A DEATH TO DIE FOR

by Geoffrey Wilding

  I knew she was worried that something might not get done and I thought that it might be this that had made her cry so I went through them all with her one by one, I felt that at least I could put her mind at rest about this if nothing much else.

  Some of the envelopes contained business letters and others held cards or letters written by friends and family who really didn’t believe what was happening to me and who couldn’t quite find the words to express their feelings of helplessness, I read them all intently, some emotionally and then Helen helped me to place the cards on the cupboard, I then explained to her the one or two items that needed to be dealt with and she made notes on her pad which she then deposited back in the bag.

  Kate arrived just before lunchtime and after a while said that she thought that she should take Mum to the hospital restaurant to get something to eat because she felt that Mum had not been eating properly, Helen protested that she wasn’t really hungry and didn’t want to leave me on my own but I said that she needed to keep her strength up and that she should go with Kate.

  When they returned Helen had with her one of her bag for life bags which Kate had brought in, from it she produced a small thermos flask and while undoing the top she told me that before visiting Kate had taken some of the cranberry juice ice cubes and crushed them with a rolling pin in a plastic bag.

  She showed me the crushed pink ice in the flask but before letting me at it she proceeded to take a clean tea towel from the same bag and tied it around my neck to save my clothes and the previously commandeered bathroom towels from any spillages.

  Next Helen pulled up a small chair and sat in front of me, she poured some of the crushed cranberry ice into the flask’s cup and with a spoon that also appeared from the bottomless bag, this girl thinks of everything I thought, she carefully put a small piece into my mouth, how glorious the taste was but I tried to swallow it too quickly and immediately convulsed into a coughing fit, score one to the tea towel.

  The second attempt was more successful and so we continued the process until most of the manageable size pieces of cranberry ice had been consumed, I was elated because now I had taste, swallow and extra fluid, another small victory which put a smile on my face and set me up for the rest of the day.

  We had just finished tidying things up when the consultant knocked on the door and entered, I was sat in the chair and Helen and Kate moved away slightly so that he could perch on the edge of the bed, he asked how I was feeling today, I said not too bad and explained about eating the cranberry ice which he thought was a very good idea and that he was impressed at how Helen and Kate had organised it.

  He then gave a little cough and looked at Helen, the tone of his voice altered and consequently the mood in the room changed almost instantly and I knew that the conversation was about to move in a more serious direction, he said that he had seen the results of the MIR scan which seemed to show that the cancer had got bigger during the last seven days since the previous CT scan and that it looked very much as though it was eating into the bone of the skull itself.

  I’m sure that my mouth must have dropped open and my eyes widen at this news because he leaned forward and placed his hand on my right arm.

  After a short pause he went onto say that where the nerves pass through the skull there is a hole which would normally be about the diameter of an ordinary pencil, however the MIR images had shown that this hole is now nearly as big round as his finger which he demonstrated by holding the little finger of his right hand between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand.

  I had a sudden surge of heat pass through me much like when you are angry or embarrassed but I was neither, I just felt numb at this devastating development, I thought how can this be, surely I would feel the pain of this.

  Helen let out a stifled cry, she stooped down in front of me almost at a kneel and held onto both of my hands, she squeezed them tightly and then standing up again she faced the consultant and asked him if he was sure, he replied that from the scan images there was little doubt that things were getting worse which bore out their previous diagnosis, he said that he was sorry that he could not hold out any better hope.

  Helens shoulders dropped noticeably and Kate moved close to support her, the consultant asked if there was anything he could do or get for us, I heard Kate say nothing at the moment thanks and so he left closing the door behind him on the way out.

  Kate remained standing as Helen moved to sit on the bed next to the chair, she gently pulled my shoulders towards her and cradled my head in her arms and the three of us stayed in this unmoving tableau for what seemed quite a while.

  I was the first to break the moment by saying that I needed a tissue to dry my eyes and blow my nose, Kate said that she would get it and disappeared into the shower room, with her back to me I heard her clear her throat and pull some tissues for herself and when she came back into the room I could see that her eyes were red from crying.

  I took the tissues from her and gave a hearty blow and in a croaking whisper told them that this was nothing that we hadn’t expected and that we must make the most of the time that we had left and with that I stood up and we gathered together in a huddle.

  The afternoon moved by slowly, Kate eventually said that she needed to go into the town to pick some up some bits which she had run out of and after saying that she would see me later she left waving to us through the corridor window.

  When Helen and I were on our own she said that as there was nothing else to be done and my care could be carried out by the district nurse or possibly even a Macmillan nurse that she wanted me to come home where she could look after me for the rest of the time we had.

