October 30, 2016.

The miles tick by. California, Oregon, and finally Washington. It’s all a blur. But it is crystal clear that we are being loved and supported by our family and friends. So many offers of help and places to stay while we find out what’s going to happen. I dub all “our people” members of Team Farrar. Our hearts are full of gratitude and humility.

Our final destination is close. I’m driving past the intersection that would take us to Kamiak High School where I used to teach English. Seems so long ago. We are in Mukilteo, WA headed for the ferry that will get us to Mike and Janine’s on Whidbey Island where their friend, Tyler, has generously loaned us his trailer. The trailer is all set up and ready for us on M & J’s property. Tyler says we can have it as long as we need it. Mike and Janine say we can stay as long as necessary. How kind. How loving.

It is at this point in the drive when Dr. Adams calls on our cell. I turn right onto 92nd St and park so Greg can talk to him without the distraction of road noise. I will never forget these moments. The call. What we learn.

The tumor is 4cm. The biopsy shows what the doctor thought–stage IV squamous cell carcinoma. All the surgeons who have looked at the reports concur that the tumor is inoperable.  Greg will need to meet with a radiation oncologist and a chemo oncologist right away.

So there it is. Definitive.

We are both shaking. We just sit there in our car in an unfamiliar neighborhood off 92nd St. What is there to say to one another?

~~~

Starting now, the day before Halloween 2016, we begin our time in what we’ve come to refer to as our parallel universe.

The love we receive from our team will sustain us for months of doctor visits, hospital stays, radiation, chemo, times of great despair and pain. In the next few months we will come to feel that the Providence Cancer Partnership is our home.  Our new mantra is, “We’ve got this!” We think we’re ready.

As we move forward with treatment, there will sometimes be more than we can handle; many surprises, tests of our resolve, but for now we repeat our watchword many times a day. Let us begin the next chapter in our journey holding on to each other in our parallel universe.

Our trailer home at Mike and Janine’s.

WE’VE GOT THIS!!!

Feeling no control of my own body, my own thoughts, I continue to pace the floor, going room to room without a clear purpose. I keep finding myself wondering, “What am I doing here?”

I find solace in petting my dog, cuddling with her. I keep telling Isabela how much I love her. My body is listless and I’m certain the blood has drained from it. I cannot focus on any one thing. So I sit on the steps outside with my dog and I pet her and tell her over and over again, “Mommy loves you. Daddy’s going to be fine.”

After talking to Greg this morning before he left the island for his appointment at The Everett Clinic, I realize I was confused about the events of yesterday. Greg did not see Dr. Jeffrey Adams. He saw an ARNP, Amy Williams. She is the one who called him yesterday while he was in the ferry line and told him Dr. Adams would see him and do the biopsy today. She was the one who ordered the blood work up, the chest x-ray and the CT scan. She is the one who pushed other patients aside to make room for him instantly from the walk-in clinic. In these moments of panic, dread, and fear, I imagine myself hugging her, thanking her for taking care of my guy, and being so kind, making things happen for him so quickly.

Waiting again. What will we learn today? Can I expect any good news? Are they sure they just can’t operate to remove this tumor? What if there is cancer somewhere else in his body? What are we going to do? Now I’m angry with myself for not going with him to Washington. He shouldn’t have to do this alone. What was I thinking? It would be easier for me to be there to know what is going on anyway. Why did I stay home? I’m choking on my fear. My stomach is empty, but I feel like I’m going to throw up. It must be the adrenaline coursing through my body. I’ve always hated adrenaline. That’s why I don’t do roller coasters, and yet that’s what I’m on right now. Again, I have to remind myself to breathe. In and out. Calm down.

I busy myself with chores. Nothing like the mindless jobs of cleaning house and doing laundry. And then the phone rings.

There is no good news. Dr. Adams takes a sample for a biopsy, but says he is sure the tumor is cancerous (he’s seen a lot of these) and it is too big and close to the bone to remove it with surgery. Even when he does surgery to remove a tumor he recommends chemo and radiation afterward. The results of the biopsy will take at least a week, and he strongly recommends that Greg go home, pack up his clothes, his wife and dog, and drive up to Washington right away. There is no time to spare. My husband has cancer.

I change Greg’s return flight and he comes home three days sooner than planned. He left on Wednesday the 19th of October, got a work up on Thursday, a biopsy on Friday, and he’s back in my arms on Saturday. We have a lot to do to be ready for our 1900 mile drive from the tip of Baja to the Seattle area in Washington.

The night before we leave for Washington

I don’t know how we did it, but we manage to drive away from our beautiful home on Tuesday October 24, 2016 knowing only that our future will include treatment for cancer. We have barely a small inkling of the hell we are going to experience.

On the 7th of October we celebrated my 70th birthday in style with ten of our dearest friends in Baja. It was a magical evening of fun, food, and friends.

Little did we know while blowing out that candle, that we would be plummeting into the darkest time of our lives eight days later.

On the 15th of October we learned Greg had a 4cm. tumor on his tonsil and needed medical intervention of some kind. True to his personality, he wouldn’t leave for the states right away. “I have too many things to do first.” What a stubborn man. I managed to get him on a plane to Seattle four days later on Wednesday October 19, 2016. At least this way we had a few days to make a plan of action for this important trip. What is the first thing you do in a case like this? Google “tumor on the tonsil,” of course. Pretty scary business; the information did nothing to assuage our fears.

Here is a guy who is so healthy he doesn’t take any medication. Not even vitamins. He’s never had troubles with any of the usual medical issues, like excess weight, high cholesterol or high blood pressure. His health couldn’t be better. Except for this tumor on his tonsil. This made going up to Washington to see a doctor a bit tricky, because Greg didn’t have a doctor up there.

I had been a patient with The Everett Clinic, and satisfied with their organization and care. I told him he should go to the walk-in clinic in Everett and explain to whomever he saw what was going on. He was worried that they would put him off and he’d have to be there for a long time trying to get help. But based on the fact that I had looked in and seen the tumor for myself, I told him not to worry. I assured him they would get right to it once he opened his mouth and said, “Ahhhh.” He continued to voice his concerns, but I was confident enough for both of us. “Just go,” I told him.

