by Sally Morgan
By the beginning of June 1983, Nan’s health wasn’t too good.
‘You’ve got to take her to the doctor,’ I told Mum one day. ‘She’s not well.’
‘You know how she hates doctors.’
‘But what if it’s something serious? You’ll just have to force her to go.’
Mum took Nan to see our local doctor a few days later. They sent Nan for a chest X-ray, which revealed that one of her lungs had collapsed.
When Mum phoned through the news to me, I said gently, ‘I think you should prepare yourself, Mum. I’m not trying to make a big deal out of this, but I think it will be serious.’
‘You mean you think she might die?’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Sally! It’s only a collapsed lung, they can fix that!’
‘But they have to find out what caused the collapse, don’t they?’
‘Well … yes. She has to go into hospital in two day’s time for tests.’
The night before Nan was due to go into hospital, she stayed at my place. Mum had arranged weeks before to baby-sit some of her other grandchildren and it was an arrangement she couldn’t break.
I made Nan a cup of tea and we sat in the lounge room to talk.
‘I’d like you to listen to a story, Nan, it’s only a couple of pages. Is it okay if I read it to you?’
‘Oooh, yes. I like a good story.’
‘You tell me if you like it.’
‘All right.’
I read her the section on Arthur’s boxing days. When I stopped, she said, ‘That’s a wonderful story, a really good one. I did enjoy it, where did you get such a story from?’
‘This is what I’ve been writing, Nan,’ I grinned. ‘That’s Arthur’s story.’
‘No! I can’t believe it! That’s Arthur’s story?’
‘Yep!’
‘I didn’t know he had a good story like that. You got to keep that story safe. Read me some more.’
I read a little more, and then we began to talk about the old days and life on Corunna Downs Station. For some reason, Nan was keen to talk. As she went on and on, her breath began to come in shorter and shorter gasps. Her words tumbled out one over the other, as if her tongue couldn’t say them quickly enough.
When I could see that she was very tired, I said, ‘Would you like to lie down for a while now?’
‘Yes, I think I will,’ she sighed. ‘I feel tired now.’
Our lounge suite was a real oldie, it was low to the floor, so I had to haul Nan up.
‘You got to get me a better seat,’ she complained.
‘I know, I’ll bring one over from Mum’s.’
I took Nan into my bedroom and she climbed into the double bed.
‘Gladdie won’t be here till late,’ she muttered.
‘You can sleep till she comes. Do you want another cuppa?’
‘No thanks. I think I’ll just lie here.’
‘Okay, I’m going to put the kids to bed. If you want anything, sing out.’
After I’d settled the children down, I walked quietly past Nan’s bedroom door. I expected her to be asleep, but she wasn’t.
‘Sally,’ she called. ‘Come here.’
‘What is it?
‘I want to tell you more about the station,’ she smiled. I nearly stopped her, she could hardly breathe, but how could I tell her not to talk when it had taken a lifetime for her to get to this point?
I listened quietly as she spoke about wild ducks and birds, the blue hills and all the fruit that grew along the creek. Her eyes had a faraway look and her face was very soft. I kept smiling at her because she was smiling at me, but inside, I wanted to cry. I’d seen that look before, on Arthur’s face. I knew she was going to die. Nan finally settled down and closed her eyes. I tucked her in again.
‘Hmmmn, this is a really good rug,’ she said sleepily. ‘Where did you get such a rug?’
‘Mum gave it to me,’ I muttered. And, turning off her light, I walked back into the kitchen.
‘She’s going to die, Paul,’ I said sadly.
‘Aah, you’re just worried because she’s going into hospital tomorrow,’ he replied in that pragmatic way of his. ‘Once she’s had her lung fixed and the cataracts taken off her eyes, she’ll be fine.’
‘It’s more than that. I’ve seen that look before, on Arthur’s face. They become all soft. They start to talk about things they’ve hidden for years.’