  I had already given this some serious thought during one of my quiet moments alone and said to her that I didn’t want to go home to die and leave her with memories that might cloud her judgement about moving on after I had gone, it was a certainty that she and Jim would not have the finances to continue living at the house and I said that it wouldn’t be fair on her emotionally to have to sell but feel that she couldn’t.

  Helen tried to protest but I remained firm and said that the best thing would be to arrange for the hospice coordinator to come and see us to discuss what options there were, she sadly and reluctantly agreed to ask the duty doctor to set up a visit.

  By now Kate had returned with her shopping and it was time for them to get home to prepare the meal, we said goodbye and they left.

  I saw the consultant pass the corridor window, he came in and sat on the edge of the bed next to me in the chair, he said that he couldn’t leave today without seeing how I was coping with the latest news, I said that it had really brought home the finality of the situation to all of us.

  His next comment surprised me, he said that he would like to try one more thing, he said that he would have to get it passed by the relevant people at Birmingham hospital but he wanted me to have a PET scan (Positron Emission Tomography) to show exactly what the cancer was doing, I asked him what good would it do, he replied that he couldn’t know and it was probable that it would only confirm all of the previous tests but that the results might benefit others in the future.

  This felt like one final straw was being offered to me so I took hold of his wrist and whispered that I didn’t want him to give up on me and that if he could manage to sort out this cancer I would work hard to sort out the paralysis.

  His expression warmed slightly and he said he would do the best he could but that it would be unlikely that it would make any difference to my outcome.

  Once he had left I texted Helen to say that they wanted me to go to Birmingham hospital, ping! a reply text in capitals blared NOW! I texted back and said no, I’ll tell you about it later.

  Helen, Kate and Jim arrived about 6.30pm, she could see that my demeanour was improved from earlier in the day, they gathered around me in the chair and Helen wanted to know what had happened after they had left and I explained as best I could what the consultant had said to me which was that alth
ough it didn’t mean that anything would change it felt that if they could find out more detailed information about the cancer then they might just be able to slow it down with treatment of some kind and at least give us a few more weeks.

  Helen put her hand on my shoulder and smiled and just then Alex and Ian arrived and were told the new information, everyone felt a little bit happier and wanted to know when I would be going to Birmingham and for how long but all I could say was that I wouldn’t know until the consultant came back to me about it but that I hoped that whatever happened I could still have this room back when I returned.

  Later after visiting time and the nurse had administered the due contents of the drugs trolley I tried to settle down to sleep but my mind was buzzing with how things had changed in the course of the day.

  Wednesday 7th December 2005

  I woke up and used the facilities but as explained previously the mirror above the sink in the shower room was a small oblong in which I could only really see my head and shoulders so I was completely oblivious to any problem as I waited for Helen to arrive.

  I had stayed in my night clothes as she had promised to wash my back with the shower today because it was something I was finding difficult to accomplish on my own.

  She had only just entered the room and given me a kiss when she suddenly stood back and with a concerned look on her face asked what had happened to me, I raised my eyebrows and shrugged my right shoulder in as much as to say I didn’t understand what she meant.

  Helen started pulling my dressing gown open and then looked down the front of my night shirt and round the back of my neck, she told me that I was covered in blotches, she asked me to stand and then pulled my nightshirt up and I could see that my torso was patterned like a leopard skin with dark red blotches that also went down the front of the top of my thighs, Helen then pulled the leg of my underpants to one side which exposed the even greater horror of an elongated blood blister in the crease of my groin and further investigation showed another equally long blister on the other side.

  I was worried at what I saw and asked what she thought it might be, she said that she would go and bring the nurse back to have a look at it, when she arrived the nurse wasn’t sure what it was either and went off to locate the duty doctor, some minutes past during which Helen gave me a further close inspection.

  When the duty doctor got there he almost immediately understood the situation, he stated that he was sure that what I had suffered was a sever reaction to the doses of penicillin I had been receiving and that I probably had now become allergic to it, he said that he would contact the consultant and sort out some different antibiotics and that in the meantime he would arrange for someone to come a couple of times a day and apply steroid cream to help clear up the skin blotches and blood blisters.

  The panic was over now that we knew what the problem was, the first thing that happened was a nurse returned with a red wrist band which she clipped onto my arm to note my new allergy to penicillin.

  About an hour later someone did arrive to apply some cream, it was a very tiny man of Asian abstraction who spoke hardly at all, I suspect mostly because he didn’t much like the job he had been given, so that you some idea as to how diminutive he was, normally when medics put on nitrile gloves they have to stretch them to get them on but on this chap they were as wrinkled as Nora Batty’s stockings and he was probably no more that 4’-3” tall in his stocking feet so that the blue disposable polythene apron he had on almost reached to his ankles.

