Another time it was 30–40%. I even wrote those numbers down.
Once again, I fought back against the moisture behind my contacts.
Dr. Prystas continued: “I’d wait and see. I would save the transplant in case the leukemia returns.”
Unlike me, Nancy’s expression was serene. Unlike me, she was ready. When I squeezed her hand, she squeezed back. More tightly.
Summary: Nancy’ blood work is reflecting a positive reality. It is a new day, full of promise—but a little less than yesterday.
With much love,
Winnie
Singing in the Sunlight
July 2, 12:23 p.m.
Dear Friends and Family,
Since I am at work, I have to write quickly. It is hard to type because my mind is racing a bit too fast for my hands. Additionally, my hands are uncontrollably shaking with excitement.
Jayna just called. There were no surprises at the hospital this morning and Nancy is in the car beside her. The back seat of the car and trunk are filled to the brim with room decorations because Jayna arranged the car so that Nancy can recline (and sleep) if she wants to or has the need to rest.
So far, all Nancy wants to do is feel the warm sunshine on her skin, comment on the buildings and flowers and people, and roll down the window so the wind can blow on her face. She wants to smell the fresh scent of summer flowers from the fields on either side of the highway ascending the canyon leading home, too. She and Jayna are singing along with the radio, and Jayna tells me Nancy is dancing in her seat.
I am sad not to be with them now and even sadder that I won’t be there when Nancy walks into our bedroom. But I can see in my mind’s eye the look on her face when she first sees our new bed. (Thirty-five days must have been an eternity for Nancy to be confined to her rather small hospital room.)
My shift ends early so I will be home for dinner. As has occurred each and every day since Nancy was hospitalized, a friend and supporter has provided dinner. Nancy has so many friends. I have witnessed and been the recipient of more kindness this past month than I ever expected in ten lifetimes. (Tonight’s meal includes rib eye steak—Nancy’s favorite and one containing lots of protein and iron. Thanks, Joannie!)
A few answers to questions you have recently sent me:
(1) Nancy is now able to have “live” flowers, and if you want to send a card during the next seventeen glorious days, use our home (Woodland) address.
(2) When I ask Nancy what she wants to do, at the top of her list is reading your (already received) best wishes, letters, and emails. My feeble attempt to read a paragraph here and there before her slumber each night has been inadequate, and I look forward to rereading them to or with her.
(3) Should you call Nancy? This is a tough one because I really don’t know the answer. My plan is this: feel free to call our home phone. There will be a phone in our bedroom, where I expect Nancy will spend most of her initial days; it will be unplugged unless she chooses otherwise. We may or may not answer in one of the other rooms depending on what we are doing. Even if we don’t answer, there is an answering machine, and I know she will enjoy listening to any message you leave. I suspect at some point Nancy will have enough extra strength to converse. Right now, she plans on putting her total energy into preparations for the next round of chemotherapy.
(4) I will address your requests for potential visits as soon as I have a better understanding of this new phase.
As usual, dial or write with any questions or thoughts. My mobile phone won’t work when I am in Woodland, because the electrons don’t reach that far for “technological” reasons that for some reason are beyond my comprehension.
Summary: Finally, today is the day Nancy leaves the hospital and returns home.
All my love,
Winnie
Christmas in July
July 9, 8:08 p.m.
Dear Friends and Family,
For the past twenty years or so, I’ve sent our Christmas greetings well after the holidays. Most often, our cards have not made it to the post office until the end of spring or in early summer. I am embarrassed to admit that one year I barely mailed them before the first snowfall.
In my defense, I was loosely following the precedent from my many years of running the Old Faithful Clinic in Yellowstone National Park. Almost every year there, the first snowflakes arrive in late August coinciding with the end of the summer season when employees return to home, college, or their next adventure.
Many decades ago, two feet of snow blanketed the park on August 25, so a large group of employees pretended it was Christmas. They wore makeshift reindeer costumes to their jobs, sang yuletide songs, and drank eggnog.
