they thought maybe the port was broken.
so we went into the hospital again last week.
the port is about the size of a short stack of quarters.
it lives under her right clavicle
beneath the skin.
instead of going into the veins of her arm for the chemo
and the weekly blood draws
and everything else
they just stick a giant needle into her chest
like that.
just like that.
an expressway to the core.
but of course, they messed up when they put the port in,
and had to slice open her chest twice,
had to carve out two pockets in her chest
for the port to sit in.
and that was the same day it took them three tries to take
a core of bone marrow out of her hip with a large bore needle.
and that was the same day the cancer was growing inside her,
not just in the neck like we thought, but everywhere.
and that was the same day they cut up our baby
and took it out in
pieces
and threw it in the garbage.
—-
so the other day, they thought maybe the port was broken.
because they stuck a giant needle into her chest
again and again and couldn’t draw blood.
and they sent her down to fluoroscopy
to see if she needed to go back into surgery
and slice open her chest again
and fix the port or put another one in.
and we looked in the dark room at the
continuous x-ray
of her chest filling
and emptying itself.
and it was beautiful.
even amidst all this pain, the heart
still beating
in negative.
——
so the port was fine.
and we went back upstairs.
and they stuck the long needle into her chest
and drew blood.
but what i want to say is this:
that we didn’t have time to put the cream on her.
or we forgot to put the cream on her.
and the lidocaine cream is what was supposed to make
the needle in her chest tolerable.
so they just stuck it in.
here’s something:
leanne is a woman,
has always been a woman,
who, when i toss a set of keys to her,
says ouch
before she catches them.
i have scars on my wrist from where she’s
clenched during blood draws
when this all started.
but the other day
when the needle went into her chest
she didn’t even flinch.
nothing.
i want to say right here
that i love leanne.
that i love her ability to fight
through things she hates
for good.
the decision she makes
to even wake up
is astounding.
7 Comments
January 28, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Your wife is an amazing woman (I have gone back through the archives). Please know that you will all be in my thoughts and prayers. Your writing leaves me breathless. Truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
January 28, 2007 at 4:46 pm
Dear Lee and Dan,
You are both astounding and very lucky to have each other—Lydia is fortunate to have such special parents! A workshop filled—such a great time to step back from all the tough stuff. Leanne, your resiliency—going through all the sticking,etc.—you will come out of this loving the feel of a set of keys as Dan throws them to you—positive pain!
My thoughts continue to be with you,
Phyllis
January 28, 2007 at 4:52 pm
Dan and Leanne…your willingness to write and share your life with total strangers has touched us in ways that are hard to explain…thank-you for that. Please know that you are in the thoughts and prayers of a family in S. California everyday. And your baby…an angel now watching over you, Leanne.
January 28, 2007 at 5:40 pm
We’re still praying … your blog reminds us … each word you type in here sparks a volley of prayers and a shower of love.
January 28, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Dan & Leanne – I cannot express how your words, your raw emotions, have moved me, touched me, deep in my core. I stumbled upon your website yesterday morning and haven’t stopped thinking about you and your family since. My thoughts and prayers continue to be with you each and every day…
January 29, 2007 at 7:16 am
dear dan and leanne
I’ve talked to Ned about this cancer thing and it rings lots of bells around this house. My son Isaac has been dancing around with leukemia, ports, chemos of every race, creed and color for the last three years. We’re in countdown toward going off treatment in June and oddly I wonder what I’ll do with myself, it’s become such a way of life. We’ve got our port stories too. The first stopped working about four months into our little tango so out it came and in went another on the other side so he had sort of a happy face on his chest, eyebrows over nipples. the second port started to go bad six months ago and after two months of it hardly functioning at all (we could pump meds in but could get no blood back out) the docs suggested we remove it and go to an inline. My head said yes but my feet dragged and I couldn’t quite get myself to agree. So I just kept saying maybe next month, next month and they’d say we ought to just do it. But then Isaac came down with shingles which can be ghastly (and I’m thinking, why him God– hasn’t he gone through enough, is life just one curse after another). But for him it wasn’t awful afterall and all he got from it was little red dots across his nerve highway and none of the pain that often goes with it. Thank you God for that one. But the port got accessed and for the next ten days, three times a day, Ann and I pumped encyclevere through the port and into him. And not once during those ten days did I get a blood return– meds went in but nothing would come out giving us thirty more arguments for dumping the port. But still I couldn’t bring myself to give the word. Then we went to clinic for chemo and I explained to the new nurse how the port wasn’t going to draw blood and Isaac and I would first go downstairs to get blood drawn from a finger poke like we had the last couple of months. But she said let’s try first and she drove that needle in and pulled the plunger back and by God red blood shot through it like a Texas gusher. It seems the constant flushing for the shingles cleaned out the line. And for the last three months it’s worked like a charm. I’ve found two things along this path. Life is full of crazy miracles and the constant threat has made me wake up.
You guys are in our prayers.
paul
April 9, 2007 at 5:38 am
Good site!!!