by Linda Zercoe
That last one was a concept that I had no way to understand in the context of the life I had led thus far, but somehow these thoughts still entered my mind.
Doug was very happy this holiday. He settled into his role as sole provider, coming home to his castle, the smell of bread baking, children caroling (on the stereo at least), traditional life circa Donna Reed, and a happy wife (relatively speaking), apron not included.
Chapter 16
Ensnared and Embroiled
January–October 1997
January 2, 1997
At the moment, there is no crisis. I’m feeling pretty good, happy even! I went back to the gym today. I can finally relax and focus on what makes me happy, focusing on my health and the kids. I’m still go, go, go. On the road a lot.
March 26
I now go to a Bible study once a week on Wednesdays. I am learning so much, and it is helping me to be increasingly peaceful. The women there are wonderful. So far, we’ve studied St. Paul’s 1 Corinthians and are now on 2 Corinthians.
I went with Lyn to the local hospital last week where we committed to volunteering in a federally sponsored breast cancer early detection program for the underserved community. I’m very excited about getting involved. It’s a weird feeling returning to the hospital as a worker again and not a patient. I thought this would be a good place to start my involvement with the other side of breast cancer.
Things are going well with Doug. We seem to be getting along so much better. He thinks he is right on track to make partner in two months. He bought his boat, a little 14-footer, and just got a truck—he’s in kid heaven.
Kim seems to be doing better emotionally since she started seeing the therapist; her headaches have seemed to diminish. She is much less irritable. She appears better able to manage her course work since I’ve limited her telephone time. She auditioned and made the concert choir this week. I don’t think I’ve seen her this happy in months. It was very positive for her. She was one of 12 out of a class of 30-something students that auditioned. So, needless to say, now she sings all the time. I’m very happy for her.
Brad has been a bit sassy lately. I guess that is what you get with a teenager in the house influencing his behavior. I just have to keep him channeled positively.
Today I finally saw Dr. Donald (my angel) for my horrible allergies. It’s great to have a normal medical problem. Also, I have decided to explore the feasibility of reconstructing my left breast. Hopefully they can do it before the summer. The prosthesis is so hot and sweaty.
April 2
Where is the time going? It just zips by. I looked in the mirror today, and I’m getting old. It’s so weird, I still feel 20 mentally, but I don’t know physically (I’m pretty out of shape). I’m told that I look great for my age, but I think I look old and weary. I’m going to be 40 this year. I was 16/17 when my mom was 40. Wasn’t that just yesterday? Now she’s 64. If my next 24 years go by this fast, it really makes you feel like we are only here for an instant. You have to wonder why we are even here at all.
The kids are off this week. Kim is attending a lifeguard training class all week. We have our nephew visiting. Today was a great day. I had to drop off and pick up only Kim. Other than that I was home with the boys, stenciling, refereeing, doing laundry, etc.
My allergies seem better on the new medicine, and now I have an appointment with a plastic surgeon to explore breast reconstruction.
We had a wonderful Easter visiting with family. Brad is getting so big. Sometimes he is so playful and funny. Other times he can be such a wise guy. I need to pay more attention to him and play with him more.
One morning, I received a telephone call from the guidance counselor from the high school.
“Good morning, Mrs. Zercoe. I won’t take but a moment of your time. I’d like to know if you wrote the note that I have in my possession excusing your daughter Kimberly from school for the afternoon.”
Stunned, I asked, “Could you read me the note?”
“Sure Mrs. Zercoe, but I have to tell you that I have an entire folder of notes like these in Kimberly’s folder.”
I thanked her for the information. I wasn’t an angel as a teenager. But by high school I’d settled down. When Kim got home that afternoon she made some excuses and was grounded again, this time for forging my signature and skipping school. She told me that it seemed as though she was always caught anytime she crossed over the line.
“So stop crossing the line,” I said.
The remainder of the school year was a whirlwind of activities. A local plastic surgeon was not very optimistic regarding possible reconstruction of my left breast. He told me that the skin was extremely thin in the mastectomy area so he didn’t think a saline implant was a good option. He thought he could possibly do a type of reconstruction called a latissimus dorsi flap, named for the muscle from the side of the back, which is detached and then folded over to the front of the body to rebuild a breast. But before that procedure, he would first need to surgically place and then gradually stretch the muscle with an expander implant. This type of reconstruction would also probably require skin grafts from other parts of my body, like my thighs, after I had grown a temporary boob on my back.
I was very discouraged since it was not an appealing procedure. I was concerned it could leave me weaker on the left side of my body, and I was left handed. I also thought of the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz when he told how the witch had taken this part of his body and threw it over there and then took that part and threw it over here. How much could you rearrange someone’s anatomy?
On June 1 Doug finally made partner. We celebrated in style at the local Chinese restaurant. The spouses were invited to the new partners meeting in New York the following month. In the middle of the month Kim and I went to see Madame Butterfly in San Francisco. I started crying from the moment the first act opened, and escalated to outright sobs by the end of the last act.
