by Deacon Rie
A few weeks prior, a ragged band of foreign insurgents had hit an American convoy in the city of Al Fallujah. One of the soldiers killed in the ambush was a general who served as a commander in the 82nd Airborne. Stephen knew plenty of airborne paratroopers and they were the type who took an attack on their commander extremely personally. It had gotten ugly and now units from the 82nd were making daily hits in the city to suppress and disarm locals who had turned hostile towards American troops. The situation inside Al Fallujah was going from worse to intolerable as the city turned against its foreign ally, and self-proclaimed magistrates began publically torturing and brutally killing anyone suspected of being an informant for the Americans. There was even talk about pulling out the non-military contractors from the city. But then arrived the superior officers which meant politicians became involved. And with politicians came cameras. Cameras which caused rational, strategically thinking men to wander far into the land of fairies and pixy dust where they pandered to the media and made promises they knew they wouldn't be around to keep. Unicorns were in full gallop by the time the American viewership was promised a calm, peaceful resolution to the "temporary disagreement." Now Stephen and his men were assisting in the work to resolve that disagreement by riding down a highway and pulling security for a deuce-and-a-half loaded with soldiers who were armed to the teeth. All the while, Hooper kept a watchful eye from atop their humvee and a ready two-handed grip on the trigger lever of his mounted .50 caliber machine gun.
Stephen closed his grip on the phone Chelp had placed into his palm and looked for an opportunity to finally interrupt Tomlison; who was going nonstop about the Chicago Redwings and how hockey was among the few true sports based purely on the speed in which you could lose teeth. Within his pontification, Tomlison did give an off-handed compliment in the direction of rugby players. "They know how to hit but they can't skate. It takes real talent to pull off a full body check while racing at top speed down on the ice." To the best of Stephen's memory, nobody had even mentioned rugby players. But Tomlison was a guy who could generate both sides of a discussion and he didn't wait around for rebuttals. Thinking this one through, Stephen was pretty sure no one had even spoken to Tomlison since he started talking, that of course being the moment they entered the humvee.
Stephen wanted the phone only slightly more then he wanted out of the one-dimensional monologue. He leaned over and gripped Tomlison's arm and told the driver, "Give me a minute to land this call."
"Roger that, Sarge. Of course." Tomlison placed an elbow on the window seam while keeping his right arm relaxed on the wheel of the humvee and settled back into his happy place among the bumper-to-bumper traffic of the barren desert road.
Stephen did his best to listen for Sarah to answer her phone over the steady rumble of the convoy. He knew it would be evening but not before Hailey went to bed so there was a good chance he could speak with her too. Conversing inside the humvee was a difficult, but not impossible task over the roar from the engines ahead. Satellite phones had a decent history of retaining the connection long enough to have a full conversation with someone. Conversations with Sarah had been somewhat infrequent. Communication during the conversations, even less so. Each of their discussions were an attempt to catch up while trying to deal with the challenges of deployment, separation and the pressures of everyday life.
When Sarah finally answered there was a volley of "hellos" as they both attempted to confirm the connection, appreciate the sound of each other's voice, and do their best to avoid talking over one another.
"Did you say Hailey's already in bed?" Stephen hadn't been able to talk with Hailey the last time he called because she had been running a fever and gone to bed early. Sarah's insistence that their daughter was routinely exhausted was a compounding of frustration as he already struggled with the fact that he couldn't tuck his little girl into bed each night. "Can't you just wake her up?" he complained. "She's three, Sarah, not thirteen." Among the challenges he had during his deployment, infrequent conversations with Hailey during his rare calls home tested his patience more than anything.
Sarah sighed, "I can't right now. She needs her rest. I know it goes without saying but I need you to know we really miss you." His wife continued on with their conversation but Stephen could read a tone that hinted at something else needing to be addressed.
"You know I would be there if I could. But I know you gals will be fine until I get back."
"I know. But it's not just the normal stuff anymore." Sarah's voice seemed to quiver.
"Is everything okay? Sarah? What's going on?" Sensing the fear in her voice, Stephen mentally shifted into fix-it mode.
"Stephen, Hailey's still sick."
"What did you say? She's sick again?"
"No, not again. She hasn't gotten better since the last time we spoke… I just don't know," Sarah's voice trailed off as the connection began to crackle, and Stephen knew there was a chance they could get cut off at any moment.
"Did you say she hasn't gotten better? It's been almost a month. How can she still be sick? Did you take her to Dr. Bennet? What did he say? Did he give her…"
Sarah interrupted but her voice faded, "Stephen, I did. Listen, I spoke to… Stephen, he sent us to…"
"She shouldn't be sick this long. Has my mother come by?" The abrupt, commanding tone of his voice caused the rest of the humvee to pause their sideline conversations. Each man respectfully pretended to be disinterested and stared off into their own far off piece of unchanging desert landscape.
"Yes, you're mother has been wonderful. Rebecca's here almost every day when she's not taking your father to his therapy appointments." Sarah tried to regain control of their conversation but she was unsure of what was most important to say during their short chance to talk and the risk of losing the call at any moment.
"Then maybe you need to take Hailey to another doctor off post," Stephen interrupted again, "they can run some tests and find out why she isn't getting better."
