Wild and Precious Life

by Deborah Ziegler

  As I listened to them talk about all the things that they’d seen Brittany do, the feats she’d accomplished, the places she’d been, I realized that I had moved some baby steps on the denial continuum. They were beginners, in full denial. “Brittany’s not a quitter. She just has to fight. She can beat this,” Larry said.

  “No, she’s not a quitter.” I nodded in agreement. “But the way I understand this is that fighting buys time—not life.” In the last thirteen days, to my surprise, I’d made some progress in shaking off denial and accepting reality. Pain deepened in my friends’ eyes, and their body language was familiar. Brittany must see the same in me, except my resistance to the ugly and terrifying truth must be even more transparent. I knew there had been times when, like them, I looked conflicted, my hands clutching the chair arms tightly, as I simultaneously angled my body away. Away from her face; from what she was trying to tell me.

  I knew that denial distracted me with racing thoughts conceived in a subconscious effort to keep me from hearing the truth. I was still doing it, missing important bits of information because my mind sprinted ahead with self-soothing lies. In watching Larry and Sherri, I was able to see that I had made a tiny move toward accepting the truth. The irony was that for the first time since my daughter’s diagnosis, I comprehended the frustration that Britt must feel with nearly everyone she spoke to. Sherri and Larry loved us. They were just beginning to understand Brittany’s terminal diagnosis.

  As I walked my shocked friends to the front doors of the hospital, for the first time I found myself thinking, They don’t get it. It’s only smart to fight when there’s some glimmer of hope that you can win.

  When I returned to the eighth floor, there was an African-American man in a clerical collar sitting near the nurses’ station. He stood to introduce himself.

  “I just went in to see your daughter,” he said as he shook my hand. “She kicked me out in one flat second.”

  Tears welled up, stinging my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said. “She’s just so angry. She was raised as a Christian, but right now she feels that God has deserted her.”

  “That is perfectly understandable.” He looked closely at me. “How are you doing?”

  “Not well, I admit. I think I’m losing my mind.” I brushed at the tears.

  “Can I pray with you?”

  I sat and let him hold my hand and say a prayer, but my mind was a million miles away. I quickly forgot my impatience with Sherri and Larry’s inability to grasp the truth as I returned to upholding my own version of denial. I sensed that Britt would not win this battle; but I still longed to purchase more time. The minister droned on while in my mind I placed my faith in the hands of science, a second surgery.

  My relationship with God had cooled in the last few days. Forty- five percent, God?

  Brittany repeated the circle of information to each nurse, technician, or guest that came into the room. Gary, Dan, and I had now heard this speech many, many times. The record played over and over again, until I imagined grabbing the needle and scratching it across the vinyl. I imagined stopping the words that hurt so much, hearing the horrible zipping sound as I cut a path across the grooved surface.

  I stepped out of the room to escape. I asked a nurse at the station about the broken record syndrome. “She’s going round and round, like a hamster on a wheel,” I explained.

  The nurse said that she’d been in Brittany’s room and had witnessed her ruminative thinking. “The medication she’s on makes it worse. It’s a catch-22. She needs the meds for pain and swelling, but they exacerbate this kind of circular thinking.” At least now I knew a possible medical reason for her behavior.

  Of the three of us, Gary was the least patient with the circular conversation. He spent all of his waking hours looking for a potential cure or treatment, and he found Britt’s negative circling conversations daunting. He was unable to keep a placid face when she started the repetitive loop, and often would excuse himself from the room.

  When I told Gary about my dream, he was deeply disturbed. “Deb, you need to take breaks so you can stay strong. Don’t you see?” He rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “This dream is about torture because listening to Brittany’s circular repetitive monologue is torture.” My husband ran his hand across his forehead as if he were erasing the image.

