Living with a monster

There are reminders of Andy everywhere, of course.

Some are more painful than others, like last week when I had to get an ultrasound (everything’s fine) and I went to the same place I took him for x-rays because of the pain in his back. That was four days before I took him to the ER where they discovered the pain was from metastatic cancer.

I thought I’d be okay going there which seems ridiculous in hindsight.

And I was okay when I checked in and when I was in the waiting room, and then they sent me down the hall to radiology and when I got to the desk where I had to check in, I struggled to keep from crying.

That was better than the week before, when I went to the dentist and once I got into the exam room, the hygienist asked if my emergency contact had changed, and I got teary eyed and then I couldn’t stop myself from sobbing openly. The hygienist spent the first fifteen minutes of the appointment consoling me and being so kind as I told her about the trauma of the ordeal, about how Andy wasn’t able to see his oncologist until fifteen days after the diagnosis, and how he had to be discharged when he was in no condition to be discharged just to finally get an oncology appointment, and how by the time the oncologist saw him it was too late to do anything.

After I settled down she cleaned my teeth.

At the end she gently reminded me that other medical providers would probably ask me the same thing, so I should be prepared.

And then there was yesterday.

I was in a big zoom meeting and the presenter told a story about their spouse needing to have major surgery. At first the story sounded ominous, and for a split second, I thought maybe the spouse had died. And then the speaker continued and talked about the medical care their spouse had, and started to mention what they thought of the medical care and I thought – here it goes – they are going to talk about how broken our system is.

I could feel the anxiety enveloping me. My heart started to beat faster. My chest tightened. I was tense everywhere. I tried to take deep breaths to steady myself.

And then the speaker said that the medical care was incredible, that the experience was so much better than they expected and that their partner was healthy and that they were so lucky to have this health scare behind them.

I was startled by how hard this hit me. I started sobbing. Fortunately I was off camera and on mute, but as the speaker continued with the story I cried harder and harder. I felt as if I wasn’t in control of my own body.

I left the call.

But it was an important call, and so after a few minutes passed, still sobbing, I logged back on to see if they had stopped talking about the hospital stay and medical experience that was the complete opposite of ours.

And while the speaker had moved on, I couldn’t. I could not stop crying.

I left my desk and went upstairs to my (previously Andy’s) bedroom and cried so hard I couldn’t catch my breath. I pounded on the mattress and fought the urge to smash something, anything, against the wall. I was full of sadness and grief and rage.

Why didn’t Andy have a good hospital experience? Why did he end up with the bureaucratic crap that kept him from even seeing the oncologist to even find out what his treatment or prognosis was? Why do my kids miss out on having their dad see them grow up?

I didn’t work the rest of the day. I told my colleagues I needed a mental health day and I took the anti-anxiety pill that the doctor said I should only take in an emergency. I’ve only taken the emergency one twice counting yesterday but I’m going to take them a third time as soon as I can find the damn bottle. I have some baby anti-anxiety meds that have worked just fine most of the time but I know they will be useless now.

I don’t think it was just the story about the partner with the spouse who needed surgery that got me. I think it was the thing that put me over the edge this week after all the smaller things nipped at my heels.

But whether it was just that story or a culmination of everything, the result is that I am a mess right now.

The boys’ bereavement counselor tells me that the grief will never go away but we will learn to live with it. But today, it feels like a monster that’s going to swallow me whole.