Continually pressed by her husband's aggressive tone, Sarah's tone turned direct and forceful. "Stephen, listen to me. The military's program doesn't work the same way your company insurance did. When you activated with the Guard and we switched over to the Army's program, sure, we got the lower rates and that's been great for our budget, but we don't get to choose which doctors we use now."
Unfazed by the frustration he was causing her, Stephen unconsciously sought to manage his wife's efforts. "Okay. Look Sarah, I may not be there but I can still help. On base there's got to be another family practice we can use."
"There's not. Don't you think I thought of that?" Taking deeper breaths, Sarah held a firm grip on the phone and tried not to let her husband's lecture spark off her temper. "Stephen, that's not the real problem. I need you to…"
Grasping for ideas in a situation he didn't fully understand, Stephen continued, "You should be able to get some kind of referral to a specialist or something. You have to push for it, Sarah. Don't let them push you around. Stay on them."
Patiently ignoring the fact that her husband was speaking to her like he would one of his soldiers, Sarah paused and let out a long sigh. "Stephen. Yes. That's what I was trying to tell you. They are sending us to a specialist."
A sense of powerlessness came over him as Stephen realized he truly had no way of helping. They seemed to have always struggled with Hailey's health, more so than other parents. She was that kid who was constantly fighting an ear or sinus infection. The common cold was never more common than with Hailey. But this seemed different; she had never been sick continuously. For a brief moment, he quietly questioned his wife's ability to navigate their daughter through the confusion of the military medical bureaucracy. A burning anguish filled him as he levied unjustified blame on Sarah, and he dropped his tone from commanding to condescending. "Well then, you tell me what's wrong with her, Sarah? She can't be sick for an entire month and the doctor still not know what it is."
Sarah took in a deep breath
as doubt hovered above her next words. Part of her wanted to dump the news on him in repayment for the lecture she had just endured. Another part didn't want to tell him at all. If she didn't say it, would it be any less real? Her husband was on the other side of the world with no actual ability to step in and help. Would knowing do anything but worry and distract him? She thought about his own wartime stress and the fear of him not being able to function because he could be distracted by their daughter's health. What if being distracted caused him to do something that got him killed? Her fears overwhelmed her and as she began speaking before coming up with the words to say.
"They're not sure but the doctors are worried Hailey might have something called neuro…ma." A crackle of the phone's connection suggested a strain in the signal. "It's a…"
Stephen couldn't restrain his tone as he fought with the aggravating combination of not being able to hear Sarah completely through the engine roar and periodic breaks of the phone while the signal traveled to outer space and back. The stress of knowing something was wrong with Hailey only compounded his impatience and his voice rose with a harsh edge over the sound of the transports. "What? She has neuro-base, what? What is that? What does that mean?"
"No. We're not sure if she has it. We don't know yet. The doctor said it might be a neuroblastoma. It's a form of …" She sounded as if she was struggling to maintain her own patience with the choppy connection, but Stephen could tell it was more than the connection that filled his wife's voice with a fearful hesitation.
His heart seemed to stop. His head knew where this was going but his mind couldn't register the reality of the moment. Nothing was right. He felt a strange coolness in the back of his sinuses even as he breathed in the warm desert air more clearly than he ever had. His arms tingled and felt weightless, as if all the blood had drained from them. Composing his words more carefully, he calmly asked, "Sarah, I don't know what that is. What does that mean? Is our daughter alright?"
Stephen jammed a finger into the opposite ear to block out the noise and struggled to hear words which were not being said. In the choppiness of her attempts to respond he tried to fill in the gaps with his own thoughts but they were dark and he pushed them away, opting instead for an attempt to hear her words. This lasted only a few seconds before her silence overcame him. In his feelings of helplessness, he peppered her with more questions. "How long will she be sick?"
Sarah gathered her thoughts and began slowly, "I don't know. I'm trying to get answers. I don't know exactly what to tell you or how to tell you at all. Stephen, listen to me, please. Hailey's not alright. She might be very sick."
"Are the antibiotics she can take? Do they know how she got it?"
Sarah couldn't keep up with as Stephen continued his rapid-fire interrogation. "I don't know. Do you hear me, I just don't know."
Stephen harshly interrupted, "Well, how sick is she? When will we know something?"
"Damn-it, Stephen! Stop. Just stop it!" Sarah paused after the outburst and attempted to regain her composure. "When I took her to see Dr. Bennett she had bruising on her legs and upper back; like, near her neck. He said something about her blood cells getting oxygen and maybe she didn't have enough platelets and that was causing her to bruise at night. It was enough to make Dr. Bennett concerned so he had them run a blood test and then they sent us to the downtown hospital that same day. Stephen, they found… they found a tumor…" A stillness covered the phone's line as Sarah's muffled voice fought through strained emotions in an attempt to finish her sentence. "They found a tumor on her spine."
Sarah's tearful voice reached aimlessly over the line. "Did you hear me, Stephen? It's a tumor. The doctors think she might have cancer. Can you hear me? Please tell me you can hear me."
