Well, the seven hour drive home to Fort Simpson was a quiet one. We were both at a loss for words. It seemed we were merely going through the motions not knowing what else to do except hold hands.
Typical -- you always think of the things you wish you had asked the nurse or doctor after you get home. Why is that? Now that things were beginning to sink in, I had questions. So I called the next day in hopes that the answers would give me some relief as though maybe we had misunderstood the diagnosis or something. No such luck. I was also told that it would be about two months before he maybe seen by this Specialist in Edmonton. "WHAT!!!" I wanted to scream! "Don't you people understand he has cancer!? How could you make him wait so long." I was so angry. Apparently, this is a normal waiting period for here due to the volume of sick people and lack of operating room time. We may not pay for healthcare in Canada but funding can only go so far and the result is long waiting periods.
Neil woke up the next day and was dealing with this illness in a more relaxed way. He started joking about it. "Hey, I could use this cancer thing to my advantage," he said. "I won't be able to help you with the dishes tonight sweetheart he said, because -- you know...I have cancer. Think of all the things I could get away with not doing, all because I have cancer. Hey, maybe I will finally lose some weight," he said. I am sure I starred at him blankly. At first I thought he was trying to cheer me up so I played along.
At work he told his co-workers the news. They were all shocked and left speechless. Neil made light of the situation and merely returned to work and his daily tasks. It was then that I realized he was in denial and that we were both going through the stages of grief. At that very moment I realized he was thinking the worst and I needed to be strong for him. I needed to be positive about the outcome of this situation in hopes of keeping up his spirits. I don't know if I pulled it off very well, but I tried. I did not treat him differently except to respect the fact that he needed to rest more. When he was at work I would cry all day. I did not know what to do, but I refused to give up. So I spoke to some nurse friends and I hunted the internet for information. We were told that if a person had no choice about getting cancer, that bladder cancer would be one of the better ones to get. When I asked why, they said because there are good survival rates for this type of cancer. We discovered that depending on the type and grade level of his cancer, they maybe able to merely scrape it out and hope it does not grow back. Maybe not quite that simple but along those lines. We started hearing more and more success stories which gave me the confidence I needed to help him fight this battle. For Neil, it was not so easy as there had been three different types of cancer in his family, and this terrible disease took each one of them.
Six weeks had passed and still no phone call with a booking to go see this Specialist. We made plans to start working on packing over the weekend as we were getting ready to move to another rental house in Fort Simpson. A larger place that we had leased before we knew about the cancer. Too late to change our plans now. What happened next neither of us expected....things went from bad to worse.
Saturday morning Neil woke up feeling sick and a little feverish. Two ladies at his work were off sick as well so we assumed he had picked up the flu from them. Four days later he was getting worse and complained about being cold and not being able to get warm. He was under 3 blankets and still felt cold as ice. He was shivering and became unsteady on his feet. I rushed him to our Health Centre and he was seen by a doctor and a nurse immediately. The next thing I know they were telling me he was going to be flown out on a MediVac to our nearest city hospital in Yellowknife. They believed him to be Septic, but no idea why or how. He turned jaundiced and cold and yet was sweating, none of these symptoms were good. They started him on an IV of antibiotics and monitored his blood pressure which was everywhere but where it should be. I was calm through all of this and by his side until they took him away from me and put him into the ambulance to take him to the Medivac plane. Because there was also a second patient to go out on the same Medivac, I was told there was no room for me to go along. I felt every muscle in my body go limp. As I said good-bye to my husband I could not hold back the tears. "What if he died," I though. What would I do without him, I was all alone.
Well dear friends we will pick this up again tomorrow. Thanks for reading along...Tori
No comments:
Post a Comment