Riding Fury Home

by Chana Wilson

  “Yes, amazing,” she echoed.

  After I hung up, I went back to Dana. “Let’s go to bed,” I suggested. What I meant was that now that I’d talked to my mom, her voice my lullaby, I’d be able to sleep.

  PART THREE: SINAI

  Chapter 42. Rheumatoid

  ONE MORNING, ABOUT a year after the commitment ceremony, I pulled up in front of Gloria’s apartment on Clarke Street. We were getting together for a late breakfast.

  Her car was parked on the street right in front of her place, so I was puzzled when I rang her bell and there was no answer. Must be in the bathroom, I thought. I rang a second time, and when she still didn’t answer, I used my key.

  I called out, and sure enough, I heard a muffled sound from the bathroom. The door was ajar, and I pushed it in. Gloria was sprawled on the floor, wearing a pale blue nightgown.

  “Mom, what happened? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, tripped on the bath mat, juz b’fore you came in.” Her eyes looked puffy and watery.

  “Let me help you up,” I said, reaching my hand toward her.

  “Nah, it’s fine down here.” She giggled.

  “What?” I frowned, looking down at her.

  “I mean, I can do it.” She chortled, then tried to pull herself up, clutching on to the edge of the bathtub as she rocked forward, then sank back down, landing with a plop on her bottom. “Oops! Give me a lift, would ya? My joints are shot.”

  I grabbed her under the armpits. “Okay, one, two, three,” and heaved as she lurched up. I helped her back to bed.

  “Listen, could we take a rain check? I want to go back to sleep.”

  I stared at her. She did look exhausted and groggy. “Sure, no problem.”

  At home, my thoughts pushed against something that my body knew, but I didn’t want to know. I wanted my mother’s simple explanation: “I tripped and fell.” But my bones ached with the familiarity of my mother’s slurred speech, her watery eyes.

  The next day, I called Gloria. “What happened yesterday when you fell? You seemed kinda out of it.”

  “Oh,” she said. There was a long pause.

  “Yeah, what happened?”

  “I took an extra pill.”

  “What kind of pill?” A sudden heaviness gripped my body, my chest tight and sinking.

  There was no point in her denying it anymore; she told me that her doctor had prescribed sleeping pills. “Halcion,” she said. “My pain was so bad that night, I still couldn’t sleep, so I took one extra.”

  Not this, not again.

  Silence crackled between us, my mother’s secret exposed.

  It had been almost twenty years since I’d left for college and she’d detoxed from prescription pills. At the hospital, they’d had to shoot her with muscle relaxants to keep convulsions from choking her. Ever since then, she’d had terrible insomnia, but now, with severe arthritic pain, she needed help to sleep. How could I blame her? Still, anger flared in me.

  “Jesus, Glor! Promise me you won’t take extra anymore. It’s dangerous! Promise!”

  “Okay, sweetheart, I won’t.”

  It was too glib, too easy, but for now, what could I do?

  After I hung up, I leaned over the kitchen table, gripping my face in my hands. My God, here we are again, full circle; I’m picking my mother up from the bathroom floor.

  OVER THE NEXT YEAR and a half, Gloria had one knee replacement, then a second. With each surgery, there were my visits to the hospital, and then her recovery at home and my rounds of bringing her food and books and videos, and then my driving her to rehab and back. But it wasn’t these chores that ached in me; it was what they meant: the horror of her body’s deterioration, and the claim it placed on me—take care of me, help me, I need you.

  My mother bought an electric scooter and had a hydraulic lift for it welded onto her Honda hatchback. Her moments of greatest relief were when she was put on massive doses of steroids, creating temporary euphoria before the mood crash, while as a side effect her face grew round as the moon. But the dose was always gradually reduced because of the drug’s dire side effects, and the pain returned.

  One day she said to me, “If I get so bad I can’t take care of myself, don’t ever put me in a nursing home. That would kill me. Promise me you won’t do that.”