  “If we can just buy some time,” he kept saying. I searched my husband’s kind, tired face. He was committed to finding a solution, never once considering that there might not be one. He was that type of person. Positive. Make it happen. Gary mastered in business at Harvard. He had run Fortune 500 companies, flown all over the world, spoken with leaders in industry. My husband was a big-picture guy who tended not to get mired in the past. Oriented toward advancement, he was firmly rooted in a world of data and research. Gary was blunt and confident, and he loved Brittany and me with his whole heart.

  Gary was the one person whose reaction Britt noticed. “If he can’t take it, keep him out of the room,” she said. So Gary spent a great deal of time in the waiting room, on his computer or phone. My husband was interested in an idea that revolved around administering the treatment of choice, preferably immunotherapy, in conjunction with the individual’s own immune system’s natural cycle. It had been used effectively with melanoma patients at Mayo. He couldn’t get any of the doctors a UCSF to listen for more than a few seconds. As soon as they heard that the tests were on melanoma patients, their attention drifted.

  Only three days after her craniotomy, Brittany was deemed healthy enough to go home. The goal was to let her bruised brain settle down and heal for sixty days, and then another MRI would be taken. In the meantime, tissue from her brain was being analyzed. As soon as those reports came in, the oncologist would call Brittany for a consultation. Anytime we asked anything about the surgery, we were told that more would be known after the histology report.

  No one would talk about life expectancy or proposed therapy until the report came back from the pathologists, who inspected the slides of tissue culture collected during surgery and delivered diagnostic data based on their analyses. Everything hinged on the histological examination.

  So for now, everything we thought we knew about the tumor was set aside as we waited for the findings. Brittany had known this before us. “Momma, this is one of the major reasons I agreed to the craniotomy. Doctors don’t really know jack until they have tissue. We don’t even know for sure it’s an astrocytoma.”

  I should have known this. Why does my poor sick child have to be the smart one? Why am I moving around in a depressed fog?

  Gary flew home to check on my father, our home, and our dogs—all of whom had been taken care of for the last two weeks by our friend Pamela. I returned to Brittany’s home with her and Dan.

  Brittany was allowed to shower but not to soak, rub, or scrub near her incision. Finally, she would be allowed to rinse her stiff wad of hair. The staples would be removed in eight to ten days. She was given a cream with which to gently massage the incision.

  Carmen and I helped Brittany climb into the shower and sit on a stool. Dark orange water ran down the clean white walls, splashing onto the floor. Brittany was careful not to let the spray directly hit her incision area. She used shampoo and conditioner liberally until the water ran clear.

  Carmen searched for more conditioner as I helped a towel-wrapped Brittany out of the shower and onto a chair we’d pulled into the bathroom. For the next hour, Carmen and I used multiple bottles of conditioner in an effort to save some of Brittany’s long hair. At first we finger-combed, then we used a wide-tooth comb. Eventually, backs aching, we looked across Britt’s scarred skull at each other. We had to admit that we couldn’t get a portion of the hair below her shoulders untangled. It was a hopeless rat’s nest. We could comb through the hair in the back to just below shoulder length, but there was a snarl there that resisted any of our attempts.

  “It’s okay,” Brittany said, weary of the task. “I’ll get it cut tomorrow. I guess I sho
uld be happy that I have any hair.”

  The new shoulder-grazing haircut was longer in front than in the back. When it was clean and parted on the side, you couldn’t see Brittany’s scar. But since we were putting the ointment on the incision every night, the hair naturally parted there.

  Girlfriends came to visit. I saw the shocked look on their faces. Brittany looked so cute. So healthy. So full of piss and vinegar. I watched her girlfriends laugh and talk normally with her. When Brittany entered the circle-of-death conversation, they nodded as if they totally understood. Who were these strong, resilient young women? How could they do exactly what Brittany needed? How could they listen and not fall apart? I was so grateful that they could be there for Brittany, calm and dry-eyed. We were over two weeks out from the diagnosis, and I was still stumbling around with swollen red-rimmed eyes.

  Brittany was charming and funny with her friends, but tired easily. When they left, her charismatic façade slipped away and the Brittany who lashed us with discourses about her plans for death and the fucking unfairness of the situation returned. She was cranky and at times mean-spirited with Dan and me.

