Althea: A Story of Love

by Philip Rastocny

  I too was numb. The wicked-looking mass in Althea’s breast was shocking to both of us. How could she grow such a hideous thing in her body? How could this have happened? Knowing just how well Althea maintained herself—choosing the proper food and drink and maintaining excellent fitness and health—it just didn’t make sense nor did it seem fair.

  It’s cancer. I know it! Althea thought. The biopsy will give me more time to figure out what I am going to do. I need to sort things out now. I need to choose wisely and I need to surrender to these people, trusting they will help me. It’s cancer…

  The biopsy, scheduled a few days later, was uneventful, except for its lingering stress. Surrendering to the situation and unwilling to succumb to fear, we headed for Socorro, New Mexico, on one of our RV trips and our all-time favorite astronomy meeting. Althea was not going to let this inconvenience interfere with living her life to the fullest. Just south of Albuquerque, Althea received a voice mail message telling her she needed to call her doctor’s office. While refueling at a gas station, she made the call.

  “Hello?” a voice on the far end said.

  “This is Althea Rose. I received a voice mail from your office asking me to call you regarding the results of my biopsy.”

  “Just a minute, Ms. Rose. I’ll transfer you to the doctor.”

  A few minutes passed and Althea started to get nervous. She anticipated the results of this biopsy from her first gut feeling, and now was the time of truth.

  “Hello Ms. Rose. I have the biopsy results. It’s not as bad as you may think. It is cancer, but it is Tubular Carcinoma, a less-aggressive and highly predictable form.”

  Althea’s eyes instantly glazed over and her jaw dropped. She was so entranced she could barely hear what the doctor added. She shook her head and blinked her eyes trying to get all of the details of the report. With a blank stare, the blood drained from her face and she almost dropped the phone.

  Althea’s mother died a slow painful death from an aggressive form of breast cancer in 1977 and now, Althea had a similar disease at the youthful age of forty six. I drove the RV to a small restaurant, and in disbelief we sat in a booth and talked. She looked frightened and stared off into space. Tears dribbled down her cheeks as I reassured her we would get through this together and things would be fine. But Althea’s mind whirred with memories of her mother’s last stressful days.

  Her mother, Gertrude, found a small lump in her breast in 1975 and chose to ignore it. After becoming large enough to no longer deny, a biopsy diagnosed this lump as cancerous, and surgery was immediately recommended. Gertrude was a stocky, determined individual who took control of most situations, and now in her usual self-controlled manner, she took charge of her own therapy.

  Gertrude was a highly intelligent woman. Researching these traditional therapies, she found there was little hope for success with this particular type of cancer. Realizing the end result was a type of death she could not bear, she chose not to have this surgery but rather to treat her cancer with non-traditional methods. The hopeful alternatives of Laetrile injections, acupuncture, and the like had little effect on her aggressive disease and within two years Gertrude neared the end of her life.

  Althea flew to Nashville to be with her mother in her last days. This was a difficult time for Althea since Gertrude’s cancer spread throughout her body and into her brain. Gertrude was irritable, remorseful, and extremely angry. For Althea to be there for her mother was a huge challenge. Each day the disease took more of Gertrude’s brain causing irrational outbursts and wild tantrums. Rolling with these insults and rationalizing the personal attacks was the hardest to handle. But there were moments in this three week time when Gertrude’s clarity surfaced and they shared quality moments together making the whole trip worthwhile.

  Soon after this visit, Gertrude died and Althea never forgot the pain that her mother endured in those final few days. She recalled those difficult moments comforting someone who was half out of their mind thinking she may do much the same.

  “What did he say?” I asked trying to get us talking.

  “The biopsy went to Vanderbilt University for a second opinion and they concurred with the initial findings. It’s cancer.”

  Althea’s face was understandably pale and her breathing very shallow. She appeared lost behind her sad eyes.

  “What’s the next step?”

  “The doctor referred me to an oncologist for further treatment. I’ll get a call from him some time telling me when my appointment is.”

  Because of her family history, Althea put herself on a special diet designed to lower her risk for cancer. Organic oils, garden fresh fruits and vegetables, organic juices, and no red meats were her standard staples. It didn’t seem fair after going through all of these culinary constraints she contracted what she was trying to consciously avoid. But reassuringly she thought, What would have happened if I had not?

  I reached across the table, held her trembling hands, and struggled to find words that would best fit how I felt. The only thing that came out was “I love you darling.” My mind was jumbled and I couldn’t think straight. I felt for the first time in our marriage I had somehow failed her. I felt guilty. And worse, I didn’t know how to support her in this.