  I looked at her, dismayed. She was single, had never found a lover since she’d moved, and even though she had good friends, it was me she relied on. Would I have to take her in, care for her until the end of her life? I wasn’t sure that I’d be willing to, but her ending up in an institution was an appalling idea.

  “No, of course not; we’d work something out,” I said.

  But as it turned out, it was not a problem we would have to worry about. There was no time.

  Chapter 43. Diagnosis

  IT’S ODD HOW THINGS happen: how that night I did something I almost never did—I turned on the ringer of my office phone after my last session with a therapy client. By now I’d completed my internship hours and was in private practice under a supervisor’s license until I passed my orals. The ringing phone startled me at 9:00 PM, as I was sitting at my desk writing notes. Dana launched right in: “I’m at the hospital with your mother, in the emergency room. We’ve been here for hours. I didn’t want to call until we knew something. It’s her belly—filled with fluid.”

  Dana’s words wavered and pulsed, some assaulting my ear, others whispering away.

  “The emergency room doc says it might be . . . blankety-blank . . . or . . . garble garble . . . or cancer.”

  Cancer. The word hovered in the air.

  My mother and I had gone lap swimming the day before at an outdoor city pool. It was a beautiful pool, set in the middle of a park, with live oak trees bordering its aqua waters. When we got out, she told me she was short of breath. “You better go see the doctor tomorrow,” I said. She’d been complaining to me that despite all her efforts at dieting, her waist just kept expanding, and her pants were strained to bursting.

  I put down the phone. The drive across the Bay Bridge was a blur of gray steel girders and red taillights.

  In my mother’s room, I found Dana standing next to Gloria’s bed, holding her hand. They both looked up as I entered. Dana stepped back, and I went to my mother’s side, leaned over, and kissed her. Her eyes skittered around, then met mine, piercing me with her fear.

  “Sweetheart,” I said, taking her hand and squeezing it, “we’ll get through this. Tell me what’s happened so far.”

  She took a ragged breath. “Well, first thing I went to see Dvora. She examined me, then sent me off for a chest X-ray.”

  Dvora was our family doctor.

  “I was home waiting for the results, and when Dvora called, she said, ‘Go to the emergency room, right now.’ I was so scared. You were off in the city seeing clients, so I called Dana.”

  Dana took up the thread: “The doctor said there’s fluid in her belly. He said she’ll have scans tomorrow.”

  “I’ll cancel my clients for tomorrow, and just be with you?” I realized it had come across more as a question than a statement.

  “Whatever you think, darling,” she answered. She was lying very still, as if drawn into herself.

  “You matter more than anything,” I said. “More than any clients.” I saw the relief on her face, but I hadn’t quite heard the plea underneath her words. I vacillated: How many of my clients to cancel? In part, it was magical thinking: If I don’t have to cancel my clients, that means this is not serious. It’ll be okay. I clung to an illusion of control. Part of me wanted to flee and pretend it was just a regular day, to be distracted by other people’s problems. In the end, I kept a couple morning clients and canceled the rest.

  When I returned the next day, Gloria was back from her scans. Dvora was staring intently at a chart in her hand. She was petite, with short brown hair, wearing corduroy pants and a jean jacket. Before I could speak, a thin man in a white coat entered the room, scowled at Dvora
, and barked, “You have no hospital privileges here! I’m in charge of this case!”

  I stood there, immobile. Didn’t we already have enough stress? Dvora stood up abruptly, chart in hand. “Let’s discuss this elsewhere,” she said. They both exited. We could hear their muffled voices through the door.

  “Jesus, what a jerk! Who is that guy?” I asked.

  “He examined me yesterday in the emergency room, so I guess he’s assigned to my case,” Gloria answered. “He’s a jerk, all right, but he’s the jerk we got.”

  We smiled at each other, the grins of trapped people.

  After a short while, Dvora came back in and pulled a chair close to my mother, reached over, and took her hand. “Gloria, I’m going for now, but I’ll be back tomorrow. The Alta Bates team is going over the scans and will talk to you about the results. You’re in good hands.”