  If I made the mistake of saying that maybe the surgery had bought enough time for us to look for a cure, my daughter looked at me like I was insane. “Cure? There is no cure. This is a death sentence. Oh my God, Mom, please tell me you aren’t still thinking I can survive this? I’m the walking dead.”

  She also made it clear that she didn’t want anyone telling friends or family without her permission that she’d just had a craniotomy.

  My sister Sarah had sent some videos for viewing while Britt recuperated. One of them was British comedian Eddie Izzard’s Dress to Kill. Brittany and I snuggled up on the oversized couches as Bella burrowed under the blanket.

  Eddie Izzard, a British comedian, was irreverent as hell. He was wearing high heels, a Japanese pajama tunic, and shiny pleather pants. Izzard began with a few insults about San Francisco. Britt turned to me and said, “His shtick is so smart. He’s hilarious.”

  Eddie did a bit about how the Spanish Inquisition wouldn’t have worked well had it been the Church of England, because it would have been all about having tea and cake with the vicar, or you’d be killed. You’d be given a choice: “Cake or death?” As he continued with his riff, I watched Britt’s face to see how she’d react to this unexpected turn. Eddie was jumping from one side to the other, playing both the inquisitor and the prisoner.

  “Cake or death?” he snapped at the prisoner.

  Then, pretending to be the confused prisoner, Eddie turned to field the question, saying, “Eh, cake, please.”

  Brittany laughed loud and hard, and I joined in. We both grabbed our sides and fell over on our respective couches. Prisoner after prisoner chose “cake” until the Church of England ran out of it, much to the last prisoner’s dismay.

  I wanted to meet this ridiculous genius. I needed to thank him for giving us our first really good laugh, our first good time—and for all I knew, our last. I would’ve hugged that silly, satiny, Japanese tunic—clad man so hard, had I been given the chance. I knew that he and Brittany would have loved each other.

  12

  High School Hell

  1999—2001, Ages Fourteen to Sixteen

  It was only high school after all, definitely one of the most bizarre periods in a person’s life. How anyone can come through that time well adjusted on any level is an absolute miracle.

  —E. A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

  Eighth grade graduation. How could I have been so practical in the face of such ludicrous excess? But I grew up in Texas, where there was one graduation. Two, if you were lucky: high school and college. But I wasn’t in Texas anymore, and I should have done my homework.

  My daughter had insisted she needed a fancy dress. “People are getting really dressed up, like for a dance. They’re getting their nails and hair done.”

  “Well, that’s absurd. I won’t buy into it. It’s middle school graduation, for Pete’s sake.”

  But later, as I watched eighth-graders tromp across the gymnasium floor in full-length gauzy gowns and tiaras (can you believe it?), with fake nails and glitter in their coiffed hair, I realized that I’d made a parenting faux pas. Somewhere between the empire waistline, above-the-knee, sleeveless shift that Brittany wore and the Glenda the Good Witch frothy ensembles that some students glittered in, there might have been a middle ground. As my statuesque daughter slipped a cardigan on over her dress, I regretted drawing such a hard line.

  I also knew that the graduation dress argument was the beginning of a long line of such discussions, if my daughter got her way and entered a private Catholic high school that coming fall. It was attended by the children of professional sports heroes, well-to-do attorneys, and doctors. But frankly, I hadn’t heard such great things about the school. The student parking lot was full of new Tundra trucks, Beemers, and Benzes, while the teachers’ lot was just like any other teachers’ lot—filled with buckets of bolts.

  Brittany had been in private Episcopal schools since first grade. I wanted her to attend the local public high school and navigate these difficult years in a more diverse environment. But she’d thrown herself on the bed and cried for hours. “Everybody I know is going there!” she wailed.

