calliemm

Love, Unbroken

I sat on my towel under our beach umbrella, watching Bren lead Tyz and Bades into the ocean, each with a surfboard under their arm. A gentle sea breeze wrapped around me as they hopped on their boards, skilfully duck-diving under the small waves. Bren had taught them how to do this during the summer break, as soon as he got back in the ocean after his lung surgery. The school holidays were almost over. After the horrors of 2014, this moment felt like a miracle.  

January 2015  

It had been over a month since Bren’s last appointment with Dr. V when we received the best news since his treatment began. There were no signs of any cancer cells in his leg where the tumour was removed by Dr. Brach. Or anywhere else, uncontained, in his body. Initially, his lung had two small nodules, but Professor Chen had removed those.  

Now, after the lung surgery, Bren still has two small tumours to be monitored by Dr. V, one in his left femur and one in his right clavicle. The clavicle tumour had gotten smaller over the course of his treatment, the one in his femur stayed the same, showing stability. The hardest part of dealing with Bren’s type of cancer is that each tumour responds differently to treatment. Now that the chemo and surgeries are done, Dr. V will monitor the remaining small tumours with check-ups every three months.   

The squark of curious seagulls snapped me back to the present. The birds flew off in every direction as Bren walked back up the beach toward me. The kids were still enjoying the water. Tyz had left her board on the sand and was body surfing while Bades eagerly caught more waves on his board. I was so happy. The beach, a place we had missed, was our playground again.  Bren placed his surfboard on the sand and carefully sat beside me, laughing as he watched the kids narrowly avoid crashing into each other in the surf. “Are you OK?” I asked, noticing him adjusting his titanium-reinforced leg, grimacing as he did.   

“Just a bit of pain around the scar above my knee. It’s still sensitive from the surgery,” he replied. I reminded him to keep an eye on it and promised to schedule an appointment with Dr. Chris if it got worse.   

He smiled and kissed me. With all the shitty things that came with Cancer, it had also reminded us how in love we were without having to say so. We just knew it. During the quiet moments of that summer, Bren and I found comfort in each other. We were more united than ever, having weathered the cancer storm, bent but not broken—and grateful to be on the other side of it.   

After his lung surgery, Bren’s life was slowly getting back to normal. We started enjoying a bit of routine again, finding happiness in ordinary things. We could breathe easy.   

Day by day, cancer became less a part of our lives, replaced by a growing sense of hope. We understood that challenges would always be there, but we would handle them together. We had plans and strategies to deal with any future issues. We were vigilant and ready to act fast if we had to. Once overshadowed by fear and uncertainty, the kids were happy and carefree again. The only thing that kept us from feeling entirely fear free, was Bren’s knee pain, a lingering what-if and a reminder that cancer had been there.   

My husband wanted to make the most of every moment with the kids. Eager to make up for lost time. I couldn’t keep them out of the old buggy in the back paddock. The kids thought it was great that their dad was teaching them how to drive at an age most of their friends where happy to be out and about riding their pushbikes. 

Bren also set up the tent in our backyard every chance he got. We didn’t need to travel far for fun. We headed down the road to the beach almost every day. Tyz and Bades played in the street with their friends as usual in the afternoons, and in the evenings, when they were tucked in bed, Bren and I settled in and watched a movie or sat together quietly, listening to music, talking, and making plans. 

February 24th, 2015  

Yesterday, we had an emergency appointment with our GP after Bren’s leg pain worsened over the weekend. He referred Bren for an urgent ultrasound. We’re willing to wait at the surgery all day tomorrow to see our fully booked doctor again for the ultrasound results, which should tell us what’s causing the pain. The receptionist explained that the best they could do was squeeze us in between patients as soon as possible.  They assured us that Bren would receive priority if a cancellation occurred, and a bed in the infirmary would be available if he needed one while waiting. We were grateful for that. Depending on the ultrasound results, we would know whether we needed to see Dr. Brach in the city this Friday, or if Dr. Chris could manage Bren’s pain until his scheduled ROCC team meeting in a couple of weeks

March 2, 2015  

A lump the size of half an avocado has appeared on Bren’s femoral replacement scar, where he’s been feeling pain – pretty much overnight. The pain is unbearable now, so intense that his prescribed medication isn’t helping. Bren, who has hardly ever cried from pain during his treatment, has the last few days, he is in constant agony—we’re not getting any sleep. I called Krista this morning to try to get Bren into the clinic on Friday. I explained how bad his situation was.

“Let me put you on hold, and I’ll check with Sandra to see what we can do.”  She soothed.

I heard Sandra answer with a hurried “Hello.”   

“Hey, it’s Krista,” Krista responded. “I have Callie, Brendan Maloney’s wife, on the other line. He has had a sore spot come up on the site of his femoral replacement and is in a lot of pain. Is there any way we can squeeze him in on Friday?”   

“I doubt it, Jonathon’s fully booked,” Sandra replied.   

“Callie’s pretty concerned; she said she’s never seen him in so much pain,” Krista pressed.   

Sandra let out a frustrated sigh. I’m sure shuffling things was one of the many testing parts of her job.   

