|
Forks in the Road: Chapter 14 WHEN I LOST YOU In 1976 Mary began to experience some problems of health. A hysterectomy was required. Because of these problems, we moved Dad to a retirement home in downtown Orlando, from where we continued to take care of many of his needs while relieving Mary of his day-to-day maintenance. Soon she began to seem more like her normal self. But for some time she had complained that she felt a lump in one of her breasts. She had consulted her general practitioner (Dr. Charles Grant) and her gynecologist (Dr. Robert DiMaio), both of whom assured her that her fears were groundless. One doctor said it was just her imagination; the other said it was something that “was supposed to be there.” One morning I awakened to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, crying. I asked her why. “I’m dying of cancer,” she answered. Somehow she knew that the doctors, whom I had all along trusted, were wrong. We went to a new specialist (Dr. George Ulch), and he found the lump. He believed it to be benign, but it would have to be removed. When she went into surgery, I was put in the waiting room with the information that if it were benign, she would be out in a matter of minutes; if it took longer, it meant the lump was malignant. The mastectomy took nearly two hours. At first, her despondency was increased by an oncologist who gave her a pessimistic evaluation. I was outraged at his callous bedside manner and obtained a recommendation for another doctor, Daniel C. Hadlock, who gave her more encouragement and set up her arrangements for chemotherapy. I remember vividly taking her shopping when she had to buy a wig because of the resultant hair loss.
The chemotherapy was used two weeks of every four. During those two weeks, she was nauseated and in every way miserable. But there was an amazing change when the two off-weeks came about. We took advantage of this by planning and doing wonderful things together during those periods. We went to Australia to visit Meg and her family. We went to ABC meetings in Hollywood and Hawaii. We went to Dallas to spend some time with Billy, Barbara, Brittany, and Ryan. We made the most of every week of non-chemotherapy. After nearly a year of chemotherapy, Dr. Hadlock sent us a report of a series of scans marked “CLEAR,” and wrote at the bottom, “Congratulations!” Chemotherapy was discontinued. We attended an awards banquet of the Cancer Society, in which we had both become quite active, and delivered a resounding testimonial to Dr. Hadlock. Mary’s sister, Hazel, came to visit, and the two of them drove up to Danville to see the rest of the family. On the way back, Mary got very tired and asked Hazel to take over the driving. She felt very poorly when she arrived home. We were told it was a virus and treated it accordingly. But she continued to run a fever and to feel weak. I took her to the emergency room at the Florida Hospital North, from where we called Dr. Hadlock, only to learn he was in Boston attending a seminar and would not be back for several days. Another doctor attended her, and when he obtained and inspected her recent liver scan, he advised that there was a tumor there. We told him that it had been declared “clear,” but he was sure of his diagnosis. I put in a call to Hadlock in Boston. He said he didn’t see how it was possible, but to assemble all her films and reports from three or four places, leave them all at his office, and he would return that weekend, review them, and meet with us on Monday morning. At that time he informed us that the “clear” report had been erroneous. He said the analysis of the scan had been performed by a “roentgenologist,” Dr. R. L. Woodburn, who had furnished him with an incorrect report. I asked him if he didn’t check the report himself; his answer was that it was not customary to do so. Mary told him she did not want to know how long she had to live, but she was despondent. At various times during Dr. Hadlock’s treatment, I had suggested that he might refer her to the M.D. Anderson Clinic in Houston, which had been accomplishing miraculous things in dealing with cancer. He always said there was nothing they could do for her there that he could not do in Orlando. Now, when I suggested it again, he indicated we had nothing to lose, so we quickly arranged a trip to Houston. A thorough examination there confirmed the diagnosis. However, Anderson was involved in experimentation with a new medication that had a chance to cure liver cancer, or at least to substantially prolong life. The drugs were provided at no cost, to be administered by Dr. Hadlock back in Orlando, and we returned home with them on Thanksgiving Day 1977. Wendy had used her mother’s traditional menu and recipes and had prepared the complete turkey dinner. We gave thanks that there was still hope. When Mary went for the first of the new treatments, it was found she “had a virus” that would have to be cleared up before the medication could be employed. She never reached that point. She went quickly downhill. On our 30th wedding anniversary, she barely made it from her bed to the kitchen, where I gave her my gift and we all assured her that our prayers and our efforts were with her all the way. When the kids were decorating the Christmas tree in the living room, she could hear them and, when something was said about how beautiful it looked, she forced herself to get up to come in and see it for herself. She fell in the hallway and we put her back in bed. I don’t think she ever saw that tree, although she had seen to it that there were gifts under it for all of us. Hadlock had said that there was no point to taking her to a hospital, that she could receive better care at home with her loved ones. But on the night of December 20, her condition was such that I insisted he admit her to the hospital. We took her by ambulance to Orange Memorial Hospital, now Orlando Regional Medical Center. The kids were all at hand, and we took turns staying with her in her room. Wendy decorated a small Christmas tree and displayed it across from the bed. I was asked whether, if it were positively terminal, I wanted “heroic measures taken” to prolong life, and I said no. She was in a coma most of the time until Friday. That afternoon, the Burgesses came to see her. Tony and I were beside her bed with Ralph and Frances, when she opened her eyes as wide as I had ever seen them. She looked from one to the other of the four of us, then she stopped breathing. I yelled for the nurse, who brought her back, but a few minutes later she stopped again, and that was the end. After the others tearfully left the room, I kissed her face thirty times, once for each of the wonderful years we had shared. Then I went home, a widower as of December 23, 1977, to a house that was gaily decorated for Christmas. Wendy went to get my father and tell him that Mary was gone. “Why couldn’t it have been me, instead of her?” he sobbed as he entered the house. He died of heart failure six months later, one month shy of his 85th birthday. His brother, Oscar, died just a month later. The generation of my parents had ended.
Mary’s funeral could not be held until the day after Christmas. Virtually all of Mary’s family arrived from Virginia and elsewhere, and we all sat around the tree the morning of the 25th as we opened gifts from her to us, and set aside gifts from us to her. It was the saddest Christmas gathering of all time. Mary’s clothes were distributed to the kinfolk who attended, and for years afterwards I would come up with a jolt when I would see her garments on her sisters and nieces.
Friends came from far and near, from Danville, Columbus, Texarkana, Washington, New York, Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta. It took pages and pages to list all the phone calls, cards, and letters received. There were many flowers and nearly a hundred generous gifts to the Cancer Society. A memorial was held at the funeral home, and she was buried on the 26th in the plot for two in Glen Haven Memorial Park that we had purchased for ourselves a few years earlier. The marker reads: “Mary Garnett Johnson Windsor 1925-1977.”
Preface |
Dedication
| Contents
|