The silence engulfed the phone and the miles between her words brought Stephen's entire thought process to a halt. He couldn't get a grasp on what his wife was telling him. He heard the words but as he stared out over the desert they were impossible to hold on to. He felt flushed and struggled to focus, unable to make sense of Sarah's explanation. Her words continued to elude him, sifting through his mind like sand trickling off the palms of his hands. It seemed as though someone else pushed the words from his lips as he sat motionless. "Yes. I hear you."
Mile 5
For a moment Stephen regretted calling Sarah. Then, without any intention of his own will, the sergeant's instinct took over and he began demanding answers with direct and accountable responses, "Did you get a second opinion? We need to run some more tests. Who did you see? Doctors misdiagnose stuff all the time. I want the number of someone in charge."
"Stephen, we don't get a second opinion. I'm taking her to a specialist tomorrow to have more blood work done and they'll confirm some counts on her white blood cells. We spoke with them over the phone, and they asked me to plan on being there the whole day because if it is cancer…" Sarah's strength gave in to a wave of sadness. “They said they would need to start chemotherapy the next morning. She might need red blood cells and platelets." She interrupted herself, "I don't even know what a platelet is!”
Taking in an exhaustingly deep breath, Sarah continued, “And if she needs a heavy dose of chemo then they said they might have to do some sort of port. Apparently, it's like a piece of metal the size of a quarter or something. Stephen, they want to put this thing inside of our daughter!"
"Sarah, we don't know that yet." Stephen had no idea what to do or even if he'd get to use the phone again that week. But it didn't slow him from confidently instructing Sarah, "I need to call these doctors. Send me their numbers. I need to have a conversation. I can call later today when we get…"
"No. I don't need you to call them.” Sarah sharply responded, “It won't do any good. You can't do anything beyond what I'm already doing here. I'm having to make major decisions on the fly and I already doubt every move I make. You arguing with the doctors is only going to confuse things." Her voice quivered and became muffled as if her chin had just been pressed deeply into her chest.
Stephen rebutted out of instinct, "But we need to do something else and make sure…"
"Stephen! There is no ‘we'! It's only me. Do you hear me; it's just me right now. I'm the only parent who's here!" Stephen could now hear the flood of tears she had been holding back and he became acutely aware that Sarah had been carrying the burden of this struggle without him. She was overwhelmed and he couldn't imagine what she had been facing over the past couple of days while he was thousands of miles away. He thought about Hailey and how scared she must have been in a hospital surrounded by strangers and being handled by staff attending to her. The thought of his little girl being confused and scared brought a fear into his own mind. There was a long pause as they both caught their breath.
"Stephen, I need you to be here. There's no question I need your help. But I know you can't. I know that's not an option. So at least trust that I'm doing the right thing because I don't know that I am. The nurses, doctors and your mother are great but I'm not sure about what else I'm supposed to be doing; I only know that I'm doing it."
His tone calmed but the beats from his chest continued their rapid pace. "Sarah, I'm sorry. This has to be impossibly hard for you. I want to be there." Stephen's thoughts grew distracted as he began playing out options in his mind. He knew the Colonel was a caring leader who would be sympathetic but Stephen had no idea what the Army would do with his situation. Even if he could get permission for emergency leave, he had no idea how to get everything done. It took time to turn equipment in, get orders and then there was the very important question about out how to get a flight out of a hostile environment. There were too many questions swirling in his mind and clarity eluded him.
"Sarah, look. I'll talk to the CO when I get back. It's possible I can get leave to come home.” He knew he needed to say more but encouragements were worthless and ideas were burdensome. In his helplessness, he spoke. “I just need you to keep it together until I get back." Stephen knew it was the absolute
wrong thing to say to his struggling wife, but his head was a crowded platter on the brink of tipping, his words were a cup filled to the brim and all he could do was helplessly watch them spill out.
The insensitive instruction broke Sarah's wall of patience and understanding, giving way to an enraged yell that echoed through the humvee. "Keep it together? Are you serious? What do you think I'm doing over here? While you're on the other side of the planet, I am the only one keeping everything together."
The silence that followed reached beyond the phone and each man in the vehicle awkwardly busied himself. He knew he deserved the outrage but he hardly had the fortitude necessary to bring some level of peace back into the conversation.
"Please, Stephen," Her voice sounded more broken than angry but her softened tone felt stronger than the previous berating he had just received. "I can't wait around for you to get back. I'm running the house, trying to pay all the bills that keep coming. I was already barely remembering to get the mail most days but now it's the last thing I'm thinking about and I'm sure it's just piled up and pretty soon our pissed-off mailman will just start dumping it at the door." Her thoughts were mixed like spaghetti and Stephen could hear her discouragement in every word, but it only frustrated him more that he couldn't fix anything. He was useless.
Sarah tried again, "I just want to make Hailey feel better but I can't. We've been seeing doctor after doctor over the last two days. If they find it's cancer like they think then they want to bombard her system and keep her in the hospital for a month. We'll have to see even more doctors and then also have to do meetings with hospital counselors and the Army's family morale program too. There's already a ton of paperwork and I have no idea how to fill most of it out. The nurse said if its cancer then I should prepare for a lot of waivers for side effects to chemo.”