I look at the calendar on the wall. It still says January. I was cleaning out a kitchen cabinet and was wondering at all the opened partial bags of dried fruit--raisins, currents, pineapple, apricots. Then I remembered--they're the remnants of Christmas baking. Normally by now they would have been used up on cereal or oatmeal or sweet breads. I'm waiting for winter--but it's over. Wondering when the azaleas will bloom--but they already have. Why are the peacock's tails fully grown in? Usually in January they're just starting to come back.
Trying to fix a timeline. January 7 we went to Gainesville. He had chemo for four days; Della came to donate her bone marrow and he received that on the 13th. After that it was simply a matter of waiting. The chemo had destroyed his bone marrow and the new cells had to start growing.
He got sick, as expected (chemo is brutal). He lost his hair (but could really rock the look). The beard followed a few days later.
We still had to stay in Gainesville; he was still very ill and had to be seen every day. Things immediately went wrong. On Saturday his count was 487. Sunday 250. A few days later, back to 0.
More waiting. More going to the clinic every day--for platelets, for transfusions. Waiting for the numbers to tick up again. Another bone marrow biopsy showing that the graft had failed. A call to Della to donate again (stem cells rather than bone marrow this time). God bless that woman--she came immediately. Waiting for her tests, for her pretreatment, for her two days of harvesting. He went back into the hospital on February 26, went through 5 more days of chemo, and received his second transplant on March 4.
More waiting. Stem cells are more aggressive than marrow. His bones ached, he spiked a fever, and ended up in intensive care on the 13th. Two days, then back on the ward. Kept getting sicker--kept being told he would feel better when the graft took. Which should take 1-2 weeks after the transplant. Then 2-3 weeks. By 21 days at the latest. He did vent frustration-- "they keep moving the goal post!" He developed a bacterial infection in his blood, a fungal infection in his lungs; the drugs to control those took down his kidneys and he went on dialysis.
His team of doctors still thought he could recover, after the graft took. But day 21 (Wednesday, March 25) came and went with no shift in numbers. Another bone marrow biopsy was scheduled for the following Monday. We asked the doctor what would happen if it showed the graft had not taken. We got, in response, a poker face and the answer "we'll see what the biopsy says." After she left, we looked at each other and said "we don't think there's a plan C". Thursday, March 26, we began to accept that he was not going to survive. Friday he was back in intensive care. We were waiting until Monday, for the biopsy, and then for Wednesday, when the results would be back in. When we would know if there was a chance for survival. Saturday night he sat up and yelled "WHY DO I HAVE TO WAIT??"
I asked him what he meant. He said that he was too broken. That even if the graft was taking, there would be too many months of fighting for recovery. That he was too tired. That he couldn't fight anymore. That he didn't want to wait for someone else to tell him it was over. That for once, he wanted to have control of his life again, if only to leave it on his own terms. That he wanted me to let him go.
So there is my timeline. Maybe now it will stop its eternal running in circles in my head.
I was also going to write about the pandemic, how that timeline was woven into his. Next post.
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