That Awful Day

April 5, 2006, was a beautiful spring day.  Gwen and I had completed training as volunteers for Arbor Hospice earlier that year, and we chose that morning to visit hospice patients at the nursing home that was attached to St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Saline.  She was  so much better at it than I, with a natural empathy for the patients we visited.

Gwen had developed a chronic cough,  and her doctor had ordered an X-ray of her lungs a few day earlier.  When we arrived home from our volunteer duties we saw that her doctor had called and left a message.  We turned on the answer machine and heard her doctor say that she would like Gwen to call her office. When  I called, and asked to speak to the doctor,  I began to feel uneasy when the receptionist immediately transferred my call to the doctor, who said that she would like us to come to her office to see the results of Gwen's X-rays.  I had something planned for that afternoon, and asked whether it would be OK if Gwen came by herself.  "No", she said, "it's important that you come with her."  My heart sank.   Both Gwen and I were anxious about the doctor's request, but reassured ourselves that the X-ray probably showed that she had pneumonia and would have to be hospitalized.  It never occurred to us that the diagnosis might be cancer.  Needless to say, the fifteen minute drive to the doctor's office seemed to take forever.

When we arrived at the doctor's office we were promptly seated in one of the examination rooms, and the doctor came in almost immediately.  She sat down and gravely told us that Gwen's X-ray showed that she had cancer in both lobes of her lungs and her lymph nodes.   Needless to say, we were stunned; and our sense of disbelief grew as the doctor described the serious nature of Gwen's disease.  Surgery was not an option, but chemotherapy might be able to slow the cancer and provide a decent quality of life.  She also urged us to immediately schedule an appointment with a pulmonologist who could perform a bronchoscopy to determine the exact nature and extent of the disease.  We numbly nodded as she called and arranged for an appointment.

On the ride home we talked about our inability to process the information we had just received.  It just didn't seem possible that one short visit with a doctor could so radically and suddenly change everything about our life as we knew it.  All of our dreams about the future had gone up in smoke, life as we knew it no longer existed.  Upon our arrival at home we sat on a couch, close to each other, I hugged and rocked her, and we cried.  What else were we to do?  Then I began calling John, Jeanne, Mike and Anne.

It is now five years from that awful day.  When told that, under the best of circumstances she could expect to live for nine months to a year, Gwen vowed  that she would not go gently into the dark, dark night, a promise that she kept for four years, seven months and a week.  And, she did it with a sense of grace and dignity that inspired all who knew her..  We who love her  miss her dearly, even as we honor her memory.