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After I was diagnosed with cancer, an organization of loved ones formed around me, but perhaps no one was as helpful as my beloved husband.
When I was diagnosed with cancer in April, it wasn’t long before my Cancer Trust Group was formed, recruited from a circle of family and friends across the country.
It was commissioned by my married daughter, who was teaching at a Mississippi college, who first recruited her younger brother in the Boston area. She sprang into action, doing virtual studies on my oncology team, asking applicable questions about my treatment plan, setting up online “food trains” (she had no idea that was a thing).
The two young men sent me what has become my salvation: a red Vitamix blender and the largest bottle of protein powder, advised by my son, the fitness trainer. My children have, in fact, been absolute blessings in this experience.
But, as I spend those fall days undergoing chemotherapy and managing the side effects of treatment, it is clear that a captain of three organizations has a different role than the other two. It has been there since the first telltale blood stains. He accompanied the gynecologist appointments for the exams and the inevitable biopsy, listening intensely to my account of the diagnosis, desperately seeking to hide his palpable fears.
My husband Steven accompanies me on this adventure exclusively to our courtship of more than 4 decades and his private participation in the destination.
Steven spent the afternoon in an uncomfortable bedside chair at the hospital while I recovered from a total hysterectomy in May. He was my auxiliary nurse on call the first few nights of recovery, bringing water or food and checking my comfort. We almost gave up looking for the site of the June surgery to implant the thoracic port at 6:30 a. m. another, and internal brachytreatment radiation treatment at a separate site, never complained about morning appointments that felt like a chore. Poorly paid work.
My husband filled a thermos with coffee in front of us on the road, his eyes a little cloudy but determined.
He started a special word, “really, Holyfield chemotherapy” (he’s a boxing enthusiast), to describe the existing regimen of carboplatin and docetaxel that began in September for six rounds and appears to be the most debilitating.
I think that was the scariest component of the adventure for him. He worried about my loss of appetite, encouraged me to eat, and reminded me to take steroid pills before treatments. Not to mention the delicious snacks delivered through friends and family. We laugh at it and constantly make irreverent jokes, our private version of black humor, I guess, while trying to hold on tightly to reason.
Yes, we have rarely argued fiercely. And I said categorically that this was my adventure to face it as I walked it, with its understanding. When I made the decision to share my diagnosis on social media to advertise cancer awareness and get help from more friends, Steven was skeptical.
Now, when I thankfully run errands without a shawl or cap, proudly sporting my bald head, I think it feels uncomfortable for my shaved hair to announce my illness in full view of everyone. They are still there. And myths of cancer and stigma in the afterlife have not escaped Steven’s attention, fueling his worry and stress. It’s a struggle for me, but also for him.
My cancer organization is made up of complex explorers, to open potholes and winding turns, send prayers, boxes of frozen food, and essentials for my “chemotherapy bag” as proactive measures. Without organization, this path would be darker and lonelier.
For my husband Steven, who has a review not only of the road but also of my own hesitant steps along the way, being an organization leader demands an inner foretold through the same vows we recite on a hot December day in 1983 here in the South. Central Texas.
It shows what “sickness and health” meant that day, after the first wave of whirlwind romance actually gave way to the not-so-flattering realities of earning a salary, raising children, growing old (sometimes not so gracefully) and coping with a devastating diagnosis.
He did not surrender to the inevitable moments of human weakness and doubt.
Steven climbs into the chair to sign up for Dr. Leigh and Steven Cooper to sign up for the organization for another day of travel. And we all hit the road.
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