I made his plane reservations and arrangements for him to rent a car. Peggy, our dear friend in Seattle, opened her home to him for as long as he would need it. Our pup, Isabela, and I took him to the airport. I gave him reassurance, huge hugs, and many kisses. Now my job would be to practice the art of patience and wait to hear what he would learn. The anxiety I felt gave way to tears. I cried for the first part of my trip driving home. My churning stomach and the heavy feeling of dread–thinking of the worst case scenarios, filled me the rest of the way. Once home, I paced from room to room. I had to remind myself to breathe.

Greg followed our care plan for the next day. Peggy tried to get him to eat breakfast and sent him off with coffee, a lunch, hugs, and good wishes. His drive from Seattle on the early morning of the 20th got him to the Everett Clinic, The Gunderson Building, when the walk-in clinic opened. Checking-in was a breeze. The first doctor to examine him took action immediately. She went to the ear, nose, and throat specialist’s office across the hall and convinced the receptionist to have Dr. Adams see him straightaway. This heightened Greg’s fears, but it also gave him a calming sense of confidence. By noon he had been examined thoroughly, given a chest x-ray, a CT scan, and was waiting in a ferry line to get to Whidbey Island in order to spend time with our friends, Mike and Janine and their daughter Jordan. While he waited to board the ferry, Dr. Adams’s office called him with a time for a biopsy scheduled for the next day. The speed with which they worked demonstrated an urgency I wished to deny.

It was 2:00PM my time (an hour later than his time) when he finally called me with all this news. I was coming out of my skin with worry, and I was angry that he’d waited so long to call me. All day I’d been overwhelmed with panic–a mental numbness–not having an inkling of what was happening to my husband of 38 years.

Hearing his satisfaction with the treatment he was receiving calmed me a little, but he said it didn’t look good. I think he told me the tumor was too big for a straightforward surgery. It would not be an option. I kept asking questions, babbling, and I’m sure I was doing a fair amount of stammering.

I remember thinking, he seems almost happy talking about how he’s going to spend the night with Mike and Janine on the island where we had lived for 32 years. But when he says, “They are doing a biopsy in the morning,” I find I can’t breathe.

I don’t remember ending the phone call. I have no recollection of how I spent the rest of the day and night. At the time all I could think was, “Cancer. It’s probably cancer.”

The endoscopy shows no problem. Back to square one. Now Greg is saying he has a sore throat. Is it from the endoscopy? “Open wide, honey.” I peak in and am shocked by what I see. All those pustules. Is this strep throat? After we share the results of the endoscopy with Dr. Angulo, he examines Greg’s throat and prescribes an antibiotic. “Vuelve dentro de diez días.” (Come back in ten days.) There is clearly a horrible infection in my guy’s throat. And it doesn’t go away. Not even after the whole series of antibiotic are finished in ten days.

Our dear friends, Sean and Dori, are both veterinarians. As you may be able to tell, they are also quite the hilarious couple.

We often discuss medical issues with them. Not just regarding our dog Isabela’s issues. Our medical issues too. They are doctors after all. Most of their patients have at least four legs, but what the heck? When talking with Dori, (she isn’t mincing words) she admonishes us. Apparently we made a big mistake not getting a culture done on Greg’s infected throat. “A culture will tell exactly which antibiotic will work on this particular bacterial infection.”

Of course. Anyone knows this. Even we know this, but somehow the location where this information got stored in each of our brains is malfunctioning. Asleep on the job. Like Dr. Angulo. Why didn’t he take a swab and do a culture? Instead, he only sent the fluid from the endoscopy to the lab (to see if it is acid reflux I’m assuming) and they found nothing significant. And as far as we know, the throat infection is not related to the original problem. But this infection problem can be solved with the correct medication, so we decide to stick closer to home and go to St. Jude’s Hospital/Clinic in Todos Santos to request a throat culture. As it turns out, we never go back to Dr. Angulo.

It takes a couple of days for the throat swab sample to grow, so we wait. For someone who rarely sees a doctor, my husband is visiting many of them now. He’s not a happy camper about it either. “This is going on and on,” he tells me, “and I’m sick of it.” If we only knew what was in store for him.

Things did not progress as we hoped. Now the results of the culture come back tainted from all the antibiotics he’s been taking and he needs to wait a week before they do another culture. Get the antibiotics out of your system and come back. August is turning into September and we are no closer to discovering an answer to our original question. Why is there pain with yawning or opening wide? Greg has seen 4 doctors in a month, had two procedures, and the only thing we know for sure is he has an infection on his left tonsil.

You cannot accuse my husband of having patience. He has not been known for it, even on one of his good days. While he will learn to have a little during the next eight months, he is sorely lacking in this area at this point.

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He’s not one to “reign himself in” about his frustration either. If you have a problem with expletives, you don’t want to be around Greg when he is exasperated. This time I do not blame him for being highly aggravated, but really there is nothing we can do now except follow through with the next culture and do some more waiting.

We agree to take one thing at a time, and the second culture gives us the name of the right antibiotic. A doctor at St. Jude’s in Todos Santos writes up the prescription and none of the pharmacies have it.

This is the first in a series of writing about our journey with cancer.

When you hear of someone being diagnosed with cancer you feel sad and, of course, sympathetic. If truth be told, there is also a part of you that breathes a sigh of relief that it’s not you. Of course you’re glad it’s not you, even though you are grieving with the one cancer has chosen to call on. Cancer is what happens to someone else.

Until it isn’t.

For my husband, getting the diagnosis confirmed took time, and while we allowed ourselves some hope it was something less devastating, we mostly began making decisions about how to deal with it. In the beginning we were stunned. This can’t be happening. We have things to do. We don’t have time to have cancer.

