It Was A Beautiful Day: Chpt 28

D-day: decision day. At 4:40pm in the afternoon I was scheduled to see my oncologist and tell her what kind of chemo I would take. I had read as much as I could on the subject, and it has been a long hard decision. Along with the chemo decision I have to make, I also had to decide whether or not I wanted a port, I decided that I didn't want one. A port is this thing that is surgically implanted into your body for the nurse to inject the chemotherapy needle into instead of stabbing you in the arm with a needle each time you got a treatment. I know that the port is better for your veins, but I was concerned that it would give me another scar, and I didn’t want anymore scars.
Another reason for not wanting a port is fear. I had mentioned that our Church sexton's wife also had breast cancer, hers was worse than mine. I was talking to the sexton one day and he told me that his wife was back in the hospital.
“Her port collapsed and she had to have it surgically removed.” I was not sure how a port could collapse but it sounded scary to me. I decided that I would tell Dr. O’Brian that I didn’t want the port and I would not let her talk me into getting one…with out a fight.
Between the start of school and all my doctor visits, the past few weeks had been very stressful. Although I have tried to be up-beat I didn't always succeed. I was in a lot of pain, almost every inch of my body hurt except the parts that were still numb, and I was grossed-up by the puss was that coming out of my navel. I was tired all the time and I was terrified of my impending chemo treatments. I found myself being infected with the "why-me syndrome", and I was feeling sorry for my-self more and more often. I frequently felt that there was no one in the world-who had it worse-off than I did. It hurt Diane to see my so down, so to cheer my up invited me to breakfast.
Diane's wanted to distract me for a while and to get me thinking of something other than doctor’s appointment and chemo treatments. She had a 'buy one breakfast and get one free' coupon for the local Friendly’s that was about to expire so that is where we decided to go for breakfast. The plan was that after we drop off our kids at school that she would pick me up and we will go to Friendly’s. As I got into her car she stopped and looked at the sky then remarked,
“Isn’t it a beautiful day?” I had to agree with her that it was. It had been a long hot summer and even though the sun was shinning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky the temperature was cool and day perfect. The sunshine and the thought of my impending big calorie, fat soaked breakfast-brighten my mood also.
We got to Friendly’s and ordered our breakfast. We ordered way too much food, when our meals arrived we said that we would each eat only half of our meal. Wrong. Diane kept making me laugh as we both ate; she was doing a great job improving my mood. I was finally starting to feel more relaxed, maybe, just maybe I would feel better before my doctors visit. We were trying to figure out the tip when a waitress-who was standing at the cash register, cashier shouted:
“A PLAN JUST FLEW INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER!!!” The restaurant went silent as we all just looked at each other in disbelief. I immediately thought about the time in the mid 1940’s when a small airforce plane flew into the Empire State building, killing the pilot and some office workers. There were so many tragic things accruing during WWII that many people have forgotten about this crash.
I knew about the incident because of a story that my father told me as a child. It was toward the end of the war and he as was training to be a B-25 bomber pilot. Edward and his crew were scheduled to fly a training mission from the Carolina’s to New York, he wrote to his parents about the flight and he told them that he intended to fly a circle around the Empire State building. Well, the training mission was canceled and he didn’t think a thing out it until, as he put it:
“I was walking down the street when I saw the headline on all the newspapers at a newsstand saying something like “PLANE CRASHES IN TO EMPIRE STATE BUILDING’ I ran to the nearest phone booth to call my parents and let them know that I was all right.” So, when the waitress starting yelling about a plan crashing into the World Trade Center I though that a small plane had veered off course and hit the tall building. Diane and continued to calculate the tip when the same woman started screaming:
“ANOTHER PLANE HAS CRASHED INTO THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, WE’RE BEING ATTACKED BY TERRORIST!!!” At that moment our waitress starts screaming:
MY DAUGHTER WORKS THERE, MY DAUGHTER WORKS THERE” Then promptly fainted. One of the other waitresses caught her enough to break the fall. Figuring that at this moment that the amount of the tip was unimportant, one of us threw down a five-dollar bill and Diane and I hopped in to her car and raced to my house.
We ran into my house calling to Mark, I figured that he didn’t know what had happened because he doesn't tend to have the TV on in the morning. As I called upstairs to him he came running down the steps telling me about the attack thinking that I didn’t know.
The three of us sat on the couch watching CNN, we were mesmerized, together, yet alone, each one of us was lost in our own thoughts. Looking around the room I noticed that my house was a mess, cleaning hadn’t been a high priority that week. The events that were unfolding gave me a lot of nervous energy, so I started to pick up the toys. Watching me start to clean Diane commented,
“You don’t have to clean on my account.”
“I’m not” I answered, “I just need to do something.” I continued to pick up stuff animals and toss them in to the toy box.