  Most men want to fix things in any relationship and I am an excellent example of such a man. Althea just wanted me to be there for her, and I kept trying to figure out what we should do next. But my need to fix her melted away as I looked into her eyes.

  Talking in the most sober frame of mind we could muster, together we cried. We sat there in the stiff booth a long time thinking about what to do and where to go. Thoughts of cancelling the trip and going back home were one option, but we enjoyed this astronomy meeting so much we decided to finish the trip as planned. After all, we were less than two hours from the event and we loved the extreme darkness of the night desert sky.

  We ordered lunch and talked. As they brought out the meal, an order of French Fries lined the edge of Althea’s plate. She picked up one of the fries and said, “I used to be worried about getting cancer from eating things like this.” Wiggling the fry in her hand and dipping it in ketchup, she gulped down this deep-fried potato. We burst out laughing uncontrollably. It seemed fitting that it took this small mistake to remind us of not taking life too seriously.

  We had a wonderful time on the New Mexico trip. When we returned home we faced the challenges of treatment options. Althea’s recommended curing journey included surgery with additional choices of radiation and chemotherapy. Being allergic to almost everything, Althea felt highly uncomfortable with chemotherapy believing her body would adversely react to it. Standing back and observing the facts, she soberly chose surgery and radiation therapy.

  With the successful surgical removal of her cancer, the first quick step in her prescribed recovery was over. The radiation treatments, however, would prove to last far longer.

  Over the next four months, Althea was given the maximum amount of radiation her body could safely endure. I attended almost every radiation treatment she had, typically driving her to and from each session. As we neared the end of this four-month journey, I watched her life force slowly, consistently drain away like the sands in an hourglass.

  This amount of radiation beat her down terribly. She struggled for the strength to get out of bed and her attitude changed. She fearfully decided it was more important to complete all of these treatments than it was to acknowledge what was happening to her body. She didn’t step back but rather permitted her emotions to run her life.

  She struggled terribly through these last sessions and happily today she is still cancer free. But once she found her center, stood back, and left her fears behind, she realized she could no longer receive any form of radiation, be it X-rays or mammograms. As her mother once did, Althea now chose to be responsible for her own body and ignore current medical wisdom that insists on such checkups.

  Making this choice meant she assumed all responsibility for di
agnosing issues within her body otherwise analyzed with X-rays. Althea was fine with this choice when considering the alternative of radiation-induced cancers. Besides, she was the one who was alerted by her gut feeling that something was wrong from the beginning.

  When told by any physician today that she needs an X-ray for diagnosing an issue, her standard reply is, “No. Find another way.” Sometimes physicians become indignant and even insulting. Althea is firm in her choice ignoring such flamboyant displays of intimidation and authority. She merely replies, “Would you have your daughter or wife do this if they had already received the maximum amount of radiation their body could safely tolerate?” Typically, they immediately change their positions siding with Althea.

  Today, Althea assumes to care for her own body and evaluates the recommendations in such instances choosing what is correct and proper for herself. Making such choices is best done when she is under no pressure and well informed about options, outcomes, and potential side effects.

  Once she has made such a choice, she assumes all liability and responsibility for her actions, and accepts that such a decision may shorten or even end her life. To Althea, the quality of life is far more important than the quantity. Of course the best choices would yield both, but she knows that is not always the case. In her mind, it is more important to accept personal responsibility and exercise her freedom of choice than to blindly and unquestioningly accept anyone’s recommendations.

  About eighteen months after her surgery, the sobering reality of checking the status of her old cancer site came up. Her doctor recommended a mammogram to which Althea reluctantly consented—despite her intuition to the contrary. The test results were negative but from this small amount of radiation, she was bed ridden for three days. Her reaction to this mammogram put her in a weakened state identical to her state at the end of the radiation treatments. Her sensitivity to this type of diagnosis was indeed precisely as she feared.

  On the fourth day after this mammogram, we were eating dinner and a group of Chickadees flew to the bird feeder just outside the window. Watching them dance around the edge choosing which seeds to take, she looked over at me and said, “Phil. My intuition, gut instincts, and conscience all told me to not do this last mammogram. Look what happened to me when I ignored them. I’m never doing any kind of radiation ever again.”