  AN HOUR OR SO LATER, the thin man in white was back. Dana had left work early, and we were sitting in chairs next to Gloria, chatting. The doctor started speaking as soon as he entered the room. I was watching his mouth move, and I found my hearing had gone intermittent again, as if someone was fiddling with a radio dial. “A large mass . . . ascites, fluid in the peritoneal cavity . . . indicates ovarian carcinoma . . . until a biopsy of the tumor.”

  Everything crashed around me. There was thunder in my ears, my mouth tasted sour, the room had dimmed

  “A gynecologist will be visiting you in a while, to discuss your treatment,” the doctor mumbled.

  He had barely left—perhaps we three were stunned into a stupor—before the door opened again and a woman in a white coat entered. A skirt with red and yellow flowers peeked out beneath her lab coat. She stood at the foot of my mother’s bed and introduced herself; her eyes were warm and making direct contact with Gloria. She explained about the mass—that it was most likely cancer, but in any case, it had to come out. “You need the surgery, Gloria. The surgery will prolong your life,” she stated.

  My mother smiled, this time a genuine smile of relief and gratitude. “Oh, thank you!” she said. I could tell she was hearing this differently than I was. My mother clutched at hope. But I heard “prolong” as a death knell, a bell tolling sooner or later, sooner or later.

  DANA AND I WERE sitting on a couch in the hospital lobby, holding hands. We’d just left Gloria’s room but had needed to stop, rest, and breathe before stumbling out the entrance. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and glanced over to see the emergency room doctor hovering near me. He came around and stood in front of the couch. “You two are just terrific!” he said. “Real troopers!”

  “What?” I said, looking up at him. There was a strange brightness to his eyes.

  “You know, to be so calm and collected for such a grave diagnosis. Ninety-seven percent of cases like this are fatal. You two are really something!”

  My stomach recoiled as if punched.

  “Take care, you two!” He was grinning at us, almost gloating.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said to Dana.

  We’d been on our way out to dinner, and so we went, stuporous and without appetite, but it seemed the thing to do. We walked to Petroushka’s, a Russian restaurant a couple of blocks from the hospital, and asked for a private corner table. Dana and I sat there, quiet and windless. The rage that had flared in me toward the doctor was supplanted with a lump of fear and anguish: Would my mother die soon? Spasms gripped my belly and throat, my hands and feet were numb, and my vision and hearing closed in.

  The next day I went back to the hospital in the morning. Dana had gone to work. “How are you?” I asked my mother, after leaning in to kiss her.

  “Much better. I can get my breath, now that the diuretics have kicked in.”

  “And how are you doing emotionally, I mean?”

  “Up and down. One moment I’m really scared; the next I just feel in the end this will be okay.” She looked at me with her moist doe eyes.

  I sucked on my lower lip as I nodded acknowledgment. Then I started to tear up. “Anything on?” I asked, bobbing my head toward the wall-mounted TV. A few minutes of this kind of talk were all I could bear right now.

  We were watching Vanna White spin the wheel on Wheel of Fortune when Dvora showed up as promised, regardless of the fact that she lacked hospital privileges. Gloria clicked off the tube. Dvora asked how she was. Gloria beamed at her, all sun. She adored her doctor.

  Dvora told us she’d gone over the test results and talked to the hospital gynecologist. She explained about the tumor, that it was large and possibly wrapped around Gloria’s intestines. She had a referral to an excellent surgeon who specialized in gynecological oncology.

  “Gloria, we’ll just take this one step at a time,” Dvora said. “They’re going to send you home soon, and then the next step will be a consultation with the surgeon.”

  “Yes, of course, one step at a time,” my mother echoed.

  Dvora patted Gloria’s arm. “Good,” she said. “I’m going now, but I’ll be seeing you soon.”

  “Be right back,” I said to my mother as I followed Dvora out the door. We stood in the hall. I told her what the emergency room doctor had said.

  Dvora inhaled sharply and exhaled a quiet sigh. “Well . . . ” she hesitated, “ . . . in all likelihood, your mother will die from this. But no one can say the time line. I had a patient with ovarian cancer who lived several years.”

