I haven't written like I thought I would for several reasons. The main one is that I am losing one of my best friends to cancer, at the ripe old age of 36. The news just keeps getting grimmer for him. For all of us, really. I've heard of the occasional high school classmate who passed away, but no one I was friends with. I lost my dear grandmother three years ago after a bad fall sucked the life out of her. I went through hospitals and rehab with her. Then a nursing home followed by an all-too short time at home with round-the-clock care that was unmanageable for my family. Ultimately she went to a nursing home/assisted living that was run in an actual house with only 8 or so residents. But, within less than a month she was on hospice care and died about a month after that. Six months from a relatively healthy 88 year old to a dead 89-year old.
There are no ifs, ands, nor buts about it, it was a horrible and life-changing experience. It was also an incredible learning experience. I've told several people this over the last year or so: I thought I finally felt like an adult once I had children and my lifestyle was altered drastically. I had new priorities that superseded everything. Always. But then, my grandma's accident changed my state of being into Really Grown Up. I realized that caring for someone during the dying process is actually what made me feel like a true adult. I learned new, fascinating, morbid things that I never imagined. I also realized that many people don't experience this (at least at my age) and of those who do, very few talk about it.
I had a brief but dear friendship with a critical care doctor last year who talked a lot about his experiences working in an ICU. I learned how caring a doctor's message could be, even when facing death and the unknown. I've never been quite sure if he truly felt the things he told his patients and their families, or if he just learned what the right things were to say and how to say them (he gave me his "talk" once or twice, inevitably leaving me in tears) to convey to dying patients and their families the reality of the situation. For the patients and their families, it doesn't really matter what he felt but it mattered immensely to them that he said it. Most doctors don't. They skirt around the issue because it's "easier" for everyone if they do everything they can. Leave no stone unturned. My grandma's spiral toward death (i.e., life experience) and conversations with my friend have certainly helped me to see the dying process in a different light.
So how do I apply "lessons learned" to my young friend, Jake, dying of metastatic colon cancer? It's not the same as watching die an 89-year old woman who has led a full life. Jake has an almost 10-year old daughter, a young wife. A new career. He's smart, funny, loyal. I've been friends with him since my senior year in high school (different schools--we met in a city-wide youth symphony program). He played the tuba. I played the piccolo. At one of my high school band concerts, we played a duet called "The Elephant and the Fly" (I'd attach a link, but I can't find a decent performance of it on YouTube, sadly). We traveled to Norway and Denmark together, drank beer, said "takk for maten" quite a bit--one of the few Norwegian phrases we learned. He stripped off his shirt in the windy subarctic tundra of Norway to proclaim his Viking heritage (or something--I say that just because of his red hair). He taught me how insensitive elbow skin truly is. Jake gave me my first motorcycle ride--to a Tori Amos concert, no less. We lost touch for several years after college, but thanks to the wonder that is the internet, we found each other again, though both living far from home. In time, we both moved back home, with our families in tow, and we've had many happy family get-togethers. Dancing until late at night to Just Dance 3 on the Wii. Drinking beer, barbecuing, planning the remodeling to our houses, watching Fourth-of-July fireworks from his back patio.
Our last family get-together was in November. Jake had been wanting to take his daughter to a teppanyaki place and so our families met for dinner at one. He didn't quite seem himself, but his wife thought his new job was stressing him. Less than two weeks later he was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer. What? I found out the 2010s sort of way--through his Facebook post to the world announcing his diagnosis. Kind of a shitty, shocking way to find out, really. But, I understand why he did it. I'm not sure that I'd do the same, but I don't think any less of him for doing it. It's the most efficient way to get out such news.
Since then, chemotherapies with terrible, bizarre side effects, some intolerable. Allergic reactions. For every intervention, it seems there are dozens of horrible side effects. From the moment of diagnosis, I've known that this is terminal cancer. I think he's known it, too. From the beginning I've offered my help, my support. It seems there's nothing I can do, though, at least that's how I feel. I've kept his daughter overnight a few times during chemo weekends. Unfortunately, our daughters don't get along as well as we would hope (they are about 1.5 years apart and perhaps a lot alike but also vastly different personalities and they seem to clash a bit). I've gone to visit him two times while he's getting chemo, one of those times allowed his wife to take a lunch break. I feel so inadequate. I can't imagine what the day-to-day is like for them.
Anyway, Jake was hospitalized yesterday and will likely be going home to hospice care. I think it's overdue, but everyone's thinking, including his doctors, is, "He's 36! We have to do everything!" I keep thinking, "Quality of life!! Make the most of what you have left!!" So easy for me to say that. I'm not in denial about his imminent departure and I think most people are. And if it were my husband, or myself, I'd probably be in denial, too. It's hard to watch the scramble, the madness, to find a new therapy to make it better. I just wish for him comfort and peace and time with his precious family. Quality time. I hope that palliative and hospice care will bring him these things. I hope they help his family to accept and understand the process. It is too soon.
He will be my first friend to pass away. As much as I want to, I can't say something like, "Of all my friends, he deserves this the least." No one "deserves" this. This is not a punishment. It just is. It is indescribably and profoundly sad that this is happening to Jake. He's a rare gem and I will be forever touched by his friendship and love.
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