The Spirituality of Illness II

Had not Stuart fallen ill at the "right" time and place (in a doctor's office), we probably wouldn't have known about his cancer until it was too late to do much about it. He wasn't having any symptoms of kidney cancer; he was having symptoms of depression, which only intensified when he learned of his cancer. But the fact is, it was a stroke of luck — or a warning message from his own body — that caught the cancer in stage one, and we are grateful now, both for that signal and for the infectious diseases specialist whose diagnostic thoroughness no doubt saved Stuart's life.

After she told me the bad news, I asked Dr. Diana to prescribe an anti-depressant for Stuart, because he was currently in no shape to fight — he'd been too sad to eat or drink properly for weeks — that's why he nearly fainted in her office. I knew he would see the cancer as physical payback for his years as a smoker. He'd felt there was no point in fighting it: his business was in the toilet, he was ill, and he would probably die.

And here I was, recovering nicely but physically weak and emotionally drained. I couldn't do the fighting for him. The doctor obliged me by offering a Prozac scrip, and Stuart agreed that he was depressed and willing to try an antidepressant. But relief was three weeks or more away. The immediate plan was to cheer ourselves up just by going home, petting our cats, sleeping in our own bed.

Stuart can only take so much lying down; he prefers to be up and doing. Though he'd been unable to stand or walk all week, on Friday when I offered to call a friend to come get us, he said he could get us home, and besides he didn't want to leave his car in New Jersey. So, he took the lead, and made several heroic, Percoset-assisted trips — down in the elevator and out to the very back of the parking lot, where I had left the car in the only spot of shade, and back for more of the "stuff" we had accumulated, we knew not how. He used the wheelchair they had provided for me, filling it with plastic bags of prescriptions and hospital release instructions and overnight bags, iPod and books, limping along behind with both hands braced on the chair grips, using it like a walker.

Meanwhile, I waited for the hospital social worker to set up my home nursing care, and the shift nurse to dose me with antibiotic fluid one last time, then unhook me from the pump and the pole, leaving the PICC line (a more permanent sort of IV site) in my arm for use at home. When Stuart had made his last trip up to the third floor, I eased into the wheelchair and he took me down to the lobby where I waited while he drove the car up to the door and helped me in. Can you drive? I had to ask. Of course, he said. But we both knew what a strain it was: as great as PVH is, we really wanted to get out of there. By the end of the afternoon we were lying side by side on top of the bedspread in our room, staring at the slanting shadows on the east wall, pretty much too tired to think.

We had a journey before us. The home nurse would arrive tomorrow to set up my IV. There would be trips back to the doctor's office in New Jersey, trips to the lab for blood workups, trips to urologists for consultation and advice, calls to the insurance company to check our coverage. As we had learned from prior hospitalizations, there's always an anesthesiologist or pathologist who refuses to accept what your insurance offers and sends you astonishing (and frightening) bills. But that was tomorrow...

(to be continued)