Seattle

Chronologically, I last left off with the day I wheeled Mike out of Sacred Heart Hospital. It was as if we walked in there with the flu and walked out with a terminal diagnosis. Everything changed. It seemed like everything Mike had been holding back, came charging forward just because of the acknowledgment that this was cancer. He went from Tylenol to Oxycontin in a matter of a couple days. He went from just having nausea to puking in a garbage can multiple times per day. And he went from looking like himself and weighing about 165 pounds to about 155 when he came out, and just looking different somehow. He seemed pale to me. His eyes seemed dull, glazed, droopier, the way they looked when he’d had a few drinks. I guess maybe it was all the narcotics.

I also saw a shift in our dog, Griffey. For almost 7 years of having our dog, Griffey, he had been obsessed with his one particular toy: the Rabbit. He had tons of toys, knew them all by name, and could retrieve each one on command. But no other toy held such a special place in his heart as Rabbit. Rabbit was Griffey’s go-to toy when guests came over; he had to have it in his mouth to show off, tail wagging vigorously. In any situation, Rabbit was his comfort zone. If we were leaving, he’d panic running around looking for Rabbit to hold onto like it was his blankie. He would whimper trying to curl up in a comfortable position with Rabbit. Rabbit was so over-utilized, we were constantly having to buy a new one (and they could only be purchased at one place). In those 7 years, Griffey probably went through 20 Rabbits, all equally important to him. Even when we tried to buy him brand new toys, he only had eyes for Rabbit. Rabbit would go everywhere with us and if we forgot it somewhere, there’d be hell to pay. I can’t explain it, but literally that week Mike was diagnosed and we moved in with his parents, Griffey gave up Rabbit. It was no longer his toy of choice. He started not favoring any particular toy, or his favorite would change every few weeks to either old toys he’d never really cared for or new ones he’d never had before. Now he goes back and forth between favoring his Carrot and his Leopard Bone. But never once has he gone back to his Rabbit. It’s as if he knew life would never be the same. It kind of makes me sad, like he was a baby giving up the bottle. Griffey was always a bit aloof as well. Mike and I would try to get him to cuddle with us on the couch all the time, but if we put him on our lap, he would almost immediately get up and go lay on the opposite side of the couch, the little brat. But the way he was with Mike when he began getting sick was totally different. If I put Griffey on my lap, he got up and climbed onto Mike’s lap. He was always next to Mike when Mike was sick. Dogs clearly know something we don’t and have senses that we are not attuned to.

Right when we got out of the hospital, Mike and I went to Cancer Care Northwest for him to be tattooed for his radiation treatments he would receive to his hip bone. They placed permanent dots in a few places on his body to mark how to line him up. The radiology oncologist, Dr. Fairbanks, was a great guy. We liked him right away. He urged Mike to do sperm banking before having the radiation or any chemotherapy done, and we really appreciated the sentiment. This guy had hope for Mike’s future! So the following Monday, I took Mike to Spokane for his sperm bank appointment. We were there for at least three hours. Between the nausea, the pain, the emotional torment of having cancer, the ridiculous 1980’s porn on VHS, the employees slamming file cabinet drawers in the next room, and the FedEx guy who was loudly conversing just on the other side of Mike’s private room, providing a semen sample proved to be an insurmountable challenge. Imagine the pressure of feeling like that was his last chance to someday have kids. All that weighing on him, made it impossible. When we left, the guy told us we could go somewhere else to collect the sample, but by then we were already running late for the radiation appointment. Crap. Thanks for telling us earlier. We left feeling defeated. I tried to cheer Mike up by telling him we didn’t know for sure that he wouldn’t be able to have kids someday. Radiation that day wasn’t any more enjoyable. Lying in one position on his back on the hard surface for 20-30 minutes was torture for Mike. Two days later, Mike had one more session of radiation. Dr. Fairbanks had squeezed two weeks of radiation doses into two days of high intensity radiation, because we were in a hurry to get to Seattle and start treatment. Those two days of radiation did seem to really help his hip pain on one side.

We flew to Seattle the day after his last radiation treatment, which was just about a week after his diagnosis with melanoma. We were fortunate to get an appointment with Dr. Thompson, a melanoma specialist, right away. We had no idea what to expect, but we assumed Interleukin-2 was the only viable treatment option and that Mike would likely be in the Intensive Care Unit for at least a week getting treatment because it’s so hard on the body and side effects can actually be fatal. We had bought one way plane tickets and packed up our car with a bunch of stuff, planning to have his parents drive over with Griffey in the next few days and get a long term hotel or apartment. We didn’t even have hotel reservations because we thought Mike may be admitted to the hospital immediately.

It was with this first trip that I became superwoman. Before Mike got sick, he had taken care of almost everything. In our eight years of being together, Mike basically led us; I let him take care of me, and that’s how I liked it. Sure, I was bossy in the kitchen, but I looked to him to make decisions, drive, figure out where the hell we were going; he was in charge. But now, all of a sudden, I was in charge. With a backpack on my back, dragging two rolling suitcases through the airport, pushing Mike in the wheelchair at the same time, I became strong. Not physically, but mentally. For the next five and a half months, I was a like a mother lifting a car off her child; I was a walking adrenaline rush, an unmovable rock. I felt like I could endure anything. Anything that would normally have intimidated me and made me whine to Mike, I confronted head on, no questions asked, no hesitations. He now looked to me to make the decisions and I completely provided for him. I did everything within my power to make him happy, comfortable, and taken care of. There was literally a shift in our roles; a reversal. Before, just at the hint of something physically unpleasant or straining, I would give up and he’d take over. Now, there was nothing I couldn’t withstand. I did everything with as much effort as if his very life depended on it; I had no choice.