“Me too” she said as she started picking up crayons. Soon the three of us were cleaning, rearranging, sorting, dusting, etc as we watched CNN.
Eventually the minister in Mark kicked in and he started the think about his parishioners, who do we know that works on Wall Street. Only one name came to mind Paul, Mark called Paul’s wife Lindsay. She told Mark that Paul called her right after the planes hit and told her that he was OK, we felt better because Lindsay just had a baby a few months ago and was still battling post-partum-depression, we didn’t think that she couldn’t handle anything else.
I made coffee, it sat un-drunk on the sparkling coffee table. At noon Diane left because she was scheduled to volunteer for lunch duty at the elementary school, she was also anxious to see her first grader, and hold him I’d imagine. A few minutes later the phone rang, it was someone from the elementary school calling. They wanted to make sure that there would be someone home to pick up my second grader; I told her that I would be there. I was impressed, there must have been some kind of emergency system in place because each parent or guardian of all six hundred students were called. They wanted to make sure that not one child got off the bus or walked home, only to find that no one was waiting for them. Someone also quickly gathered volunteers at the school to set up a pizza party for children whose parents could not be found. How many were we going to loose. Even though we were over an hour and a half commute to Manhattan, there are many local residents who work in New York City.
Once we get settled again, Mark got a call-there was an emergency meeting of all the local clergy, he went upstairs to get dressed for the meeting, then left the house. Now I was alone watching CNN, in the last few hours I had been on an emotional roller-coaster ride. I had gone form sad to happy to shocked to frightened to angry. How dare they, I mean how dare they do this. How dare they kill so many innocent people? And for what? I thought about the many people who just like me were fighting one kind of disease or another going through painful treatments so that we might live a few more years, then these idiots highjack a plane and crash it in to a building killing thousands. The victims didn't have a chance, there weren't even giving the opportunity to fight for their lives, it was not fair. For the next few hours I focused on a real tragedy, and stopped thinking about myself.
I was anxious to see my girls, so I went to the Middle School early to pick up Ronnie and to get some comfort from my friends. Most of the kids ride the buses some are driven by their parents and a few walk, so there usually is a standard amount of cars waiting for their kids every day. Not today, the parking area was overflowing with parents that needed to get their kids in their arms as soon as possible. We stood around shocked, and wait…and talk. The conversations were focus on the WTC, as I walked from my car to my friends I heard bits and pieces of them.
“My sister works there…off today, her daughters class trip”
“…caught in traffic…”
“A breakfast meeting.”
“My neighbors were on vacation this week, both work on wall street” and so on. I reached my friends as Alex was telling them about her workaholic brother.
“This guy never, never takes time off… except for today, he took one look at the beautiful sky this morning and decided to go fishing.” How weird that so many local residents just happened to take the day off. The illusion was growing in my mind that the town really was special it seemed un-touched by the real world.

Once we all got home and we were able to sit down and talk. Trying to explain what had happened, what was happening, yet trying not to frighten them too much, I found it harder then trying to explain my cancer. These poor kids, they have spent the whole summer thinking that their mother was going to die, and just as things were starting to look better for them the world goes mad. I had called earlier to check if my doctors appointment had been canceled, it hadn’t. I hated to leave them but I had to go. My fear of the chemo was gone I just wanted the appointment over so I could get back to my family. Just before I left the phone rang again, it was Lindsay, she was crying because she has not heard from her husband since the second buildings collapsed.
-
It took longer to find a parking space, I don’t known why this surprised me but it did. There were more people in the waiting room then usual this also surprised me. There was a loud guy in the waiting room causing trouble; he kept yelling that he needed to see his doctor.
“I WANT TO SEE DR. O’BRAIN…NOW!!!” An employee came out to the waiting room to speak to him and calm him down. Oh-boy, I realized that I was in for a long wait, I picked up my book. Surprisingly a few minutes later I was brought in to the lab section and had my blood drawn, then Dr O’Brian came to get me. For the first time since I had met her she looked frazzled, she didn’t zip around the place like normal, she walked at a normal pace, and she looked like she had been mentally beaten up all day-she probable had.
We sat in her office when Sally-one of the clerical workers interrupted. The man was still yelling, what were they going to do. As they spoke I focused on my hands (I thought that reading my book would be rude) I notice for the second time that week that my fingernails looked great, all ten were long, filed and polished. Considering that I bit my nails until I was thirty, this was a major accomplishment.
I had mention my nails to Mark earlier that week and he said;
“Of course your nails look great, you’re not doing anything.”
“What do you mean I an not doing anything.”
“ You have been resting, you are not working, not washing dishes, or doing laundry, or scrubbing pans or floors, I am doing all the cleaning. So of course you nails should look good.” He said.