Yes, it was a sad story, but what I realized was that the Colorado River’s white water of my emotions was being dammed up by all my damned running around. I wasn’t allowing myself to think about anything that day or any other day. Instead, I would always say to myself, à la Scarlett O’Hara, “I can’t think about that right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”
This expression, or one very much like it—If I think about it today, I will surely die—had served me well for many years and helped me survive. But the incident at the opera was yet another clue of the approaching emotional tsunami I had thus far managed to keep in check.
July was an exciting month. Doug and I went to New York for his “induction ceremony.” We stayed at the Plaza Hotel by Central Park. The wine was flowing. We had plenty of schmoozing, a trip around the island of Manhattan on a boat, complete with an artist doing caricatures of the passengers. Every night, at the end of the day’s festivities, there was a gift from the partnership awaiting us in our hotel room. The gifts included flowers, a silver Tiffany picture frame, a basket of fruit, chocolates—so lovely. The formal black-tie signing ceremony came complete with a silver pen, photos, dinner—and the news that, in the case of divorce, the spouse needed to sign documents waiving the right to sue the firm for 50 percent of the new partner’s capital in the firm, present or future.
Incredible.
If the spouse refused to sign, the potential partner couldn’t be inducted. So what are you supposed to do? You sign and think, Boy, are you an idiot. So here I was, once again totally dependent on my spouse and screwed to boot. (No lawyer booths were available for on-site consultation.)
While we were in New York, Doug and I drove out to Long Island to see my Aunt Barbara, who was receiving home hospice care for pancreatic cancer. She had been diagnosed only months before but was already nearing her death. She lay in a hospital bed in the living room of the house she and my Uncle George shared. I could see that she was wasting away from the cancer. An epidural pump trickled morphine or Dilaudid into her spine
for the pain, in addition to the morphine drops that were being given under her tongue. How many years was it since I was last there? It was hard to see her like this, still so young, so recently vibrant. I went over to her bed and held her hand. She knew I was there and said hello and how happy she was that I came. But it was hard to hear her.
I was speechless. What do you say to someone who is dying? It’s not going to be OK. Do you ask if they are comfortable? I racked my brain trying to think of what to say that might be appropriate. I could think of nothing except how sorry I was that she was going through this and how much I would miss her. I looked down at her bony hand with tears in my eyes. After a long while of saying nothing, I stood up, bent over her bed, carefully trying to put my arm around her, and whispered in her ear, “I love you, Aunt Barbara.” What else was there?
I missed her funeral.
I felt very emotional while I was in New York. Seeing friends and family saddened me since we lived so far away and missed sharing our lives more intimately. After being in Manhattan, I also realized I was still mourning my career and my former relative independence. I worked hard to feel better before the end of the trip, remembering that New York was just a plane ride away. I quickly rationalized that I was successful, having come through to the other side of the cancer ordeal. I had new friends in California who had supported me, and I had been supported both in person and by telephone by friends and family from the East Coast. I concluded that there’s more than one kind of success.
When we returned home I turned the big four-oh. Doug had planned a surprise luncheon for me and twenty or so friends at a local restaurant. He ordered beautiful flowers for the table and remembered every detail. My gift was a diamond heart necklace that he’d bought for me in New York, plus a trip to London and Paris with Kim, where we were going to meet up with Nancy at Heathrow Airport. It was the fourth anniversary of moving to California, three and a half years since the first breast cancer, two years since the second, and one year since losing my job and my second breast.
Kim and I met Nancy, who of course had also just turned 40, at Heathrow. I was worried out of my mind when she didn’t arrive when expected. We waited at the airport, flopped in chairs, exhausted, watching the parade of the Middle Eastern women shrouded in burkas followed closely behind by airport porters carting their Pierre Cardin or Louis Vuitton luggage wrapped in clear plastic. Nancy finally arrived, a little tipsy, having just met a wonderful man/drinking buddy on the plane.
We spent a week in London seeing the sights. I was the tour guide, planned the day’s sightseeing, meals, shopping, teas, and whatnot. Kim and Nancy were the ducklings. Then we took the Eurostar high-speed train through the Chunnel to France, where we were going to stay with my former boss from Bank of America, Jacqui, at her apartment in Paris.
Jacqui was a very gracious host. She cooked some meals for us and accompanied us on a few of our outings. One of my favorites was going to the open-air market to shop for food. There was a little shop for everything—a fishmonger, a wine merchant, a butcher, a patisserie, a cheese shop, a baker, a produce market and maybe even a candle maker. Jacqui was fluent in French and whisked around the streets with ease. She was also taking cooking classes at Le Cordon Bleu and having a gown custom made for a short trip to San Francisco later that year for the opening of the symphony.
I starting thinking about all the things that I’d wanted to do since I had cancer. But the fact was that I couldn’t do anything but the same old thing and now had even less freedom than before because I had no job, much less money, and no childcare. All this made me feel provincial, stupid, and trapped in my current life. I was jealous of Jacqui. I consoled myself by viewing her as a role model of what life could be if you set your mind to making your dreams come true. The problem was I didn’t know what the dream was anymore.