  He brought two tubes of cream with him and with very little conversation between us he applied the contents to the affected skin, as this was going to take some time Helen said that she would like to go and catch up with some of her work colleagues to see how things were going in her department and to keep them abreast of what was happening to me.

  It must have taken the tiny chap a good half hour or more to cover me in steroid cream which was made all the more difficult for him because of my hirsuteness, when he had finished he lobbed the empty tubes, apron and spent gloves into the waste bin, I asked what time he would be back, but because of my roupy voice he must have thought I said ‘same time tomorrow’ because he nodded, smiled brightly and just said ‘Yes’.

  So much for my back wash I thought as I now felt greasy all over so I decided to put my towelling robe back on, I plugged the food pump back onto the NG tube switched the pump on and lay on the bed.

  When Helen came back she was accompanied by our solicitor whom she had met in the corridor, he had just come back from holiday, on the way to the room she had briefed him of the seriousness of my current condition and as he already knew he was coming to assist me with a new will he approached the bed and gave me a subdued and quite formal greeting saying how sorry he was that this was happening to me.

  He sat in the chair and took out a notepad from his briefcase, Helen sat on the edge of the bed and held my hand, I explained that I had written a will around the time Helen and I had got married some eleven years ago but that it was fairly irrelevant now that my demise had been forecast within the next two to three weeks, I felt my knuckles being squeezed tightly, I tried to give Helen a reassuring look and failed abysmally, she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

  I confirmed that I just wanted a simple statement in the will leaving everything to Helen, he said that this would not be a problem but that there may be some tax advantage depending on how the property was divided and he would look into this and come back after the weekend with a document for agreement and if I was satisfied, for me to sign.

  I thanked him and he left.

  Helen and I were both feeling deflated after having such a solemn discussion and rather than stay in the room and reflect on it I asked her if she fancied another walk down the corridor, careful not to drag on my NG tube I pulled on my track suit bottoms and slipped my feet into my slippers but left my towelling robe on and then with my right hand pushing the wheeled drip stand and Helen supporting my left arm in the crook of hers we once more stepped out into the corridor.

  We shuffled on until we reached the double doors, Helen asked did I feel tired at all, but not wanting to return to the room just yet I said that I would like to wander a little further this time, so we turned right into the adjoining corridor and passed the nurses station, one nurse looked up from her work and smiled and although it was a friendly smile I somehow still got the feeling that she knew she was looking at a dead man walking.

  We arrived at the next set of double doors at the entrance to the ward, Helen stepped ahead and opened them and I shuffled through into the main corridor, I hadn’t been this far from the room for over two weeks, it did feel that I was on a bit of an adventure.

  I could see to my left that the corridor came to an end not too far away and that there were windows that we could see out of and as I hadn’t seen the world in general since my admission into hospital I persuaded Helen to let us walk to the end of the corridor so that we could take in the view.

  Our progress was slow but eventually we arrived at the end of the corridor I looked out onto the world and things that would not normally be of any interest such as how people parked their cars took on an unusual significance and from one angle we could look along the side of the hospital to a high level canopy which was a design feature of the building.

  I held Helen close and said that it reminded me of the time we had taken a cruise on the Oriana and could look along from our balcony to the bridge of the ship, she agreed with me that there was a certain resemblance and we spent some time reminiscing about what we had done on the cruise, I reminded her that I had given her a china thimble for our ‘cotton’ wedding anniversary and that she had collected sea salt in it from the balcony rail each morning which she confirmed that she still had at home wrapped in Clingfilm.

  Rested enough to attempt the return journey, we took our time in retracing our steps as we were in no particular hurry to get back to the room however as we rounded the corner through the doors and
passed the nurses station we could see the ‘little man’ with his blue gloves and blue disposable polythene apron standing in the distance looking this way and that and we suddenly remembered that I was to have a second coating of steroid cream, so we tried to speed our shuffle and as we got close he told us that we needed to hurry as he had left this to be the last job before he went home and he only had half an hour left now.

  As he started slapping on the cream Helen said that it was about time she went home anyway and that she would see me later, so she craned her neck in over the top of the little man who was stooped in front of me and gave me a kiss before she left smiling at the scene she was leaving behind.

  He hurriedly applied the second coat and then quickly divested himself of his protective garments and left, I felt a twinge of jealousy that at least he could go home at the end of the day.

  Evening visiting came and went, before she left Helen said that she would come in a bit earlier tomorrow so that she could help me have a proper shower before the next cream application, I told her that I would look forward to it.