I have known people that have been told that they have cancer and their immediate reaction is that they have to live because their children need them. In all honesty the only reason that you have to live is for yourself. I would love to think that Lennie could keep his hope alive by getting well for me, but the truth is that he can only get well for himself. This is his battle and I am merely a bystander who is urging him along with a lot of well meaning nagging.
I can recall when I was about 5 years old and I saw the B/W version of Peter Pan with Mary Martin in that role. Tinkerbell saves Peter Pan’s life by drinking the poison herself. Watching Tinkerbell’s light grow dimmer and dimmer, Peter Pan pleads with the TV audience to ‘believe’. “Say, ‘I believe’.”, he calls out to us, watching from home around our tiny TV set. There I sat, shouting, “I believe!”. And I really did believe. At that moment I believed that shouting out the words would save Tinkerbell’s life. And I guess I still do. But this time it is Lennie’s light that is starting to grow dim. All the shouting in the world will not save him. Only he can do that, and sadly, Lennie is losing his will to live.
I guess that I saw it first months ago when his personality started to change. His happy go lucky nature was turning into something dark as if his alter ego was starting to take over. Over the months he has become very negative and short-tempered; especially with me. The nurses of course got their share of abuse too, but he saved most of his anger for me. It seems that it is always the people that care about us the most who put up with the brunt of this misdirected anger.
We arrived home here in Hawai’i about eleven days ago. Two days after our arrival Lennie got on the scale and was shocked to see the display reading 167 pounds. He was scared and he was angry. I tried to tell him that everyone loses weight after major surgery, but he wouldn’t listen. He was convinced that he was dying. He decided that he wanted the narcotic pain killers that the doctors in Mexico had weaned him off, so he got his handyman to drive him to a walk-in clinic, because I would not, where he was doled out his narcotics and prescription sleeping pills. That night he decided that he would ignore the label and take 1 and another half a sleeping pill. …..The sound of him yelling at 4 a.m. woke me. He was lying on the floor in the bathroom after stumbling. He had managed to pee everywhere except in the toilet. I got him up and into bed and put some dry socks on him, then went in to clean up the bathroom. Staggering back to bed I realized that I was now wide awake, yet exhausted. In less than 3 hours he was waking me up and telling me to get up and get him some food.
I have become even more creative in the kitchen where I try to get a lot of calories into a little bit of food. The dishes that I feed him are the most nutritious ones that I can create, into which are added healthy fats and calorie rich items of proteins and balanced food groups. Coconut cream and oil goes into every dish I can manage. I literally spend hours in the kitchen every day and well into the evening, so you can imagine my fury when he ate some of our cleaning lady’s junk food cookies. After 6 days of 5 small meals each and protein shakes in between, Lennie had put on 8 pounds. He was 175 pounds. I was ecstatic, but he was only mildly interested and pessimistic that he would only lose it in a couple more days. So far he is staying at 175.
We had to go to the bank a few days ago. Some how Lennie’s credit card was compromised and we had to get it sorted out. When we arrived at the bank, the woman that he was dealing with was on her lunch break in the back of the bank. She said that she still had a half hour left, but would be out in 15 minutes. Lennie said that he couldn’t wait that long because he felt too weak so he just laid down on the floor! He went behind a partition where the filing cabinets were and one of the tellers came out and said that she was going to ask him to sit in the waiting area. I just looked at her and said, “Nope, he’s not going to move. Good luck trying.” She knew that I was right and didn’t bother. Instead she asked me to go back there and sit in a desk chair so that I could see him and they wouldn’t worry that he was going through the filing cabinets. When the banking officer came out a few minutes later after cutting her lunch short, Lennie was sound asleep on the bank’s floor. I would like to say that this was as funny as a sit-com, but at the time that it is happening it is anything but funny. He pulled this same stunt at the swimsuit designer’s store where we are having made a pair of spandex swim trunks that have a higher, snug fitting waist with an interior pouch for his new colostomy bag so that once again he will be able to swim in the ocean.
Our trials and tribulations continue…..
Kathryn
www.kathrynsmith.com