On the days when we were on our own, not understanding the language, the ducklings opted for McDonald’s or some other American fast food chain. This was not what I had in mind when I came to the culinary capital of the world. The trip started going further downhill for me when Nancy and Kim weren’t interested in spending any time at the Louvre.
We traveled by train to the town of Giverny to see the artist Monet’s home and gardens. I absolutely loved the beauty of France, and I was thinking I wanted to move there as well. One day we went shopping at Le Bon Marché, where I spent hundreds of dollars on beautiful French lingerie that I could wear with my breast prosthesis. In the dressing room, I remembered that I was still angry and sad about losing my breast. Spending all this money on underwear wasn’t going to help me to feel prettier or happier, even though I had never seen lingerie more beautiful! I was becoming more determined to find a way to reconstruct this breast. By the end of the trip, I was finally saying Au revoir! instead of Bonjour! when taking my leave, albeit with a New Jersey accent.
We celebrated Brad’s seventh birthday. The fall began with Doug taking a work trip to Hawaii. I couldn’t go. Doug went to New York. I couldn’t go. Doug went to Los Angeles. I couldn’t go. I was busy keeping the home fires burning and shuttling to soccer practice, games, and Cub Scouts. When the weekend rolled around, Doug used every opportunity to go camping with Brad, his brother, and our nephews. So when was there time for us?
There wasn’t. I began to think this was by design. I was unhappy again, felt unloved, unvalued, and not special in any way. Nothing was clicking on the job front, or the relationship front. I felt disgusted and absolutely stuck—no options. Needless to say, attempts to try to discuss this with Doug went nowhere, support was absent, our relationship desolate. My questions were met with evasion or sarcasm. When I would withdraw between skirmishes, Doug would parry with gibes and antagonism, even making faces at me and sticking out his tongue. Then he would suddenly act as if nothing happened. I thought that this was all crazy making. If I was depressed before, it paled compared to how I felt now.
I continued going to church and to Bible study. Obviously I was still missing something because I was definitely not at peace, nor happy—not even happy that I had survived. I thought, is this it? Is this what my life is supposed to be? I thought that maybe as a couple we had lost sight of everything that mattered. I proclaimed that we were just roommates who didn’t get along.
Near the end of September, I got the name of a Christian-based counselor from Lyn, but I told Doug that he needed to call. I thought he needed to show some effort to meet me somewhere along the path toward improving the situation.
He did, and we met with this man four times. He told us that our relationship was toxic. (I knew that already.) He told us that we had poor communication skills. (I knew that too.) He didn’t think there was anything he could do to help us since our troubles were enormous. It was his opinion that Doug and I were both very angry people and we were both apathetic about changing our behavior.
Finally, he recommended a Catholic-based marriage encounter program called Retrouvaille. He told us that this was more or less the end of the road, but that sometimes even after a couple is separated this could help, if we were willing to do the work. Around this same time in the Sunday bulletin at church, there was a little section on Retrouvaille and a telephone number. I had never seen this in the bulletin before or since this time. Was this what God wanted?
At this time, I was beginning to seriously contemplate the work of getting a divorce. How did we get here, divorce or Retrouvaille? In either case it was the end of the road and it would be work—more work—which I resented after everything else I had been through. I opted for Retrouvaille, but I wasn’t optimistic. What if that failed too?
Meanwhile, I was referred to a plastic surgeon in San Francisco to explore breast reconstruction options. I was interested in pursuing a graft from my backside, the last option, since two doctors had already told me that I could no longer have a simple implant due to the infection damage in the area. I really liked this new doctor. We consulted, and he didn’t think that the gluteal flap was necessa
ry. Besides, he said, “Why would we want to ruin a perfectly good ass?”
I thought he was funny, and I trusted him instantly. Most of his practice was correcting congenital or accidental injuries to the face. His waiting room was always filled with patients of all ages in varying states of repair.
He did not think there would be any problem putting an expander implant under the damaged skin, stretching it, and replacing it with a permanent implant down the road. It would mean, however, that I would have to have two more surgeries.
“All right,” I said, “I need some good sleep anyway.” We scheduled the first procedure, the placement of the expander, for December.
I recommitted to working on my dollhouse again. I took a three-day class to make a miniature Christmas tree. Kim was testing for college admissions and got her driver’s license. When she began driving other girls from the neighborhood to school, she told me that she couldn’t hear them talking in the car. She thought there was something wrong with her hearing.
Her doctor referred her to an audiologist, where she was tested and diagnosed with an auditory processing disorder. This meant that she could hear only noise in one ear and had to overcome the noise while still trying to hear everything with her other ear. The audiologist said that typically people with this problem had trouble learning foreign languages and learning in a lecture-based environment. She said Kim had to be very smart to compensate for this disability as well as she had.
Now I knew why I’d needed to spend thousands of dollars on tutors and that Kim hadn’t just been slacking off since we moved to California. She couldn’t hear and process the information once the style of teaching changed in middle school. Interestingly, since this was considered a handicap, she would be allowed to have a tape recorder or a human note taker in all her classes. She was also told that if she wore an earplug in her good ear she could perhaps train her other ear to hear. In the infinite wisdom of adolescence, she opted to do none of the above.