I've had a pretty busy couple of days. I have been rather detached from work. I wrote my team finally and shared the situation. I spent an hour on the phone with Linda Monday night. Most of it was silence, but she seemed to get comfort from the companionship. At least, that's what I assume. Lauren had called saying she had phoned her, upset and anxious, wanting to talk to me. I called, and she did not want to talk about anything, no matter what I brought up. Kathy and I met with the SRC staff Monday am, and they are going to move her to the medical care facility and start hospice. It's horrible to be having to do this when it means abandoning treatments and resigning ourselves, and her, to death. I can't begin to emphasize what a gut-wrenching feeling this is. It's the last thing I want. Wait. It's the second to last thing I want. The last being that she might continue to believe she's pursuing a cure, medicated to be as conscious as possible, while the cancer wrecks havoc on her brain and body, putting her through horrible physical shutdowns and experiences I don't even want to detail. She is "still in there." She is present and capable of simple responses, still able to recall memories, recognize her children, express her anxiety and upset. And it's horrible that no matter what, no matter how many efforts I've made to get her to talk to me about this directly, she's completely shutting out any acknowledgment that she's not going to survive this. In the past few days, she's momentarily and briefly connected with me, saying, "I don't want to be here" and "how can I get out?". Today we had about a 30-second exchange that felt like a momentary opening to honest communication. At some point, I said, "it's OK," and she responded, "It's not OK," looking me in the eye. I replied with "That's true. This is not OK. Your condition is not OK. It's awful. But what is OK is talking about it. For your sake, for your family's sake, for my sake, for your kids, you need to talk about this." She paused and replied, "But I don't want to talk about it." So I held her gaze, held her hand, and told her "when you are ready to, I will be here." Kathy leaves tomorrow for Tucson. Hospice of the Valley is engaged. There are still many things "in the air," including disability approval, that will have to be resolved by her remotely.
Today was Jen's birthday. The kids and I took her to Alpine Inn, her choice, and it was great. They both gave her cards with sincere, loving sentiments in them. She teared up. As I told her in my card, I can not express enough how very grateful I am to have her in my life.