A tradition was born.
Since then, Yellowstone employees “celebrate” Christmas every August 25. They call it “Christmas in summer” and the tourists love it.
With the final week of December being the busiest tourist week in Park City every year, I loosely adopted Yellowstone’s tradition. Annually, I wait until the holiday bug bites me sometime after ski season. It might be May or it might be late August. I never know when I will be seized by the moment. It doesn’t matter. One day when I feel like summarizing my year for our friends and family, I declare it my holiday season. I toast to Santa and out go my cards.
Not this year.
Yesterday, on July 8, there were nine people sitting around our dining room table and Julie, Nancy’s longtime friend from Tucson, asked, “Your Christmas tree is really beautiful. How long has it been up?” Our dining room is two steps above the living room and looks out over the sitting area below. At the far edge of the living room, a fourteen-foot highly decorated Christmas tree resplendently resides.
“Well,” I answered, “About ten years.”
“It’s been eleven, Dadder,” Jayna interjected. “It’s Christmas all year at our house, Julie.” There was general laughter as I explained Christmas in Yellowstone and my long personal practice of choosing the exact day on my whim, and how having a Christmas tree up year round made that possible.
Jaret was too excited to let this conversation continue. “Happy Birthday, Mom!” he announced as he handed Nancy a present and kissed her on the cheek.
Our birthday dinner group was the largest Nancy has hosted since she fell ill. In addition to Jaret, Jayna, me, and Nancy’s sister, Linda, Jayna’s college “parents,” Howard and Rhonda, who are visiting their son Louis in Denver from New York, also flew over for the occasion. Louis has been one of Jayna’s best friends in college and his family “adopted” Jayna for several holidays when she couldn’t make it back to Utah. All of these guests were expected (and preapproved) by Nancy. Julie, Nancy’s first flying partner at TWA, was a notable and truly unexpected surprise. Nancy’s face lit up when she rang the doorbell; she hadn’t seen Julie in years.
For me, a full house of guests echoed times past, and Nancy embraced the happiness of being surrounded by a jovial group with one common goal: to have this be Nancy’s best birthday ever. Julie prepared a mouth-watering meal of baked fish and tempura vegetables and matched it with her favorite sake. Nancy gave it her highest praise: “This tastes better than the hospital pancakes.” To complement the meal, Howard and Rhonda related their recent adventures in Japan. Though all the serving dishes were empty by meal’s end, our biggest (and very tiring) activity yesterday was laughing. (Quite honestly, I had to make an excuse and leave the table twice because the carefree mood provoked tears I didn’t want Nancy or the others to see.)
When the birthday cake’s arrival was imminent, each of us donned a brightly colored, cone-shaped party hat. Mine was blue and had orange balloons on it; the elastic band that held it in place made my beard tuck under my neck. I am sure I looked more ridiculous than usual even though the hat hid my bald spot as it stood straight up on the back of my head. Nancy’s bonnet was pink with blue and white balloons. She looked both natural and elegant even though the twenty-five-cent cardboard hat only partially covered her be
autiful and completely hairless head. The cap matched her new pink scarf and exquisitely highlighted her skin tone and eye color.
I must admit—when she had modeled the scarf for me earlier in the day before our guests arrived, she had enthusiastically asserted, “I don’t have to wear a hospital gown tonight!” An ear-to-ear smile spanned Nancy’s face. Her eyes sparkled in the early evening sunlight. I froze the moment in my mind’s camera. It was our happiest snapshot in a long time.
Nancy’s requested cake was chocolate decadence. I put five candles on one edge and seven on the other to mark fifty-seven years. I didn’t light them. Nancy still has a cannula in her nose delivering oxygen, so no flames are allowed in the house. But that didn’t dampen Nancy’s spirit. Without a second’s hesitation, she pretended to blow out each and every candle one by one. We cheered and sang “Happy Birthday” again and again. There were more stories. There was more laughter. I didn’t tuck Nancy into bed until almost eleven.
