I watch my wife glance up at her obstetrician, her features more peaceful than I’ve ever known them to be, and she nods. She doesn’t question, she doesn’t argue. She simply agrees. Maybe she knows something I don’t.
It’s the consequent visit of Dr. Taffer, Lena’s oncologist, that fills in some of those blanks.
“How are we doing?” Lheanne Taffer asks when she walks in, perching one hip on Lena’s bed and angling her body so that she can see both Lena and me.
“Wonderful,” Lena replies without hesitation.
“Glad to hear it. Looks like the little one made a grand entrance.” She leans in to look down into Grace’s face, her expression closed.
“She did. But she’s here. That’s the main thing.”
After only a second’s pause, Dr. Taffer turns all her attention to Lena. “Are you in pain?”
“No.”
“While you’re here, I’d like to order some testing so we can get a bead on where you are with the cancer before you’re discharged. How does that sound?”
Lena takes her time in answering, something that makes all the muscles in my chest tense up. “Can we wait a few days? Let me enjoy her a little bit first?”
It’s Dr. Taffer’s turn to pause. I wonder what she’s thinking. Is she debating whether to push the subject? Is she considering giving Lena some less-than-welcome news? Is she trying to soften a blow that I alone can’t see? Is she, God forbid, thinking Lena doesn’t have time to wait?
My lungs seize at the thought.
When the doctor finally responds, everything from her features to her body language is carefully neutral. “Of course, if that’s what you’d prefer.”
“It is.”
The two women share a long, intense look before the oncologist stands. It’s obvious she wants to say more, but isn’t sure how and when to go about it. “Lena, you’re at least going to need to start a couple of medications.”
I can’t hear Lena’s sigh, but I see it lift her chest along with our child who rests on it. “Why? What’s going on?”
“I was looking at your labs. Your ammonia levels are climbing. The stress of the pregnancy on your liver only aggravated an existing problem. We need to get that down. I suspect you’re working on hepatic encephalopathy. Grade one at least. It’s crucial that we get a handle on this, Lena. I know you’ve been having some confusion, too, and… Well, you know how it goes.”
While Lena may know what the doctor is getting at, I do not.
“What are you saying?”
Dr. Taffer turns, tight-lipped and firm, to face me this time. “I’m saying that I think her disease has advanced considerably, and we need to know what we’re dealing with so that we can get her on some kind of treatment as soon as possible, even if it’s palliative.”
Palliative.
In my extensive research, done when I couldn’t sleep for worrying about my wife, I came across that word all too often in reference to Lena’s condition.
Palliative.
Palliative care is for comfort only. It isn’t used to treat anything except pain or other uncomfortable symptoms associated with terminal conditions. It isn’t intended to heal or prolong or delay. It’s the use of medication strictly for those who are dying. And who will be in a great deal of pain or discomfort from it.
Palliative.
And it’s used when death is fairly imminent.
A wave of nausea rolls through my stomach. It comes on like a white-capped storm surge, curling over a sandy shore—quickly and unexpectedly. I want to yell at Lheanne Taffer, to tell her that this is supposed to be a happy day and she’s supposed to give us hope, not…not…this. I want like hell to kick her out the door and erase everything she’s said since she walked in.
But I don’t.
I can’t do either of those. My job is to keep my wife calm and uplifted. Throwing her oncologist out on her ass or getting myself forcibly removed by security would accomplish neither of those, so I swallow my complaints like the bitter, jagged pills they are.
Then I swallow again.
“So, you’d give her something to help the pain in her side? A-and the…confusion?” I ask. I hate talking about my wife as though she’s not here, but I need to understand the options.
“Yes. At least those two things. We’ll know more when we can get some testing done.”
I wonder if I pale visibly as I consider what this means because Dr. Taffer reacts as though I did. I catch the quick succession of several emotions as they play over her face.
I can’t help wondering if, in her haste to get my wife on some kind of treatment, the doctor forgot that Lena Grant is someone’s wife and, now, someone’s mother. I wonder if she didn’t even consider the possibility that Lena would want to enjoy her family, uninterrupted, for a few days before she gets poked and prodded and possibly given even worse news.
Whether she had or hadn’t considered these things, I’ll never know. I only know the moment that she recognized those truths, she finally let some compassion in, and let it take the wheel.