Mum arrived a couple of hours later to take Nan home. She helped Nan down our front verandah steps, but, halfway down, Nan stopped, then she turned and said, ‘Kiss me, Sally, you might not see me again.’
I kissed her cheek.
I walked with them to the car, the air was cold and damp. Usually, I waved goodbye from the porch, but tonight I felt compelled to walk with Nan as far as possible.
As Mum started up the engine, Nan unwound her window and handed me a black and red vinyl pencil case.
‘Keep this,’ she said.
‘What are you giving Sally?’ Mum asked.
‘Nothing. Just something for the kids.’ There was a twinkle in her eye. I knew there was money inside.
When I visited Nan in hospital the following evening, she was very bright. Mum had been there on and off all day.
‘Hi, Nan,’ I said as I walked up to her bed. ‘How are they treating you?’
‘The nurses are lovely. And that old lady next to me, she’s gone now, but she ordered my tea and showed me where the toilet was.’
‘Aah, you’ve been spoilt!’
‘She was a lovely old lady, she’s gone home now, what a lovely person she was,’ Nan grimaced. She always did that when she spoke about how lovely someone was.
‘How’s the tucker?’
‘Very good,’ she replied, as if surprised. ‘They gave me meat and casserole and a soup and a lovely caramel sweet.’ Pausing in her description, she turned to Mum and said, ‘Gladdie, do you remember I used to make a sweet like that?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Mum replied. She looked tired.
‘One of the good old recipes, eh?’ I commented.
‘Yes, and very nice.’
‘Well, I’m glad they’re treating you right, Nan. I brought some more of Arthur’s story to read. Do you want to listen, or are you too tired?’
‘Read it!’
‘You sure you’re not too tired?’
‘No.’ She folded her hands in her lap and leaned back against the pillows, waiting for me to begin. It was a long chapter, so I only read her half. As I read, Nan oohed and aahed in the appropriate places.
‘I’ll read you the rest tomorrow night,’ I said.
‘That’s a good idea.’
‘You look tired, do you want to sleep now?’
‘I’d better. They’re putting that thing down my throat tomorrow.’
‘I know, that’s why you need a good sleep, you want to be strong for tomorrow.’
‘You won’t feel anything,’ Mum reassured her. ‘They give you some medicine so you don’t feel it go down.’
‘Yes, you told me before.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Nan,’ I said. ‘I’ve still got that pencil case you gave me.’
She smiled. ‘Those old papers in it will come in handy,’ she chuckled. Nan was speaking in code. She never liked Mum to know how much money she’d given anyone.
We had to wait a day for the results of the bronchoscopy. I decided to spend the day at Jill’s because it was near the hospital, and I wanted to be on the spot when we got the news.
We were fortunate, Mum’s dream had been fulfilled and our sister Helen was doing her residency at the hospital, so she was able to get the results for us straightaway. We had a doctor in the family at last.
Mum and I were sitting at the kitchen table having some lunch when Jill came back from answering the front door.
‘I think you should prepare yourself,’ she said to Mum. ‘Helen’s just come home in tears,
she’s in her room. You’d better go and see her.’
Mum and I rushed into Helen’s room. Jill took all the children into the lounge room and involved them in a game of snakes and ladders.
Helen sat on the edge of her bed, crying. When she saw us, she murmured. ‘She’s got a tumour. I suspected it all along, but I guess I was hoping it was something else.’
‘Is it malignant?’ Mum asked.
‘Well, at her age and with her history of heavy smoking, of course it’ll be malignant!’ said Helen crossly. She was very upset.
Mum began to cry. I couldn’t find any tissues, so I passed her a towel.
‘How long?’ I asked.
‘They haven’t completed the tests yet. We won’t know until tomorrow afternoon. Depends on if it’s a slow-growing tumour or a fast-growing one, but as she’s already symptomatic, it must be pretty large.’
I told the news to Jill, then made a cup of tea for Mum and Helen.
