Topic: Illness

Author: Chris Dunn

The hardest time was at Christmas. I don’t think the nurses realized the bitter irony of tuning into Warm 98’s holiday play list. I’m sure they only had the best of intentions, but as the upbeat songs about hope and love in the holiday season washed over the rows of cancer patients and their family attendants, I felt forced to look around and wonder if I was the only one who could see how sad it all was. My mother sat beside me, tube running from hanging bags of fluid into the needle stuck in the back of her bruised, purple hand. She seemed oblivious to both the irony and the music. Most likely, due to her poor hearing, she couldn’t make out the more than a slight background buzz. I left her to her reading, seeing no point in disturbing her with my clever insights, since cleverness centered around the contrast between the happy music and the sad reality of cancer. Typically the radio was tuned to a classic rock station. And let’s be honest, would “You Can’t Always Get Want You Want” be any better?

I should be saying, what’s wrong with a little positive thinking? Mom had been on an upturn since getting out of the hospital. Her mood had improved, her mobility was better, and she had even regained the bite of her trademark, acerbic wit. The medicine seemed to be working. Why not hope for a happy holiday season?

We’d been coming to the TriHealth Cancer Institute for months, every Wednesday. Most days the treatment and office visit would take upwards of four hours. We would time them and keep a record of which nurses were fastest, and which ones could find her veins without too many painful sticks. Mom had refused to get a port installed, for easy access. I think that seemed to much like giving in, like if she accepted that intrusion, the cancer had already won. Getting a new stick each time for the IV, it was like she was just going in for a procedure, a procedure, which like every other doctor visit she had endured before in her life, that would eventually end so she could return to making plays and throwing parties. She had no way of knowing that she would be coming here for two more months. Just as I had no way of knowing that I would quickly follow helping her care for her illness with assisting my father.

It’s been effectively three years for me at the THC. The nurses know my face. The doctor has his goto jibes for me which he uses to establish a rapport. My father will only need trips once a month, and most of his fall closer to two than four hours, but still – three years of the cancer ward is hard. I can only imagine how it must be for the poor nurses. Day-in… Day-out... Helping people through the hardest time of their lives until one day they just stop showing up. Everyone there works hard to make the mood as light as possible. That’s how I know their intent is only to lighten the mood.

That first Christmas, I found myself looking from my dying mother as she nodded sleepily against the book about to drop of her hands, then around the room filled with people hooked to bags slowly dripping life-saving poisons into their graying bodies. Most of the patients had care givers sitting beside them to bring them a box of juice or a supportive smile, but others sat alone, under the glaring lights, nurses rushing back and forth. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” came on the radio, and I had to laugh to keep from crying.