“Give me a minute, and I’ll see what I can do,” she groaned.   

“I’d appreciate it; sounds urgent?” Krista replied.  

I tried to get their attention and let them know I could still hear them. Suddenly, there was a click. The call had ended. A few minutes later, Krista called back, apologised for cutting me off, and confirmed our Friday clinic appointment.  

Bren’s pain has become so severe he can’t use his crutches. The weight of his leg puts pressure on the lump, aggravating it and making it too painful to stand. He can’t straighten his leg, leaving it stuck in a bent position, making it difficult to get up from chairs, into bed, or in and out of the car. He has been reduced to shuffling around the house on his backside, pushing himself with his arms. I bought a wheelchair to help him get to appointments, hoping it would make things easier. It doesn’t. Even sitting in the wheelchair is painful.   

March 6, 2015   

We knew this trip to the city would be awful. Bren was in unbearable pain. I was fluey, had a dull headache, and neither of us had had much sleep. We felt like crap as we headed down the road. It’s hard to complain when the person sitting next to you is a cancer patient in a world of pain, so I didn’t. I just drove, holding on to the thought that this, too, shall pass.   

The next few days required more patience than I had left. Small, out-of-our-control things heaped on overstretched nervous systems and made me feel like my head was about to explode. It was pounding. We got to our hotel, and the entrance was unusable due to a sinkhole, in which you could lose your car. Fortunately, this hurdle only required a U-turn across an eight-lane highway in torrential rain and hope that the hole wouldn’t swallow the entire motel while we slept. We walked into a busy reception, and their system was down. Tiny beads of sweat had broken out on Bren’s forehead as he tried to meditate through the pain. Luckily, the staff knew us, recognised Bren was in pain and put us into a room as soon as they could, allowing us to jump the queue and fix the paperwork later.   

The next day was an early start of CT scans and chest X-rays, and the traffic was thick and slow-moving as we crawled toward the hospital. We were already a few minutes late for Bren’s appointment as we took two laps of the car park looking for a space. After manoeuvring in and out several times, I squeezed the car into the narrowest car space imaginable. I had already let Bren out, and he was sitting in his wheelchair, pale from pain, waiting for me to park. Then we couldn’t get the parking meter to work. Five minutes later, we had it sorted. It felt like longer.  

After Bren’s CT scan and X-ray, we squeezed into a small consultation room with Dr. V, Krista, Dr. Brach, his two young interns, his registrar, and Sandra. Before Dr. Brach and his team arrived, we had a brief conversation with Dr. V and Krista. Krista was pregnant and would soon be leaving the team. Dr. V said he would miss her—and we knew we would too. The conversation soon turned to Bren. Dr. V mentioned that they had reason to be concerned about the new lump. Shit! I couldn’t contain my tears nor look at Bren, who was taking this news the same way he always did, with Grace. Dr. V reassured us that, despite the concerns, there were still options and things that could be done.   

When Dr. Brach arrived, there was more general conversation and a going over of Bren’s notes as he was examined by Dr. Brach’s registrar. Bren was sitting on the treatment table; Dr. Brach walked over when his registrar was finished and grabbed Bren’s leg at the lump, the pain making him jump and swear loudly. This reaction surprised the doctors, as Bren is usually very easy going. Dr. Brach apologised for causing pain and then recorded notes about his observations and plans in his small recorder, which has always stuck me as odd for the doctors to do in front of us. But they always do, I guess, while it’s fresh in their brain. Then he and his team left.   

Bren needed an MRI, but the machine at Princeton was down, so we had to travel across the city to St Ives Imaging. What a f@cking nightmare for Bren in the state he was in. Thankfully, Sandra would collect the films later that afternoon, so we didn’t have to wait around for the results.

We said goodbye to Dr. V and Krista and headed for St Ives. Krista gave us a prescription for stronger painkillers. Not only for the drive, but also for MRI. Bren holding still was going to be near impossible in the amount of pain he was in. She suggested we visit the pharmacy downstairs before driving across the city so Bren could take one in advance. The drive there took about 30 minutes, followed by the ordeal of getting Bren out of the car and into the imaging centre, and back into the car. Then we had to deal with getting out of the city in peak hour traffic; another full-blown nightmare. It took almost two hours to reach the freeway. At one point, it took forty-five minutes to cover just 4 km.  I felt like throwing up every time I glanced at Bren, pain was leaching out of every pore of his skin.

By the time we stopped at the service centre an hour up the freeway, Bren was in tears and inconsolable from the pain. The pain relief was still not helping. I called the hospital from there, and they advised increasing his dosage to get him home and to check back the next day if there was no improvement. They also suggested we see Dr. Chris for further medication adjustment to keep Bren comfortable while at home. In hindsight, we should have followed Dr. V’s advice to admit Bren as an inpatient at ROCC until the cause of his pain was identified. Bren didn’t want to be away from the kids for as long as that may have taken. Our day had started at 6:30 in the morning. Bren was still in unbearable pain as we pulled into our driveway sometime after 10:30 that night. We were beyond exhausted—physically drained, emotionally wrung out, and over the whole f@cking cancer nightmare.