July 8 was truly a special day this year. Our family had dreamed of this birthday yet wondered if we’d be celebrating.
For me, July 8 was also Christmas.
The best one ever.
Summary: July 8 finds our family hosting a real party. Friends and family surrounded Nancy for her fifty-eighth birthday. It was such a wonderful celebration that we also celebrated the day as Christmas.
Very much love,
Winnie
A Trip to Normal
July 14, 6:08 a.m.
Dear Friends and Family,
Once again, our new bright-red paisley comforter has swallowed Nancy’s body. Only a familiar cute bald head peaks from beneath its left upper edge. As I regard her shiny head, it strikes me that I can hardly remember what Nancy looks like with hair.
Not surprisingly, I used to think that no hair was undesirable. Not now.
Nancy senses my gaze, slowly opens her eyes, and smiles back at me. Instinctively, I rub the growing fuzz and gently kiss the special mole just like I do every morning and every evening. This action has become our new ritual.
One has to find positives when dealing with cancer.
“Good morning, beautiful.” I whisper in Nancy’s ear after placing a second kiss on her right earlobe.
“I’m not beautiful, am I?”
There is no need for me to answer.
Today is a very big day.
Today we will venture to Salt Lake City.
Today we visit her oncologist.
Instead of asking if Nancy wants breakfast in bed, I urge her to sit and then stand up. She has only left our property three times in the nearly two weeks we’ve been home. The first time was for a chest X-ray at my Park City office to confirm that her pneumonia had disappeared. Another time Nancy announced, “I feel really strong today. Let’s go to the market.” (I’ve never enjoyed the Kamas grocery store more.) And then yesterday, we actually walked to the Woodland Cash Store at the end of our block. Nancy is light years stronger now than when she arrived home.
But today is distinctly different; Nancy is feeling strong and better.
“What do you think of this hat with my outfit, Winnie?”
As we prepare for our trip, she has changed clothes at least five times.
“They look really good together to me, my love.”
Nancy knows that asking me “Which color goes best?” or “Which shirt is most flattering?” is like asking me to translate Chinese. Ignoring my words, she sighs, and turns to her trusted counselor Jayna, who has just joined us. Minutes later, they have chosen an outfit that is a perfect match. Both the pants suit and hat highlight her eyes. That, even I can see.
Although Nancy was so excited she “raced” me to the car for the hour’s ride to Salt Lake City, we rode in silence for at least ten minutes as I watched her soak in the scenery outside the window. When she coughed, I broke the silence: “How you doing, darlin’?” I’d stolen the line from the movie The Big Easy and gave a southern flare to the word ‘darling.’
Nancy didn’t answer immediately, and I wondered if something was wrong. Then with as loud a voice as I’ve heard in a month and a half, I was startled by her shout.
“I feel free!”
Nancy is genuinely and deeply happy.
At last she is “unhooked.”
No hospital bracelets.
No IVs.
And today, no oxygen tube is in her nose.
After twelve days at home, Nancy is as normal as she can be. Only someone who has had needles in both arms, tubes in unmentionable places, and a mask over her face for days on end can know the joy I see next to me. Nancy’s eyes shine like turquoise jewels.
The hour’s trip goes all too quickly. Too soon, Nancy returns to medicine’s clutches.
“You’re going to feel a little sting, followed by a burn. Here’s the sting.”
Nancy lies on an exam table next to my chair. On the opposite side is Dr. Morton. To me, Dr. Russ Morton is the “attending physician,” the doctor ultimately in charge of Nancy’s case. But to my girls, he is “Captain,” the leader of our platoon. Nancy is holding my hand and I don’t want to let go. Her bone marrow procedure is about to begin.
The bone marrow is the womb of all blood components. It is where any recurrence of Nancy’s leukemia will first be detected. My free hand is sweaty. I don’t snap my fingers on that hand either. I am too busy repeating the same words silently that are echoing in my head. Please, bone marrow—be all right.