~~~

2016

It started simple enough. Sometime in the beginning of 2016, Greg mentioned to me that he had a funny soreness when he opened his mouth wide to yawn or take a bite of a big taco or sandwich. Not a big deal really, but something. He brought this up casually a few more times, but by August, when it was still an irritant, I suggested he see the ear, nose, and throat specialist in La Paz. Dr. Angulo had impressed both of us previously; he was thorough in his examinations and treatments of Greg’s ears, when he had seen him after a couple of surfing incidents. My husband, who seldom goes to a doctor, felt a bit silly going for this minor thing, but he made an appointment for the next day at my insistence.

The hour drive to La Paz is easy, most of it on a four-lane highway, but there is little scenery to keep one’s interest. Rather it is miles of dry desert landscape. As a passenger, I might notice a caracara bird atop the cardon cactus and the occasional herd of goats, sometimes on the roadway, but most of the trip is monotonous. If we have to go to La Paz for any reason, we usually make a day of it for shopping and doing other errands. So for us, this drive to La Paz was just business as usual; this medical issue was probably nothing.

The hospital Fidepaz has a good reputation among expats and Mexicans alike. We’ve been going there for minor things for a few years now. It’s clean and the doctors have given us good care.

As it turned out, Dr. Angulo immediately thought Greg had acid reflux. He gave him a prescription for Nexium and made him an appointment to get an ultra sound. The puzzled look on Greg’s face told me he didn’t agree with this diagnosis, so when we left, Greg decided not to get the prescription. Mainly because it cost so much, but he swore he didn’t have acid reflux. He told the doctor that too, but with our lousy Spanish and the doctor’s inability to understand English, we decided to get the ultra sound and forego the Nexium.

Thank the powers that be the ultra sound appointment was for the same day, just in a different location. Angulo was adamant we see this particular doctor and not use the one at Fidepaz. That much we were able to ascertain even with the language barrier. We made the 15 minute drive and Greg got the ultra sound. The results were instantaneous and we were happy to learn that the test showed no problem. However, the problem that began our excursion remained. What next?

Back we go to Dr. Angulo armed with our test results, and the doctor insists that Greg has acid reflux. Greg insists that he doesn’t. Now Dr. Angulo wants him to get an endoscopy. Okay, we’ll do that in an effort to rule this out. We aren’t so lucky as to take care of this procedure in the same day. Instead we must make another drive to La Paz a few days later.