Mum gulped hers down and then went into Jill’s room to cry on her own.
I left her for half an hour, then went into find her still sprawled across the bed, crying her heart out.
‘She’s expecting me this afternoon,’ Mum sobbed when she saw me. ‘I told her I’d go down.’
‘Would you like me to go?’
‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘You go then. I’ll probably be okay by tonight, I’ll see her then. Would Helen like to go with you.’
‘I’ll ask her.’
It took us only five minutes to reach the hospital. As we mounted the stairs that led to Nan’s ward, Helen began to cry again.
‘You going to be okay?’ I asked.
‘I’ll be all right,’ she murmured.
When we reached Nan’s bed, she was lying on her back in a little short hospital gown. She was very hot, and, under the oxygen mask, her breathing was laboured.
The doctor was there. When he saw Helen, he said, ‘We think when we put the bronchoscope down that some of the bacteria may have spilled over into her bloodstream, the danger is septicaemia.’
Helen held Nan’s hand, we both sat down beside her bed. Nan seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness. It was too much for Helen, tears began to flow silently down her cheeks. She reached for a tissue, and just as she was wiping her face, Nan opened her eyes and said, ‘What’s wrong, Helen?’
‘Nothing,’ she replied, and looked away. Nan looked straight at me. I looked back. I was only confirming what she already knew inside.
We stayed for a few hours and left when Nan was asleep.
The rest of the results came through the following afternoon and Mum was called to the hospital to discuss them. I visited again that night. To my surprise, I found Nan sitting up in bed, eating tea. She looked much better.
‘Gosh, that looks like a good meal,’ I said as I walked up to her bed. It seemed such a silly thing to say, somehow. She was dying, oughtn’t I to say something much more profound?
‘It’s lovely, Sally,’ Nan smiled. ‘There’s so much here I can’t eat it all.’
I glanced at Mum, she looked like she was holding together. Nan ignored both of us and went on eating. I looked from one to the other. Silence.
Something was going on. No one was saying anything. Finally, I said, ‘So, what’s happening?’ Nan began to eat a little faster.
Mum said defensively, ‘She’s coming home for the weekend, then she’s coming back on Monday to start radiotherapy.’
Mum could tell by the look on my face I didn’t approve. She looked down at her feet.
‘How do you feel about that, Nan?’ I asked.
‘Ooh, you know me, Sally, I’m frightened, I’d rather do without it.’ She shrugged her shoulders and looked at Mum. It was a gesture of confusion.
‘You’ll be able to breathe better if you have it,’ said Mum firmly.
‘Why does she have to have it?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Sally,’ said Mum crossly, ‘she’s only scared because it’s an unknown quantity. The doctors said it will help.’
And people always think doctors know best, I thought angrily.
‘What do you think, Nan?’ I asked her. She shook her head. ‘Do you know what they do to you?’
‘No.’
I was sure the doctor must have told her, but I tried to explain as simply as possible about the machine and the rays and the benefits that it could have.
When I’d finished, Mum said, ‘She should at least try it, Sally.’
‘Do you want to try it, Nan?’ I asked.
‘I’m frightened of it, Sally. Glad told the doctors my legs are weak. I can’t get round. I don’t know. Helen says I should have it. She’s a doctor, I suppose she should know.’
‘Well, Nan,’ I sighed, ‘if that’s what you want, then try it once. But if you don’t like it, you tell ’em so, you stick up for yourself. If you don’t like it, you tell them, no more!’
‘I don’t think I should try it at all,’ she replied.
I agreed with her whole-heartedly, but I could see Mum was under pressure from all sides and I didn’t want to make it harder for her, so I said nothing.
‘Try it once,’ Mum encouraged. ‘Then, if you don’t like it, I won’t make you have any more.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
After that, we laughed and talked and joked for over an hour about old times. We laughed about the way Nan hid money under the mattress and the times she’d tried to feed Curly at the wrong end. We talked about the cool drink man and how, if the lawnmower man didn’t come soon, the grass would be so high we wouldn’t be able to see the house.
