Bad news, everybody. The Hub is in the hospital. This is kind of bad news on a whole nother level of bad news.

Right now, after 10 hours in the E.R. it appears that he has some kind of non-malignent blockage in his lower intestine. We don't KNOW that it is not a return of the cancer he had 12 years ago - and finally the surgeon brought that up, granting me a measure of relief since I can't stand these kinds of "elephant in the middle of the room that nobody is talking about" situations. I am the kind of person who, as a patient, would have asked the first doctor I saw "what are the chances that this is a recurrence of cancer?". But The Hub is not that kind of patient, and my job is to be supportive in the way he needs me to be supportive not just run my mouth. Although I ran my mouth plenty - I think The Hub's caregivers were ready to see my rear end when I left about 20 min ago.

Dr. Dammit said that he wants to take a very conservative approach & try to let this blockage work itself out by trying to medically relieve pressure on the affected area ( which is the area where Dr. N., who was truly a brilliant surgeon, did such great work in resectioning The Hub's colin so that The Hub would not have to have an 'ostomy) He was forthright about our situation of having no health insurance, saying he would treat The Hub at Medicare rates as long as we "made some kind of effort" to pay him. Of course, given The Hub's history, there can be no fooling around. If he doesn't get significantly better tomorrow surgery is going to become The Big Option.

The reason why I call his doctor, "Dr. Dammit" is not because I dislike him. On the contrary, he gives me a great deal of confidence, and I was impressed by his bedside manner and the way he handled The Hub's case. ( A. he showed up
B. He came to talk to The Hub and hear all details directly from him before going into the chart, but started by saying, "I'm going to ask you questions you have already answered for other people, because it's important to me that I get your impression about what's happening to you.") He also sat down on the bed with The Hub, told us where he had gone to school, and who he had studied with, just matter of factly, when he had graduated, so I didn't feel like this was possibly some guy who had wandered in off the street and was playing doctor. Anyway, while he was examining The Hub, his stethescope got accidentally tangled in The Hub's NG Tube ( Yes, this IS a lot like a medievel torture device!) which caused The Hub some serious discomfort. When this happened the doctor burst out, "S***! Dammit! That's the LAST thing I wanted to do! I'm so sorry - are you all right?" You know I'm not a big fan of people using foul language on their jobs, but in this case it was so obviously a case of being terribly upset with himself and concerned about The Hub that I found it humanizing. And he had just gotten out of surgery, and it was 10:00 at night.

He said that he would do the appropraite blood tests to see if there were signs of cancer in The Hub's bloodstream, which saved me from having to bring it up. They talked about The Hub's cancer in that dreadful, matter-of-fact short hand that cancer survivors have - almost telegraphicly.

D.D. "Nodes?"
Hub. "Yeah, 9 involved"
D.D. "Mmm, then radiation then?"
Hub. "No, it was too high."
D.D. "Ugh. Then Chemo?"
Hub. "A year" he then rattles of the names of his chemo medications like the
names of old friends.
D.D. ( gravely) "Well. That was a real bad actor then."
Hub. "It was. It was 50/50"

The Hub meant that his oncologist gave him 50% odds of living 5 more years at that time.

Me, I try to not turn my head away from anything. I try to face everything head on. Everything that kept happening, I kept saying, "Well, okay...." and trying to get my head around it. But even a person like me cushions things in their own mind. In my mind The Hub is Cured. It's been over 10 years. That's better than remission. That's cured. I forgot he had 9 lymph nodes involved. I forgot that I probably started to fall in love with him, just a little, at that time when he used to go in every Monday with his books on Dr. Mengele, and take chemotherepy and then go to work til 9:00. That when somebody questioned his reading material, he said, "Oh, but this IS uplifting. I'm reading this thinking, 'huh, I thought I had problems, I guess I don't" This was chemo that the pharmasist didn't think were the right orders because the dosages were too high. "What is this guy, an ox?!" and he had to wear all manner of protective gear. And The Hub never missed a day of work. And his friends said he was brave and he dipped his head, and waved his hand dismissively and said, "I'm a little man with big God. It's The Lord seeing me through all this."

I didn't forget that a friend of the family, who was in a position to see a lot of cancer, said to me about The Hub. "It's not a good position your friend is in. This kind of cancer....it goes away, but it comes back. Maybe in the lungs, maybe the liver. Not right away, but 5 years, 10 years....don't be surprised to see it back." But I thought, it's longer than 5 years, longer than 10 years. Somebody has to beat the odds. Somebody has to be that one shining example of the miracle of modern medicine. Why shouldn't it be The Hub, the humble, brave, couragous Hub? He deserves for it to be him who is cured. Everybody deserves for it to be them who is cured, of course.

And all day, until the end of the day, until kind Dr. Dammit, it was the Elephant in the middle of the room. All day I kept saying to myself. "Well, okay. You always knew this day could come." I expected that word to jump out any minute, like a monster out of a closet.

Sometime soon we're going to Know For Sure, One Way or The Other. The worst news I could take, I think, but the not knowing, the hemming and hawing, the professional jargon, maybe, maybe, maybe and me trying to wrangle out a tactful yet sensible question....Oh God!

This is our frame of mind though: it's as much chance to be scar tissue as anything else. If it has to be an evil, let it be the lesser evil. Scar tissue is treatable, surgery survivable. So when we Know For Sure it's scar tissue it's going to be party at our house and Thank God it was Only a Scratch.

And I can feel the spiritual streangth of my friends all around me - as if I have this extra well of patience and alertness and streangth to draw on. I thank you all for every prayer in every language, every one who holds us in the Light, who wishes us well, who thinks good thoughts, because it's having a real effect on me. It kept me from pacing the E.R. like a caged leopard. It kept me from screaming at the aide who gave me a blank look. It's the little bit of color coming back into The Hub's face and the small, steady signs of improvement he is already having, and the light at our feet into the future where it's just a blockage, just some wierd, one time thing, a fluke...a thing we barely remember.