After Dad had gotten his first round of chemo and the "Magic Bullet" drug Avastin there, we spent the night in Durham, as we'd been told by the doctors that we had to do after the treatment in case Dad had any side effects after the first round that required medical attention.
We hadn't planned on staying that night originally; we had been told that we could get to Durham on the Monday before Thanksgiving, go to the first day of appointments at Duke on Tuesday, meet with the advisory team of neuro-oncologists on Wednesday morning, and then hit the road to travel the 500 miles back to my parents' house, in time to make it home that night so we could be there for Thanksgiving. Our Back-up Plan was to drive part of the way back on Wednesday, spending the night at a hotel along the way and then getting up early on Thanksgiving Day to drive the rest of the way home.
But we also hadn't expected for the team to recommend that Dad start treatment there at Duke, right then. And, since part of the deal for his doing that was that we stay in the area overnight, we agreed to stick around. While I sat with Dad in the clinic as the medicine dripped into his veins, my mom and my sister Jennifer met with a hospital social worker to go over insurance coverage issues and other things; the staff at the Brain Tumor Center seemed much more well versed on several important matters like that than did the people with whom we had been dealing at the local oncologist's office. My brother-in-law, Peter, who had taken a red-eye flight from California the night before to be with us in Durham, hastily searched the city for a hotel that had a suite-style room or two adjoining rooms - one of which we needed to be wheelchair accessible - available for that night. Evidently, the night before Thanksgiving is a big night for hotels in that area, though, and the only hotel with enough available space for all of us to be in close proximity was not set up for handicapped access. It was what it was, though, and so after a flurry of text messages back and forth between all of us, Peter booked the rooms and drove back to the hospital to pick up Dad and me, as Mom and Jennifer will still in a meeting there.
Once we got to the hotel, we got Dad situated in the wheelchair, and then I pushed him and Peter carried the luggage up to the room. Dad wanted to sit in an armchair by the window in our room and watch TV ("It's way too early for bed," he said, as much to himself as to anyone.). Peter went to the vending machine and got Dad a big bag of peanut M&M's and a Diet Coke, which he poured over ice into a styrofoam cup. He put the goods on the table next to Dad, and then he and I took a look at the set up in the hotel room bathroom; I was very apprehensive about the fact that there were no grab bars (and essentially nothing else for Dad to hold onto) by the toilet, and, to make matters worse, the toilet seat was low, which would make it even harder (and more dangerous) for Dad to get up and down. Peter and I decided that he would go to a drug store to try to find grab bars that could be installed temporarily; that seemed to be our only option at the time.
In the midst of our conference by the bathroom door, we heard a noise from the bedroom area where Dad was. We hurried in and saw Dad nonchalantly sitting in the chair watching TV, with most of his drink and the majority of the M&M's spilled all over the floor. "What happened?" I asked him. "I didn't try to get up," he responded, which made me think that either he did and didn't want to admit that he couldn't do it, or he had no idea that I was referring to the fact that there was stuff spilled all over the floor next to his chair. Peter grabbed towels from the bathroom, and, as he and I cleaned up the mess, I noticed that the table where the drink and candy had been was on Dad's left side, the side that was his dominant but in which he had impairment in sensation and strength because of the tumor. It was evident that he had either accidentally knocked over the stuff on the table by just moving his arm, or he had reached for something on the table and knocked it over, or he had tried to get up out of the chair by pressing down on the only thing around him - the table- and then the table had tipped slightly, causing him to have to sit back down and the stuff on it to spill. In any case, he seemed to have forgotten that anything had happened. When he saw us cleaning up the spill, though, he started asking questions: "Did I do that?" and "Where is Vicki [my mom]?" and "When are we going home?" - and - the one that I thought was the most alarming - "Am I going to get chemo today?" Shit, I thought. I had been so hopeful over the last few hours as we heard from the Duke team about the benefits of their treatment protocol and then as I sat beside Dad in the Chemo Room watching him get the Magic Bullet treatment. Now I was just scared, because with him not noticing or not remembering how he'd spilled and then with those questions, it seemed like he was getting worse.
But, as we had been doing during that time, Peter and I exchanged a look of concern, but we held it together and moved on to the next task at hand: while I sat with Dad in the hotel room, Peter drove to pick up my mom and Jennifer at the clinic. He dropped off my mom back at the hotel and then he and Jennifer went on a quest for the safety rails, which, as seemed to be par for the course for us, turned out to be not nearly as easy as we'd thought it would be. Traffic was nightmarish, and none of the drug stores in the area had what we needed in stock. My sister tried to look up medical supply companies on her cell phone as Peter fought the traffic, but cell phone signal was sketchy. Finally, they found a little hospital supply store that had the rails; they paid for their purchase and made their way back to the hotel.
Once back in the room, Peter and I looked at the directions for installing the grab bars and realized we needed a screwdriver. He called the front desk and got connected to the hotel maintenance guy, who agreed to let us borrow one. Peter handily removed the toilet seat, fastened the frame that was connected to the grab bar to the toilet, and replaced the seat. Good to go.
