Wishing on a Blue Star (56 page)

“Do you remember what he said?” she asked, and it was a rhetorical question.  How did you
not
remember your dying lover’s last words?

“He said, ‘Bye Jimmy.  You can catch the next star.’”

Celia nodded.  “C’mon, sweetheart.  It’s broad daylight outside—there’s not a star in sight.  You can go star-catching later, okay?”

Jimmy pulled in a breath and shuddered it out, and stood and offered Celia an arm.  She took his arm, and leaned her wet cheek on his sleeve (the other sleeve, so now he had a matched set), and they moved toward the brightened hallway.  It was the full sunshine of late October outside, without even a hint of rain.  God, Jimmy wanted a rain to fall, something that would wash away the grief and the lead roots that seemed to bind his heart to the ground.

Not yet, he thought, hearing the pained chatter from the backyard.  Not yet. 

The party was winding down, and it was time to listen.  People would speak wisely now, and be truthful, and memories of Connor would be thick and real, and his presence would be as palpable as the fluid light from the autumn sun. 

Winter was coming.  Stark branches, stark thought, bleak hearts, and the terrible void of Connor. 

Maybe when spring returned, and the trees grew thick with leaves, Jimmy could perch in the nest he’d made with his mate, and think once again of flying. 

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

It’s all just noise...

Tuesday, the 30th of November, finds me on the outside of four ICE therapy treatments, with the results of the latest comparative CT scan in hand, and in so much physical pain I want to scream.

The good with the bad, as per usual.

Doc admitted me to the hospital on November 15th, and warned me he would be there over the weekend, but would begone the following week. I was hit with the usual sense of dread knowing I would have to contend with the weekend warriors. Doc knew it too, because the next words out of his mouth were to offer a choice of warriors to check up on me that week. I chose one over the other, knowing Dr.P had at least a minor propensity to *pretend* to listen to me, and that was fine, except HE was on vacation over the Thanksgiving holiday, leaving me with the worst choice of all.

Naturally, she came in, wholly inundated by her own sense of godlike powers and started delivering ultimatums.

“I want to stop the blue.”

“Why?”

“Because based on your blood tests, I think you are becoming hemolytic.” (A fancy word to say that my blood was being destroyed.)

“Okay... How many doses of blue have I had so far?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You can get that information from your nurse.”

I told her I wanted more than just her “I think.” to go on, and got back some noise about how she didn’t have to prescribe it (“Sit down and shut up,” in other words.) and no, she couldn’t let me go home. (I didn’t even have a chance to ask.) Not with the condition I was in.

Fair enough, and even justifiable, but she would have saved us both a LOT of grief if she had simply treated me like a thinking individual and told me there had already been FORTY-SEVEN doses of blue (as compared to the twenty-six we stopped at during the third treatment.) That would have been enough “concrete data” to convince me right there, but no, we don’t talk to patients like they have a brain. Not when we firmly believe that ‘doctor is god’.

The conversation ended with me telling her it was all but impossible to keep control of my mouth and thoughts and to get out before I lost it altogether and really started yelling.

Turns out she was right enough, or at least as much as I could tell from the specious data I could glean from her. Her solution however was to pump me full of the antibiotics that Doc took me off of once he could not find a reason for the transient fever spike. Spikes I have had off and on and she would have KNOWN, if she had bothered to read my back chart or even listen to me when I told her so.

The end result of that was retaining so much fluid in my legs that they began to split and weep, but by that time she was out of the picture and I was back to working with my first choice, who after a few arguments did finally decide to cut back on the IV delivered medications. (There is still significant swelling even now as I sit here at home typing this, and as I mentioned, the pain is excruciating.)

He also ordered the CT scan that Doc talked about before he left. The one that would be a comparison to the baseline scan prior to starting the ICE therapy. Pretty standard procedure, and that was completed on the Sunday afternoon prior to Doc’s return on Monday.

Too bad I made the mistake of asking a certain nurse for a print-out of the result. She chose to fall back on the safety of policy and not give it to me, despite my having demonstrated
repeatedly
that I was well able to handle any unknowns it might present. The end result of that is she significantly precluded the time I would have had discussing the results with Doc when he made his rounds, and all in favor of giving me grief because she doesn’t care for me all that much.

Too bad, Jessica. Your petty bullshit still cannot negate the essential news of that scan, which Doc “interpeted” in formal language for me so I could include it here:

“All the lymph nodes have returned to normal size (less than 1.5cm). The liver and spleen are back to normal. Basically, no evidence of lymphoma seen anymore. Of course we still know that there are viable lymphoma cells SOMEWHERE in there, but using this CT alone you could not identify where. This would be called a complete remission (CR) and is truly the best results one can obtain.”

In the grand scheme of things, when all is said and done, I am only one insignificant blot in an otherwise huge, encompassing design, and anything I might say or have to say in the future is all just noise, but with this last scan and the result it proffers, however long that result will last, all that noise is still music to my ears.

My deepest, heartfelt thanks to all of you who have stood by, held me up, let me fall softly and picked me up again throughout all of this bizarre roller coaster ride. Without you, I am certain I would have lost the few marbles I still possess and become as arbitrary and recalcitrant as anyone else might have in my position. Without you, I would have ceased to be me.

With the sounds of a new future playing music in my ears, I bid you all a fond farewell, hope we might still keep in touch as that future unfolds, and look forward to a time when I can someday meet you all face to face and give you the hugs and love you so richly deserve.

Until then, take care, and beware the weekend warriors!!

Patric

Afterword

Elizabeth North

In the early summer of 2010, I was sitting on my front porch swing, swapping tales with Patric about the antics my sons get up to with virtually unlimited acreage, a golf cart, power tools, and sometimes more imagination than sense. Patric was filling in with his own adventures from childhood, including homemade fireworks and police stations, and I can say with complete certainty that it is a good thing that Patric and my sons live on opposite sides of the continent. The world would not be safe if you combined Patric's ideas and sense of humor with my sons' youth, determination, and lack of fear. Having said that, it is my fondest wish that someday soon my sons will have a chance to meet Patric because Patric Michael is one of those rare individuals who touches your life, no matter how briefly, and you walk away a better person for the experience.

During that conversation, Patric said to me that people were starting to ask him how he wanted to be remembered after he was gone. He wasn't sure how to answer them. He had definite ideas about what he
didn't
want, but only the seed of an idea for what he did want. That seed grew into this book.

At that time, several authors had already written stories for and about Patric, and he felt that all of them combined were a good representation of the many facets that make Patric unique. He felt that if you combined the stories with his experiences as set forth in his blog, it would create a book that was both an accurate reflection of who he was and a record of the highs and lows of fighting cancer. His wish was that others fighting cancer and their families might find help, comfort and understanding through his shared experiences. He wanted to offer what we all long for
—
a chance to connect with someone else with similar views, feelings and experiences and to be really understood. He hoped with words to achieve that moment of “
here is someone like me, someone who has felt the way I do.
”

As we were putting the final touches on this volume, I was talking with Patric. I asked him how he felt reading the draft now that it was in actual book form. His first comment was, "I wish I'd done a better job editing my blog entries before I posted them." The customary tension relieving joke was followed by, "I'm too close to it." Those words tell me that we succeeded. Not in being able to capture everything that makes Patric special
—
that would be impossible
—
but in coming as close to Patric as we possibly can and sharing that irrepressible man with you.

January 2011