  She must have seen the collapse in my face. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “This is so hard. Come here.”

  Dvora’s arms were around me, and I was crying against her shoulder. She patted my back. After I quieted, we stepped apart. I blew my nose and gathered myself to say the next bit. “There’s something else: My mother believes in honesty, and so do I. She has a right to know.”

  Dvora waited while a nurse wheeled a rattling cart loaded with medicines past us. “Of course, but truth is tricky, and not absolute. There’s a negative impact to such a statistic, and it’s not necessarily helpful, or of use to a patient. For Gloria, I think it makes sense to wait until after the tumor has been biopsied, the diagnosis confirmed, and her cancer staged. We’ll have more information. Then she can be informed of the findings. Right now, she needs her strength to get through surgery.”

  “Okay, I can see that. Thanks.”

  I rearranged my face and stepped back in the room. Gloria looked at me. “You’ve been crying.”

  I could never really hide anything from her. “Yeah, this is scary.”

  “I know, darling, but here’s what I’ve decided: I’m going to lick this thing,” She nodded her head emphatically, her silver curls ringing her face. “I’m going to lick this thing, and I am going to live to write a book about my life.”

  I stood there a moment, uncertain what to say. Who could deflate the glory of her insistent vow? Not me. I stepped in close, took her hand and kissed it, then stroked her arm.

  “That will be one hell of a story,” I said.

  Chapter 44. Intensive Care

  ON THE DAY BEFORE my mother’s surgery, Dana and I were helping her settle into her hospital room, when her surgeon arrived. In the month since her emergency room visit, my mother and I had met with him for a consultation, so we knew his manner was brisk. Now, Gloria sat up in bed, listening while he explained that he would remove as much of the tumor tissue as he could without damaging any organs it might be adhered to. Since some of the tumor had invaded her intestines, he would not know until the actual surgery how much intestine would have to be removed. At worst, she would end up fitted with a colostomy bag. “Any questions?” he asked.

  “No,” my mother said. She smiled then, a jaunty, defiant smile. “As I’ve said, there is no cancer in my family.”

  I stared at her, flabbergasted. Although it was true that the cancer diagnosis couldn’t be absolutely confirmed until after surgery and biopsy results, no medical person along the way had suggested that there was any other explanation for the size of her tumor and he
r symptoms. This is crazy, I thought, but then again, she needs hope.

  On the morning of surgery, just after dawn, Dana and I accompanied Gloria as she was wheeled on a gurney down the elevator, through the halls, and to the pre-op room. We sat with her while she was prepped, and then gave her a flurry of kisses and pats before she was wheeled away. As I watched her go, my heart started ka-thump ing fast.

  We’d been told it would be a long surgery. We went back to my mother’s room, luckily private, and Dana lay on Gloria’s bed. I tried to read a paperback, but found myself unable to focus and gave up.

  The surgeon’s visit, six hours or so later, was brief but heartening. The tumor had been wrapped around various organs, and it had taken a long time to get it all out, but overall it had gone well. Best of all, he had been able to reconnect her intestines, so she didn’t need a colostomy bag.

  IT WAS EVENING, HOURS past my mother’s surgery, when we were finally allowed ten minutes to visit her in the intensive care unit. Dana and I pushed through the double doors into a place so brightly lit it felt like a stage set. Machines beeped, bags of fluid hung from poles, monitor screens glowed with moving green lines, ventilators pumped and hissed, nurses in scrubs were everywhere.

  We’d been forewarned that my mother was on a ventilator. Still, I wasn’t prepared. As we neared her bed with its metal rails, I could see her eyes roaming frantically. A plastic tube filled my mother’s mouth, pushing her jaw open, while a band of white adhesive covered her cheeks, holding the tube in place. Her hands were tied to the sides of the bed.

  For a moment, the horror of her imprisonment so stunned me that I halted several feet from her bed. Perhaps my alarm showed on my face, because the nearest nurse said, “It’s okay. Her hands are strapped to keep her from pulling the tube out. Patients who are still groggy from anesthesia try to do that.”