The sun was just going down by that time, and Dad was already fighting sleep. Like every night, he talked us into helping him into the bed and then talked about how he wasn't hungry but would try to eat something for supper and how he knew it would make for an odd sleep schedule to go to sleep that early but he was so tired he didn't think he could help it.
We let him sit up in bed watching TV as we came up with a game plan for what to do for supper. Peter volunteered to sit with him while Mom, Jennifer, and I went downstairs to the hotel restaurant, and we said we would bring food back to the room for the two of them.
I remember sitting in the restaurant thinking about just how surreal the whole situation was, from the fact that my dad had brain cancer, to the way his treatment had been started much more quickly than we'd anticipated, to how we'd been directed to stay in the area for an extra night, which meant we wouldn't make it back in time to join in on the Thanksgiving feast with the rest of my large extended family who had been expecting to celebrate with us after our trip. As we ate, we talked about what a whirlwind the trip had been, how grateful we were that the Duke team seemed to be in our corner, and how hopeful we were that the treatment would help.
After we'd gotten back to the room and Peter and Dad had eaten, Dad announced that he was going to sleep, which was a cue for Peter, Jennifer, and me to retreat to the hotel room next door. We positioned the door between the adjoining rooms so that it was almost closed, so we could hear if we were needed in my parents' room but so that we could whisper in our room and not disturb my parents.
As usual, Dad had to get up a few times during the night to go to the bathroom, and we were glad for the grab bars each time. Because he had been started on the chemo pill just after he had the IV treatment that day, we had been instructed to be sure that the lid of the toilet was closed each time before he flushed and to make sure he thoroughly washed his hands after using the bathroom to protect him against toxic chemicals (Doesn't it seem weird that they were having him ingest the chemicals but he had to take extra precaution to avoid being exposed to them externally?). We tried prompting him through the bathroom door to remind him, but, because he didn't always listen to us before he did something like flush or try to stand up by himself, eventually my mom just started going in there with him to be sure that he was following the safety procedures.
The next morning, on Thanksgiving Day, everyone but Dad woke up early and packed up our gear; we were eager to get started on the drive home. We had a hard time getting Dad up and getting him ready; he wanted to have his face shaved, and it took major negotiating to skip it so we could just load up and go. It was quite the antithesis to his usual tendency when it came to starting out on a road trip; every other time, he was the one getting up early and urging the rest of us to hurry.
Many restaurants and even some gas stations were closed along the way on the long drive home, and, by the time we finally made it back to my parents' house that night, we were hungry and exhausted. We ate leftover Thanksgiving food that had been packaged up and put in the refrigerator for us after the big family meal that we'd missed. Dad ate a little turkey and dressing and then went to bed; as usual, though, even with as tired as he said he was at the beginning of the night, he had a hard time sleeping and battled a headache all night, finally falling into a medicated sleep just before the sun came up.
The ringing of my parents' telephone woke us up early the next morning; it was a nurse from the nursing home where my grandmother was calling to tell us that Grandmom had taken a turn for the worse. My siblings and I hurriedly got dressed and drove to the nursing home to be with Grandmom, and the challenges continued all day long. A cold front had come through overnight, and it was very cold and windy outside, which added to our problems, especially during the family photo shoot.
When I think back to that day, one of the most difficult days of my life, I remember the brutal cold, the confusion, the fatigue, and the extreme concern about Grandmom, but what I remember most is how hard Dad worked to take part in what was going on around him - and the feeling of love between all of us. I remember noticing how difficult it was for Dad to tolerate the cold weather as he was helped out of the car, as he sat in the wheelchair for pictures to be taken, and as he was helped back into the car so he could get back home. Like a lot of things going on then, the photo shoot seemed almost dreamlike: for as much as I was in denial about the prognosis of the brain cancer, I guess some of the reality had sunken in because not long after the news of his diagnosis had been given to us I scheduled a family photo shoot for the day after Thanksgiving, knowing (desperately hoping?) that the whole family would be together then so that we could have our picture taken, all together.
We made it through the photo shoot and through the next couple of days, trying to keep all of our spirits up as we watched over Dad and Grandmom.
I don't remember a lot from the time my dad was sick, including the details of what else we did over that weekend, but I do remember that I felt a sense of unease (even more than usual) when I left my parents' house that Sunday. I really wanted to be present when the "magic" we had been promised happened; I envisioned Dad suddenly standing up from the bed or his recliner, steady on his feet and with clarity in his eyes and a smile on his face. But more than I wanted to be there to witness first-hand the miracle, I just wanted one to happen. I wanted to see the fulfillment of the cause-and-effect; I wanted the promise of the hope that we had to be realized. It had been a whirlwind past few weeks, especially the one leading up to Thanksgiving, and I was exhausted both mentally and physically, but I was so very thankful for the love and the time together that we had.
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