Around Easter I wrote an emotional knee-jerk piece about C A N C E R where I laid out the bones of the journey that one of my best friends and chosen brother has endured revolving around a testicular cancer diagnosis he received back in June of 2024 and the evolution of that cancer metastasizing to his brain as a tumor, and how they discovered it had come back for a second time as they were preparing to start radiation therapy.
I included the fact that I had been mistakenly optimistic of the news that the radiation had shrunk the tumor by 1/3 after 5 treatments, and that over Easter he was rushed to the hospital again because his brain was hemorrhaging from the pressure the tumor was putting on the tissues.
It took them a week to get him into the hospital that could perform the surgery that he needed. But the were FINALLY able to get the bleeding under control and remove the tumor, AGAIN. They were optimistic that they had gotten it all… but by that point my only thought when I heard that was “we’ve heard that before”
He spent a week doing rehab in the hospital, where the doctors were impressed with his speedy recovery. He spent another week or 2 in a specialty rehab facility focusing on getting his strength back.
This whole time his cell phone had been turned off, and text message was our preferred method of communication. But also, the few times that I tried to call his room at the rehab center, he didn’t answer.
Once he was home, his mother informed me that his phone had been restored but that he wasn’t feeling up to phone calls that day. So I waited til the next day to message him, but I didn’t get a response, not even a reactionary emoji. I messaged him a day or 2 later, again with no response. And this trend has continued on until today.
Today I messaged him to let him know that my daughter had made it to her destination safely and what my plans were for her return on Sunday. I equated our love for really random foods at random times to the runs he and I would make to the grocery store at 2am when were were in our late teens to get salad and green olives, shredded cheese, croutons and so much more to make these really hearty salads (not something that anybody has any business eating at 2am). I didn’t expect a response, I still haven’t gotten one. But I got a message from his mother.
“Things are changing fast in a not good way..” she told me. “The MRI shows another tumor growing near where the other ones were! The option is to do the radiation again, if they cut out more he would have no memory left and no quality of life.”
Just like that it clicked; His memory! I wondered if he wasn’t texting back because he didn’t know who I was. His mom also wasn’t getting text messages back from him, but she is getting updates from his local support group. I set about sending the message to old mutual friends who weren’t previously aware and my mother and mother-in-law who had both unofficially adopted him as their own son independently. I’m brought to the thought of how all of us as kids were amazingly lucky to have an army of “adoptive” parents. We were welcomed into most of our friend’s homes like it was our own, we were cared for, fed, protected. We were lucky kids, and we didn’t even know it.
More recently I got another update, after thinking for a few hours that… okay, maybe they can do the entire brain radiation along with immuno therapy or something and finally get ahead of this thing.
The doctor says he has 3-4 weeks to live. He did mention that the radiation would give him some extra time, to try additional therapies.
I feel frozen. Grief doesn’t feel right, because he is still alive. I’m sure his mother is dealing with regret over not being able to be there with him because she has a lot to deal with here. I’m staring down the question of do I spend the money to drive down there for essentially what I fear is going to be our final farewell, and risk putting us in a deeper financial hole if this economic insanity comes to a head? This isn’t a question I can answer on my own, but my husband is at a funeral for a co-worker and my daughter is across the country visiting a friend.
We visited him in January, 2 weeks after he was released home from his first brain surgery. I had prepared myself for the worst, steeled my nerves and my emotions for what I feared was going to be the end. My husband and I agreed that if we didn’t go see him, and something happened, we would be beside ourselves with regret. But he was so optimistic when we saw him, and while that optimism may have just been a facade, it was effectively contagious. He infected me with his optimism which left me open to the succession of blows the news of his declining health landed.
I’ve had a few hours to sit with this pain and this anger.
Pain of anticipated loss, and the empathy for the loss that everyone else who knows him will feel.
Anger that we don’t have a cure for this yet!
Angry that all we can do is throw radiation at the most delicate of organs in hopes that it might kill the cancer and not the brain.
And angrier that when the end nears, all they will be able to do is give him meds to dull the pain. We take better care to limit the suffering of our dying pets than we do our fellow man! Its disgusting, cruel, and inhumane!
ANGRY that on Memorial weekend an Army Veteran can’t get top notch care that he has earned! Because the ass-wipe in office would rather cut funding for all of the programs that help the people of this country in favor of self enrichment like some kind of lunatic monarch!
But in the time that I’ve had to sit with it, chew on it, and digest it a little I’ve discovered something. I don’t want to see him like this. I watched my dad wither away and die, I don’t want to see my best friend do it too. We saw him in January. He was still himself. I want THAT memory to live on with me, not the memory of a shell of the man who has potentially given up hope. I don’t know if that makes me a terrible person or not. I don’t even know if he would want us there, because he hasn’t responded to me.
Good night friends.
Protect your peace.