“ I do a little cleaning” I protested.
“HA” I think was his retort. He was right, while the rest of my body was recuperating, my hands were being treated like princesses.
I looked up from my hands to the scene being played out in front of me. Dr. O shook her head, and muttered that she had been trying to get the man to make an appointment to see her for months, but to day he decides to show up. After Sally left, Dr. O’Brian turned to me and asked;
“So what did you decide?” Remember this woman never wastes time on small talk.
“I’ll go with the three month treatment.” I responded. She sighed, with relief, and said.
“Thank goodness.” This surprised me. Why should she care whether my treatment takes three months of six months? I looked at her quizzically,
“Why did you say that?”
“Because a six month seems soooo long.” She became flustered, something that I don’t see very often, but she quickly gain control of the conversation. “Why did you chose the tougher but shorter treatment?” she asked. I responded,
“Because, as a mom I don’t have the time to be sick, the shorter the time period that I feel bad, the better.”
“That’s the responses that I get from most women.” She stated. Interesting I thought as I started to drift into my own thoughts.
“…a port” What, oh she was still talking to me.
“What about a port?” I asked
“You can’t have one” She stated.
“Why not?” I asked. “Did I just say that?
“This hospital is a trauma center, and with what is happening in New York, we are now on high alert. So all non-emergency surgery has been canceled. Which means that your can not get a port.” She said as she stood up “I want to introduced you to the nurse in charge of your chemotherapy.” And she was up and half-way out of her office. Grabbing my purse, I notice my hands again and said, trying to lighten the mood.
“The positive side of recovery is that for the first time in my life I have long beautiful nails.” With out missing a beat she retorted.
“Don’t get used to them” As she jogged down the hall with me chasing after her.
-
The chemotherapy room was at the opposite end of the hall from the waiting room. We walked/ran down a short hall that opened into a large room. The room was bigger than I had excepted. It was rectangle shaped, with a nurse’s station in the center the nurse’s station looked more like command central. Anyway, the good doctor and I were standing at the entrance when she sees the nurse that was in charge of my case. I stood there taking it all in as the two women talked.
The first thing that I notice as I walked into the room was the smell. Chemotherapy has a distinct order, I can’t describe it, yet I will never forget it. Aromas are powerful, one whiff of a familiar smell can send your mind racing down memory lane. Fragrance companies know this and have been capitalizing of it for years. While breathing in the chemo smell I looked around the room, I could only see what was to my right, because the nurse station blocked the view in front of me and there was a small wall to my left. I saw three beds, each with its own hospital curtain, one was occupied and the curtain was drawn. These beds frightened me because my only experience with chemo was from the movies, where I’d see a person looking half dead, laying on a bed with and IV attached to there arm, the movies made it look like the chemo was taking hours. Seeing these beds didn’t make me feel any better.
“Traci, I want you to meet Eva” The two women were standing right in front of me, I was staring at the beds and I didn’t notice that they had walked up to me. We shock hands. Eva was in her late thirties to early forties; she stood about 5’6” and was of medium build. There were two things that I noticed about her. One; she dyed her hair a very light shade of blond. Second; that she was wearing a white lab coat over her dress, and on her lab coat there were a dozen or so angel pins. Dr. O'Brian turned to Eva and said,
“This is Traci, she is well read.”
“Oh,” was Eva’s reply. And Dr. O was gone.
“Well read?” I thought, “What did she mean by that? Is good that I have read a lot about cancer and its treatments? Or is it bad because that would make me an annoying patient who thinks that she knows as much as the medical personal?” I was never sure if that comment was a complement or an insult. Anyway Eva gave me an information packet, kind of like “Chemo and you” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I already had every pamphlet that was in the packet and I and had read them,
“You are schedule for you first treatment on Thursday at 2:00”
“Wait!” I said “I can’t come here at that time, I have to get my kids from school!” Eva shrugged her shoulders,
“That is the only time this week that I can fit you in, and Dr. O'Brian wants you to start immediately ”
“Ok, I’ll work something out” then I headed for the parking lot. Weird I thought, they wanted me to start my chemo on the 13th, there was that number again.
-
As soon as I got home I asked Mark about Paul, there was still no word. Although the temptation to watch the news was pulling at Mark and I-we kept the TV off, tried to have a normal dinner. The phone rang. Normally we don’t answer the phone during dinner, but nothing was normal that day. Mark answered the phone, it was Lindsey. She called to tell us that Paul was home.
A brief note: It took a few days for town to learn its fate. We had lost two residents, also one of the elementary school teachers (who was out on maternity leave) lost her husband. With the death of the teacher's husband 9/11 turned from abstract to the very real for the local school children. Although no one from our church died at the World Trade center, we had two parishioners who lost co-workers.