Our high school friend who lived in the Seattle area was kind enough to pick us up at the airport and deliver us to Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, a beautiful building covered in windows with a stunning view of Lake Union on a clear, sunny day. Dr. Thompson was a short little man with his thin blondish hair combed over his nearly bald head. He had a somewhat bulbous nose, beady eyes, and expansive forehead. He neither inspired confidence nor the contrary. We sat in his office, where Dr. Thompson pulled up a chair at his desk and shook our hands. After short introductions, Mike made it optimistically clear right away that we didn’t want to hear any statistics. Mike happily said, “I just want to beat this thing so I can get back to my life.” This didn’t seem to settle well with Dr. Thompson. I’m sure he figured we clearly had no idea what we were up against and wanted to smack us with a dose of reality. Without a hint of a smile, he looked us in the eyes, and for the first time, we heard someone use the term “stage four melanoma.” Obviously we knew it was stage four by definition, but hadn’t really acknowledged it. And having this melanoma expert use the phrase in such a pessimistic, almost apologetic way, was heart wrenching. I started shaking, the perma-knot in my stomach twisted a little tighter, and I gripped onto Mike’s arm as tears threatened to spill over. Dr. Thompson was not positive; nothing in his tone or demeanor offered hope. He basically laid out the three options we had. He scrawled on a piece of paper: 1) PLX4032; 2) ipilimumab; 3) IL-2. He described that the first option was a clinical trial that would be available to their clinic soon, and if Mike’s melanoma proved to have a particular genetic mutation, which about half of melanomas do, then he would qualify for that drug. He added that with this option, Mike could get a dose of a traditional chemotherapy drug first that could have some benefit and the effects would last three to four weeks until the clinical trial drug was available. The second on the list was a newly approved injectable medication with a very low success rate but a few cases of long-term remission, and the last option was Interleukin 2, which Dr. Thompson did not favor, especially with how much Mike’s cancer had metastasized and how remote the chances of success were. Dr. Nichols, Mike’s doctor in Spokane later told us that Dr. Thompson had told her he didn’t think Mike would survive the IL-2 treatment; it was too harsh and he was not physically well enough. “If it was your son, what option would you choose?” I asked Dr. Thompson. “I would go with the first option.” He replied without hesitation. So we agreed. He was in fact, the expert. Our appointment concluded, at which point we realized we had no where to go so Dr. Thompson’s lovely nurse, Sharon, set us up at the SCCA House, a nearby hotel for SCCA patients with a free shuttle. That would become like a second home to us. It was modern, very “sterile”, and rather affordable. They have a library, computers, a huge communal commercial kitchen, each room has a kitchenette, and each floor has a recycle station. But it’s also a sad place. Everyone you cross paths with has a sad reason for being there. There is a tenseness. Just thinking about the place gives me anxiety. I can’t imagine what going back there would feel like.

The next morning we began what would become a familiar routine. We took the SCCA shuttle to the SCCA clinic from the hotel. I grabbed Mike a wheelchair inside the clinic and wheeled him in to the waiting room for his lab draws on the first floor where the phlebotomists always gave us warm blankets and did an awesome job getting his blood. Next, I’d wheel Mike down the hall to the elevator by the wig shop, and I quickly learned to back the wheelchair in instead of push it into the elevator forward, which makes exiting so much easier. We’d typically go up a few floors to Dr. Thompson’s office, but on this particular day, Mike was scheduled to get a dose of dacarbazine, an old chemo drug that statistically is worthless for melanoma. The infusion suites were amazing. We had our own private room where Mike had a Tempurpedic hospital bed, I had a recliner, we had a flat screen tv, and loads of warm blankets. But the real treat was the little kitchen down the hallway with a fridge and cupboards full of great snack food for patients. I made the executive decision the snacks were also for caregivers. Mike was in top form that day, decked out in comfy Husky clothes he’d splurged on when he’d gotten accepted into UW’s PA program. He was joking with the nurses while they started his IV and was in an overall good mood. They gave him some pre-medication for nausea before they ran the chemotherapy drip for the next few hours. Mike tolerated the dacarbazine fine, we slept off and on in the infusion room, then I wheeled him out and we went back to the hotel where Mike slept while I restlessly panicked internally as I often would, and tried to distract myself with my computer.

The next day we borrowed Mike’s sister, Laura’s in-laws car and drove it home from Seattle. We had no reason to stay in Seattle for now. We were awaiting the genetic testing to determine if Mike could participate in the clinical trial with the experimental drug, PLX4032. I had dreadingly assumed Mike would sleep the whole way home, and I’d be alone with the silence to think and panic, but since the early hours of the morning he’d had insomnia and was up and talkative. The entire way home we chatted as if nothing was wrong. One of Mike’s nausea medications they’d given him after the chemotherapy had a side-effect of causing hiccups. Mike would loudly hiccup every couple of minutes, right in the middle of our conversation the whole way home and I would laugh hysterically.

We had no idea what the future would hold, and were silently scared to death. But that made each moment so much more valuable and meaningful. I think God gave me one particular gift through this. I don’t typically have that great of a memory for details, but somehow I recall most of those 5-6 months very clearly as if it were yesterday. Some days and even weeks blend in to each other, but I remember certain days, hours, and moments with such clarity, it takes my breath away. I can instantly be transported back to the particular second of our cancer journey and I feel the same anxiety, fear, and love I did over two years ago. I don’t consider this a curse at all; I am deeply grateful for any memory of Mike and our precious moments together.