things. He asked, "why." I told him he had an operation, and he needed to lie still. He apparently could not remember what was going on, and I didn't refresh his memory; I just left him with the surgery explanation. The nurse came in and gave him a shot in his IV; he was too out of it to self-medicate himself with a morphine drip. Plus, they had to keep him calm, so the direct injection into the IV was the quickest way to ease his pain. This scene would play over and over until I left the hospital at 1 in the morning. On my way out, I asked a nurse how long he would be like this, where he was entirely out of it. She told me that they would have him wake up more and make him move around a little starting the next day. Poor Jeff.
I got home at about 1:30. I fed the animals and took the dog out. It was two a.m. when I set my alarm for 5:15 a.m. I had to go to work, and these grinding hours were going to be my new "norm" for a while. Tiredness was going to be my closest friend.
I dreaded going to work. I was maintaining self-control pretty well but knew if someone started getting sympathetic that I wouldn't be able to handle it. That's just the way I am. It was hard looking at my co-workers looking at me with sad faces. I could feel some of them staring at me, but so far, nobody had verbally said anything to me, and I was grateful for that.
When my boss finally decided to show up, she told me to come to her office. Oh, I did not want to do that. I didn't like her to begin with, and she had already given me The Suzy Sunshine speech on the phone, which I did not appreciate. She asked me about Jeff's surgery and wanted details. As hard as it was, I made it through telling her without crying. And then she said one of the stupidest things anyone could have said; "I'm so glad his surgery went well, now see everything will be all right." I felt my face getting red. I wasn't just upset at her for saying it; I was upset because she was stupid. Somehow I was able to ask her without sobbing, "Did you not understand me? He has terminal cancer. He has cancer cells all over his body; he will be dead in 3 months. How the hell will that be alright?" Then, tears started pouring down my face, and I walked out of her office and went outside by myself. Inside I was shaking all over. It felt like I was going to have a breakdown. I was calling her every name in the book for making me feel this pain. It took me about 45 minutes to get myself back in control. I had stopped shaking and dried my tears and was ready to go back and talk to the idiot. I was walking back to the elevators, and someone asked me what was wrong, and it all came tumbling out again. I didn't know how I would pull this off; I was as close to a basket case as I had ever been.
I went back to that woman's office and told her, "Look, I have to work as much as I can for the next two months before Jeff is moved to hospice care, and I take a leave of absence. Unless you want me to have a nervous breakdown, you will have to tell everyone in this office not to approach me about my son. I don't want to hear anything about it; I can't stand to hear anything about it, especially somebody telling me there is hope because there isn't. If you can't do that, then I am going to leave and go to my doctor right now, and when I have a nervous breakdown in his office, he will put me out on disability with pay." Her mouth was hanging open. She was stunned, and I was pissed off. She agreed that she would tell everyone to leave me alone and not mention it unless I brought it up. Mission accomplished.
Now all I had to do was make it through the rest of the day and then start my hospital shift. My dance card was filled out for the next two months. I was going to be unavailable for anything, and I expected everyone to understand that. But, I was wrong, and you won't believe who the biggest, most selfish, demanding person would turn out to be. No, you just won't believe it.
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