{Above photo: My father’s lungs (pneumonia and tumor)}
(*Written 4/5/23)
Well my old man has three big problems now: He’s got pneumonia, sepsis (yep) and new tumor growth in his lungs. We saw the lung scan today from the pulmonologist and wow. His lungs look like a spattered Jackson pollack painting. Nasty, fertile, wild, crowded, bright like pulsing stars amidst the black space of the lungs.
His spirits, no doubt, were down. Can’t blame him there. It’s been a long, exhausting haul the past 18 months.
Last night I was up until 11pm rereading my George Orwell biography, trying not to think about the rage I feel towards my sister for her stark negligence of this whole uncanny situation. I finally fell asleep but woke up right at 2am and couldn’t fall back asleep. I tossed and turned. My father. My mother. Me. My sister. Cancer. It just all seemed so surreal somehow, like I was living someone else’s life.
By 2:30 I said Fuck It and got up. I crept upstairs and, making sure not to wake my sleeping mother down the hall, made tea and toast. By 3am I was editing my previous post, the one about my sister. I added links and photos. Made more tea. Edited a bit more. Nodded in satisfaction. Pressed ‘publish.’ Then I made still more tea and started reading Gulag Archipelago. (Not exactly recommended light reading for this cancer moment but I like dark to match dark.)
By 4am I was caffeinated and ready to roar. But I still felt sick—this dumb head cold I got from my mom who likely got it from her friend and which was minor in us but ravaging my father’s torn, frail body—and it was still dark and silent and cold outside, and there was nothing, really, to do.
So I read. The horrors of Bolshevism; Stalinism. At 6:40am I tiptoed out my parents’ front door—mom still asleep—and down the steep stone stairs to my father’s 2018 electric Leaf, my car for now by default. The view from the top of the stairs had been brilliant: The orange sun rising above the deep blue of the sea. I headed to my dog-sitting gig in the Mesa across town.
*
I was done with my gig my 11:15am. Mom had been at the hospital since 8:30am. The oncologist had briefly—for literally three minutes—stopped by and chatted with Dad early that morning, probably around the time I was reading about innocent civilians being arrested in Soviet Russia in the twenties and thirties in Gulag Archipelago. Irony is a great Damocles.
Starving, I first drove to a trendy coffee shop at De La Vina and Mission and scarfed down a burrito. I got another chai latte to go. By noon I walked into the hospital. Then I was walking those familiar hallways, tall glass ceilings, polished slick floors. It was deja vu: I’d walked these exact same halls, stepped on these same floors, entered almost the same room (same set of rooms anyway); 2021/22 we’d been here, similar deal, dad in bed, sick, mom and I trying to make light of things, listening to podcasts with Dad, making jokes, etc. that had all been a bad dream.
But here we were yet again. Funny how life works: things are often cyclical. They come back around.
Dad looked bad—tired, weak, over it. We discussed what the pulmonologist said. Mom showed me the scans. Told me about the sepsis, a new development. A range of semi-conscious recollections of hearing about people dying from sepsis sparked across my brain. Sepsis. Pneumonia. Lung tumor growth. Dad. 77. Stage four Melanoma. All day I’d felt emotional on and off. I wondered several things: Would he ever leave the hospital this time? Would he be intubated? If he was intubated would he ever recover from that? Would the sepsis kill him first? Or the pneumonia? Or the cancer growing in his lungs?
Mom and I gazed at his lung scan photos together on her iPad and looked at each other; my mom scrunched her lips and her eyes seemed to say, Well: Here it is. I nodded, even though she hadn’t spoken out loud. Since July 2021 we’d understood each other on a newer, deeper, more telepathic level. Cancer caretaking does that; it bonds two people together like unwitting glue. Despite anything else, we had this bond now. My sister was a million miles away, on another unknown planet. But my mom and I were orbiting each other. We needed one another. My mom is losing the man she’s known and loved since her early twenties; I am losing the pillar of my unwieldy life called My Old Man.
*
After two hours my mom left for a while; she went home to shower and eat and rest. After she was gone I watched my dad sleep for a while. He must have been dreaming; his feet and hands twitched in potential secret delight. His mouth had fallen wide open. This. My father. Vulnerable. Weak. Down for the count.
I pulled the curtain aside and laid down on the couch. It was long and narrow. I closed my eyes. Sunlight beamed down against my skin. My nostrils were plugged up frustratingly. Every minute or two I coughed. Occasionally I sneezed. I heard my dad’s feint breathing on the other side of the curtain. Slow and soft. That curtain divided us in more ways than one.
I was in and out of wakefulness for two hours. Nurses came in and out quietly, checking his vitals. I turned over a few times, trying to get comfortable. Then my mom arrived. She looked fresher and brighter. I needed a shower. Food. A walk. Sleep.
We all chatted for a while and then I left to walk to CVS to get Theraflu for myself. Along the way I called my fiancé. We talked for nearly an hour. She was driving to her son’s high school baseball game. We discussed her coming down here on Friday, staying a night with me here at the house, seeing my dad. He’ll most likely still be in the hospital. She seems up for it. Dad would like it. It would mean something. Maybe it’s more for me. Maybe that’s the same thing.
After an hour and a half I returned to Dad’s room. We all talked a little more. Dad looked better. They’d given him 80mg of Prednisone, plus the new strong antibiotic and oxygen via his nose. They’d also used a machine which is supposed to break up the chaos in his lungs and get some of it out. Something was working because he looked better, brighter, more aware, more awake, sharper.
Finally, feeling better all around, Mom and I decided it was time to leave. It was 5:30. She’d been there all day, me fur over five hours. We were exhausted. It’s not physical exhaustion; it’s that deeply ingrained emotional/spiritual fatigue. Draining. We said our good nights and wished Dad a good sleep.
We left. I took a nice hot shower. We’re doing laundry. I’m writing. It’s safe and quiet here in the Santa Barbara Riviera.
For now.
###
**Further update as of 10:26am, 4/6/23: Oxygen assistance has increased from 6% two days ago to 15% currently. This means he’s needing increased help to breathe functionally. The doctor is also slightly concerned about potential myocarditis. Ultrasound later today. Overall Dad seems in relatively decent spirits, though he’s of course tired, and a little overwhelmed.
As I am reading this, my sister is hospitalized for a month now diagnosed with a very fast spreading bone cancer. She's going through a very painful time and it painful for me that I am not there for her.
I pray for your father and all the cancer patients.
I'm sorry you and your family is in this situation. I pray for you all. I love your writing. You always touch the deepest, most raw parts of our humanity.