I watch Dr. Morton skillfully inject Nancy’s back. “Here’s the burn,” he warns.
Nancy is an amazing trooper. When suturing a patient’s lacerations, as I do on most workdays, I administer the same numbing medicine. I often hear a loud scream or words I can’t repeat in this note. I see loved ones’ hands nearly broken during a moment similar to the one I am in now. Nancy’s hand squeeze, however, is barely perceptible.
Captain picks up a very large syringe attached to a huge needle. He is about to bore into Nancy’s hip, the best place to extract the precious marrow.
“You may feel this a touch.”
The sound of crushing bone fills the room inescapably. My hand feels another tiny squeeze. Nancy amazes me again. Her facial expression is serene. When Dr. Morton announces that the test is finished, Nancy smiles and says, “Thank you, Dr. Morton.”
I don’t belabor the significance of the bone marrow test to Nancy. In fact, I barely mention it on the way home except to ask if her hip is sore. She replies, “A little,” and continues to be mesmerized by the scenery as we head back up Parley’s Canyon toward Park City and Woodland.
Captain is a low-key guy. His words didn’t alert Nancy to the bone marrow test’s importance. But I know too much. Sometimes I wish I were a park ranger or working in a gas station. I am still struggling as we prepare for our second round of chemotherapy.
How much do I ask?
How much do I read?
How much research should I do?
And the worst: How much medical information do I tell Nancy, Jaret, or Jayna?
I want our last five days at home to be worry free. I still fancy myself as “The Worry Buster!” But the next day, as I dial the oncologists’ office, I have a lonely and frightened feeling.
“Drs. Morton and Prystas’ office.”
“Yes . . . this is Nancy Winn’s husband, Winnie. Dr. Morton said I could call today to find out my wife’s bone marrow test results from yesterday.”
“Dr. Winn, let me check for you. Dr. Morton did tell me you’d be calling.”
Thirty seconds of silence seems like an eternity.
“I’m sorry, but the test results are not back yet, Dr. Winn. For some reason the lab is a little slow today. May I call you when we get them?”
Many answers roll through my head. I choose a socially acceptable one.
“Yes, that’d be great. Thanks.”
I hurry back to my patients, reminding myself that I am working today and they deserve my full attention. I do look at
my mobile phone periodically to be sure I have power, that the vibrate mode is working, and that I haven’t mysteriously missed a call.
Finally, I feel a familiar buzz in my chest pocket. The caller ID reads LDS Hospital. I scurry to an empty room, feeling blood rush to my temples.
“Winnie, Russ Morton here. I’ve got good news. . . .”
Summary: Nancy’s bone marrow test is normal. At present, she is leukemia free.
Much love,
Winnie
I Yam What I Yam
July 18, 3:01 a.m.
Dear Friends and Family,
Nancy and I have always enjoyed and made the most of her airline’s employee travel benefits. Free travel has allowed us frequent family trips back east and made exotic beaches and wild jungles accessible. Historic sites and captivating museums have often been our “destinations” as we’ve ventured to various world nooks and crannies. Still, when I reflect on every trip we’ve ever taken, one thing remains constant: I’m never sad to return home.
Why?
Nancy and I are privileged to live in an exceptional locale—Park City, Utah. We have great friends nearby, majestic mountains in all directions, and four distinct seasons. Whether for skiing in winter or hiking and biking in summer, we live in a “destination” resort. People from the far reaches of this country and the far corners of the world come to our “neck of the woods” to spend their holidays.
Today, our “home” vacation ends.
And this time, I don’t want our retreat to be over.
Despite my misgivings, tomorrow we return to the “penthouse” at LDS Hospital for Nancy’s next round of chemotherapy. Room 844. We anticipate being there a full month. Our newest hospital address will be Nancy Winn, C/O LDS Hospital, 8th Avenue and C Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84143. As before, Nancy’s white cells will come to be extinct. Only sterile plastic flowers will adorn her room, 844.
Nancy’s body and spirit are recharged.
Night Reflections Page 11