the second worst day of my life

Valentine's Day, three years ago.

Three weeks after Becky's diagnosis, she has surgery. The plan is to go in and test her lymph nodes. If they are cancerous, then the surgery will be short and minor and we will do chemo and radiation first before surgery later. If there is no cancer in the lymph system, then the portion of her right lung with tumor will be removed.

The surgery began very early in the morning on Valentine's Day, and we were in the room with several other patients' families. There was a nurse who went from operating room to operating room and then came back about every hour to report on what is going on.

After a couple of hours, we found out that they had opened Becky's chest, meaning that the lymph system was clear and that the tumor is being removed, the best case scenario.

After a couple more hours, the doctor shows up. It was not the best case scenario; it was the worst case scenario. The lymph nodes were cancerous. But when they tried to close up the small entry in her neck, they could not stop bleeding and had to crack her chest. So she got the major surgery but not the tumor removal. She would have to heal from the surgery for a few weeks before chemo could begin.

And in the mean time, I got to wait. I had to be the one to tell her what had happened. I knew she would wake up and think she was free of the cancer because she had had the major surgery. I had to be the one to break this to her. It was probably another three hours before she was awake, and the despair in her eyes as I told her is one of the most haunting things I have ever experienced. She couldn't talk; she was still on a respirator and a huge dose of morphine. But she knew how much harder this fight was to be.

It is weird, three years later, that I can basically remember that day minute by minute. I can remember what the little kids were like in the waiting room. I can remember the accent of the nurse who reported to us every hour. Every detail of that day.

I guess the good side is the strength I got from the people around me, talking to my brothers on the phone and our dear friend Barbara in Atlanta. But this day was the worst. In many ways, it is even worse than the day she died, which was a pleasant time most of the day.

So if I am extra-curmudgeon today, it is not because I am single and wish I weren't. (Though I am not particularly happy about that......) It is because I find my thoughts in St. Luke's Hospital three years ago.