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The doctor rubbed his brow before he looked me square in the eye. Taking a deep breath, he shook his head. “There’s no easy way to say this, Cole. Grace has cancer.”
Initially I thought I’d misheard him. Then a wall of shock blindsided me and my heart sank to my stomach and my heart stalled again. “Wh… No… Bullshit, you’re wrong,” I argued, “you’re a liar. How can you say something like this?” My tone was sharp—aggressive—and I sprang to my feet, my heart thudding faster than I’d ever felt it before. I ran my fingers through my hair then grabbed two clumps of it in my fists.
My stomach lurched and the taste of bile in my throat made my stomach roll again. I began to walk away as anger, aggression, and instant denial built up inside, then I turned and strode back to challenge him.
“Dude, we’ve just had a baby, she can’t be sick,” I scoffed. “This is bullshit. I won’t hear it. You saw Grace; she’s the picture of health. We came here to have a fucking baby.”
“Cole, I need you to sit down because there is much more I need to tell you and it’s important you hear what I have to say,” he ordered in a much sterner but quiet voice.
“When I examined Grace, I knew immediately her cervix was unhealthy. I couldn’t confirm a diagnosis until I had pathology results to support my clinical findings. However, when we operated, I’m afraid it was much worse than I had imagined, because there was no mistaking what we found when I opened Grace’s abdomen.”
For a moment the doctor fell silent, then he sighed heavily, like it was killing him to tell me this news, almost as much as it was killing me to hear what he had to say. I immediately sensed disappointment in the way he exhaled.
Gripping my upper arm, he shook his head again. “Cole, what I’m saying is Grace’s cancer is so extensive and far advanced its inoperable. I’m at a loss as to how she didn’t collapse before now. Grace may only have weeks, if not days, left to live.”
My breath hitched in fright even before his devastating words sank in. Shock then made my deflated lungs heave for air, and in that horrible moment, it felt as if my ruptured heart had stopped beating… yet still I breathed.
“The spread has ravished her body, affecting her rectum, bladder, the anterior wall of her uterus, small bowel and liver. Probably why she’s been having so much pain during the past couple of weeks.”
“But they implied at her prenatal checks the pains were normal toward the end… never mind, how soon can she have treatment?” I asked, still clinging to hope.
“No, Cole, you aren’t taking in what I’ve told you. There is no treatment. In fact, I am telling you here instead of with Grace because I’m not sure how, or if she’ll recover from the surgery.”
Turning my head, I glanced down the clinical setting of the hospital corridor and watched people at the far end wandering around, attending to their normal business, while I stood trying to imagine the nightmare of my future with a dying wife and a new baby girl to take care of.
There had been plenty of times in my life when I had thought life was cruel, but the full horror of the countless situations I’d heard of in life had never truly hit home.
Tragedies mostly happened to other people, although there had been a few times in my personal life where heartbreak had struck, like when my father had died. Back then there had been a period of adjustment for us beforehand.
My father’s death had been a gradual process, allowing my mother, my brother, and me time to accustom ourselves to living without him. By the time he’d died we’d been resigned to his fate as we watched him decline and fade away. It was nothing like what I faced alone in the sterile corridor as fate hung in the balance with our future at its mercy.
“At the moment, Grace has been moved to our Intensive Care Unit and is very heavily sedated. Your daughter, like I assured you, is doing fine. You can see them both as soon as they have been made comfortable upstairs.” I noted there were no congratulations like there would usually have been when a child was born.
“Is there someone we can call to be with you?” When I didn’t respond, my mind numb from the news, he spoke again. “Let’s walk down here to the relatives’ room and I’ll explain what’s going to happen.”
Following behind him, I walked half the length of the hallway and entered a small box room. It looked comfortable in pastel shades of green and I immediately associated it with bad news. It was a carbon copy of the décor at the hospice my father had gone into.
Holding his palm out, Dr. Ken gestured for me to take a seat, but I chose to remain standing. “Tell me,” I urged. Again, he persuaded me to take a seat and at his insistence I sat.
“As I explained before, there are metastases or secondary cancers in many of her other organs. We had a few complications with the delivery because of Grace’s condition, but the baby is quite well, breathing on her own, and warming up nicely.”
For a long moment I couldn’t think, and then the enormity of what he’d said threatened to make me lose control, but I knew I couldn’t do that. “Tell me what to do,” I whispered, as tears rolled down my cheeks as the full impact of my helpless situation became overwhelming.
“Grace is dying, Cole. There is probably very little time; especially now she’s been compromised further by the surgery. She is going to be extremely weak when we reduce the sedation and if she wakes up she’ll be in a lot of pain.”
If she wakes? Springing to my feet again, my lungs felt so tight, as if they’d burst right out of my chest at any second. A wave of fear and despair at losing Grace brought one lump after another into my throat, and I fought the sickening sensation of losing my grasp on reality.
“Please tell me this isn’t true,” I begged, anger swelling inside until I was suddenly furious at the injustice of life.
Placing his hand on my forearm, his sad gaze was filled with sorrow. “Cole, I wish to God I could tell you differently, but I can’t. Grace will deteriorate rapidly from now on. We’re doing everything we can to make her comfortable. Do you have anyone we can call to come and be with you?” he prompted again.
Digging in my back jeans pocket, I took out my cell as the doctor continued to try to inform me about their excellent palliative care program. His hard sell on how they could give Grace a good end wasn’t something I wanted to hear, so I ignored him completely and called my mom.
“Mom, it’s me. I need you to come to the hospital.”
“Has Grace had the baby?” she asked with all the bubbly excitement of an expectant grandmother.
“Yes, she’s here, but Grace is sick.” Closing the call out before she could ask any questions, I stuck my cell in my jacket pocket and the dreadful reality about Grace hit me on a whole other level. The painful truth of all the information the doctor had told me ran over me like a dump truck.