Finally, Mum said, ‘Well, we’d better go now. It’s getting late.’
‘Are you going too, Sally?’ Nan asked. She gave me one of her looks, I knew she wanted to talk to me alone.
‘I have to go now, Nan,’ I told her, ‘but I promise you that we are going to have a good talk over the weekend.’
That evening, Mum and I had a talk. We were both feeling very emotional, it was difficult for either of us to be rational about anything. Our main difference of opinion was whether Nan should have treatment or not. I was totally against it because I felt Nan was more afraid of hospitals than dying. Mum felt it could be a good thing, because the doctors had said it could give Nan another six months, though they couldn’t guarantee this.
I was also feeling very angry because no one had told Nan the complete truth about radiotherapy. She was under the impression it had no side effects and that a nurse would hold her hand the whole time she was under the machine. Neither of these were true. It just confirmed the opinion Nan had inculcated in me over the years about doctors in general.
In desperation, I finally said to Mum, ‘Do you know what Nan said to Margaret back in February?’ Margaret was my mother-in-law.
‘What?’
‘She told her she knew she didn’t have long to live. You see, she’s been living with dying for a long time now. It’s the hospital she’s frightened of.’
‘How do you know she said that?’
‘Margaret told me on the phone last night.’
Mum was taken back at this revelation. ‘I’m just trying to do the right thing,’ she sighed weakly.
‘I know you are, but don’t you see, it’s Nan’s business what happens to her body and no one else’s. Let her do what she wants, not what we think is right.’
Nan was due to come out of hospital the following morning. As Helen was finishing her shift at ten o’clock, she said she would pick up Nan from her ward and bring her down to Jill’s house. Mum was going to pick her up from there at eleven and come to my place for lunch.
By one o’clock in the afternoon, they still hadn’t arrived. I began to worry, I wondered if Nan had suddenly taken a turn for the worse.
They finally arrived around one-thirty. They both looked upset. Nan came in slowly and quietly, she sat down in the loun
ge room and just looked at the floor. For some reason, a picture suddenly flashed through my mind of one of our dogs just after he’d been hurt. I must be going crazy, I thought, shaking my head.
I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on and Mum followed me out.
‘What’s happened?’ I whispered. ‘Nan looks awful.’
‘You won’t believe it,’ Mum replied. ‘It’s terrible. I’m so upset.’ I glanced at Mum, she was wearing the same look as Nan.
‘What on earth has happened?’ I asked forcefully. I knew something was terribly wrong.
Mum wiped a tear from her eye and said softly, ‘You know Helen was supposed to pick her up from the ward at ten?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, when she went to the ward, Nan wasn’t there.’
‘You telling Sally what happened?’ a croaky voice suddenly interrupted from the lounge room.
‘Yes dear,’ Mum replied.
‘Come in the lounge and talk,’ I said. ‘I think Nan wants us to talk in there.’ I sat down opposite Mum and Nan and waited for them to tell me the story.
‘What happened, Nan?’ I asked, after we’d all sat in silence for a few seconds.
‘It was terrible, Sally,’ she said. ‘I’m never goin’ back there. They treat you like an animal.’
I sat patiently while Nan wiped her mouth and her eyes with a large men’s handkerchief. Then, I said, ‘Didn’t Helen pick you up?’
‘Oh yes, she came. I wasn’t there! I had been there, I was all dressed, waitin’ for her to come and get me when this man came in. He told me to hop in the wheelchair. “What for?” I asked, “I’m goin’ home!” “You have to see the doctor for a minute,” he said.’
‘Where did he take you?’
‘Oh, to some room. I had to take all my clothes off, there wasn’t even a nurse there, and they didn’t even give me one of those hospital dresses to put on. They made me lie down on the bed, and then this man and that man started thumping my chest. It hurt real bad.’
‘Was your doctor there?’