  My gut instinct told me this environment would be bad for Brittany, and I tried to hold the line. But in the end, I caved. Brittany started ninth grade in 1999 at the forty-two-acre campus. During that first year, I’d get off work at the middle school and drive the one and a half miles to pick her up. Over time, I came to wish I’d held my ground about not going to this school, where there was a significant drug problem in spite of the drug dogs’ visits.

  Picking Brittany up, I pulled into the small circle near the administration building, parked, and watched high school boys head for the track in the late-afternoon light slanting through stately trees. As a gaggle of girls rounded the corner of the building, I was amazed at the short length of their skirts. The school uniform looked almost pornographic on some of these girls, like an adult Halloween costume.

  My heart always fluttered when I first caught sight of Brittany among the plaid skirts, white kneesocks, and oxford shirts. I knew the way her long neck swiveled as she talked to friends; the way she spotted my car but never acknowledged that she knew I was there. I still wanted to talk about our day, maybe go out to eat. I still wanted to be close.

  But now we were the furthest thing from “close.” Brittany dropped her stack of books in the back of my now-decrepit two-door Saab, flipped the front seat back up, swung her long legs in, and reached for the radio knob. I told myself that I could listen to whatever it was for the short trip up the hill where we still lived in our small home. The music was loud enough that conversation was impossible. I was pretty sure that was the idea.

  I’d asked how her day had been. The answer was either “okay” or a long speech about how stupid the teachers were.

  “But you wanted to go here,” I protested, eliciting a withering glare.

  “Dude, if this is how it is at private school, just think how bad it is at public.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t call me ‘dude.’ ” For some reason this really bothered me. I wasn’t a “dude.”

  “Dude, chill. I’m cranky ’cause I had to walk all the way to BFE to get my English book. I left it in beeotchy dragon lady’s room.”

  “What’s BFE?” I asked.

  “You don’t really want to know, so don’t ask.” Brittany had taken off her platform Mary Janes and was rolling down her white kneesocks.

  “I do want to know.” I waved my hand in the air to indicate that the socks were rank, and cracked both of our windows.

  “Buttfucking Egypt.”

  “Brittany! That’s disgusting. Can’t you just say ‘out where Christ left his sandals’ or something that doesn’t use the f-word?”

  Brittany laughed. “Whatever. I’d probably get in more trouble
for disrespecting Jesus than for saying ‘fuck.’ Mom, you are so lame. You just passed our street.”

  “Darn it.” I saw the street sign fly by.

  “No biggie. Just flip a bitch.”

  “What’s that?” It was like she was speaking a foreign language sometimes. I signaled to turn left.

  “Just flip a U-turn. Duuh!”

  A former customer of mine from my semiconductor sales job called and mentioned that a man I’d met five years ago at a sales luncheon was newly separated and had moved from Florida to California. “Why don’t you go out to eat with Gary?” my friend asked. “He’s lonely, and such a nice guy, even though he’s a bit older.”

  “I’m never getting married again,” I said. “I’m focusing on my teenager and trying to get through these years with as little drama as possible.”

  “You don’t have to marry him. I just think it’d be good for you to have some male companionship, get out once in a while. Besides, it’d be good for Brittany to not feel like she’s your sole focus.”

  Britt and I had seen a counselor on and off during her teens to discuss her resentment toward me, and whatever else was bouncing around in her hormone-fueled brain. The counselor had the same opinion about dating that my friend had. So I accepted a date with Gary, with the caveat that we meet in the parking lot of a local restaurant. He didn’t need to come to my house or meet my daughter.

  For Southern California it was an unusually cool evening, so I wore a full-length pink wool coat with large shoulder pads. In fact, it was my only coat. As I slipped my arms into it, I realized that it was a leftover from catalog shopping in the late eighties. But what did I care? I wasn’t out to impress anyone.

  I arrived on time and sat on a bench in front of the restaurant. I’d told Gary that I’d be wearing pink, and that I drove an old Saab.

  “Really? I drive an old Saab, too. We have that in common,” Gary said.

  Ten minutes went by. Even in my coat, I was chilled, so I went inside and sat in the waiting area. Another ten minutes went by. I called home.