  I heard what she said with my heart, and still remember vividly that defining moment. With Althea’s history, finding alternatives to radiation diagnostics and treatments is always the best choice for her. If one physician insists on X-rays and mammograms as the traditional method of investigation, she goes to another physician looking for non-traditional alternatives to help her. She finds another way.

  When facing the truth, you find yourself.

  Change is in the wind and I am excited once again. Today is Althea’s scheduled moving day and many things are coming together. Once again, I visualized getting my favorite parking place and so it was, right there waiting for me as if reserved with my name on it. I took out the materials for making more tobacco ties and headed off in the early morning light into the hospital.

  Rounding the corner of the nurses’ station, I glanced again into the room next to Althea’s hoping to see someone visiting this old man. Still alone, I wondered if this would be the last time anyone would think about him or if he would even survive the night. As I passed by, his left arm twitched and his face flinched. My brow folded, my head cocked, and my eyes squinted wondering if he could hear my thoughts. It was as if he were acknowledging me saying, “I heard you.” Shrugging this off, I turned my attention to Althea.

  She was sound asleep again this morning, her brown feeding tube rhythmically measuring and dispensing the needed nutrition to her motionless body. The familiar beeps of the heart monitor and whooshes of respiratory equipment played an eerie melody in my mind. These gentle background sounds reminded me to maintain my focus on her healing. I felt a need to make more prayer ties and redouble my commitment to her recovery.

  Althea slept peacefully almost all of the morning waking at noon and then only briefly. Placing the new ties and bed flags around her bed, it began to look like a well-tended garden, one with tall flowering plants. After the routine of stretching, bathing, and exercising, I sat down and started to read to her aloud.

  After about an hour, I took a break and went downstairs to get two cups of coffee. When I returned, she stirred, stretching and moving both arms. Both eyes were wide open and her left eye squint was slowly becoming a memory. Still wearing her blue hat and vest, her now pale arms stood out like white fence posts against green grass.

  “Good morning, darling. How are you today?”

  She yawned and stretched, reached out with both arms and pulled me towards her. I held her close to me and tenderly kissed her cheek as I had done so many times before. We gazed into each other’s eyes and we began sharing one more day together.

  Handing her some coffee, she perked up and I raised the back of the bed so we could better see each other. We chatted for a while and I handed her the paper again to see if she could write. She could not. Scribbles and circles meandered across the page and soon she gave up trying to make her hand do what her mind wanted. One day she would write, but today was not that day.

  When Althea is done with something, she tells you with her body language. She exhales through her nose pressing her lower lip firmly to the upper and sets her hands down to her side. In this body language moment, I saw she was done but there was something different today about her, something strange—an energy that felt uneasy.

  “Do you remember what happened to you?” I inquired.

  She looked at me with a blank stare, tilted her head to the right, and sadly shook her head no. When I am the first person she greets, she appears surprised to be in the hospital. Maybe it’s my familiar face that thrusts her into thinking we are at home and she is just waking up. Maybe her memory fails her and she just cannot recall things from the previous day. But this uneasiness passes quickly as she reorients herself while I recall the story.

  As the tale unfolded, her uneasiness grew. This was a new reaction. Studying her face, I saw not the relief and acceptance like before but something else…my gut told me that focusing on the past may not be what she needed. I quickly changed the subject.

  Pointing to the drawing taped above the door, I said, “Remember us sitting on your favorite bench? We will be doing this again soon.”

  Her eyes immediately responded to the sight of the drawing. Her spirits lifted and the feeling of unease left as quickly as it had come. A smile slid across her lips.

  I anchored this feeling further by continuing, “We will soon sit on your favorite bench with a delicious cup of coffee in the warm morning air. Smelling the cedar trees behind us, we’ll look up and see two hawks flying high in the sky circling overhead. We will look at each other and smile, toasting to that moment knowing that your recovery is complete.”

  The morning passed uneventfully and at about one o’clock, a respiratory therapist came in and explained, “Before we can move her to her next room, we need to make sure she can swallow. We must give her an X-ray while watching her swallow some fluid to make sure it goes down properly.”

  “No, she can’t have this test done!” I said firmly giving this nurse eye contact. “She has had radiation treatment for cancer and her body has already received the maximum dosage it can safely sustain.”

  “We have to do this test,” the therapist robotically persisted.

  “She is already eating and drinking and hasn’t choked once. This doesn’t make sense. What would doing this test accomplish that she hasn’t already demonstrated?”

  “This is a test ordered by the attending respiratory physician. We need to visually confirm she is swallowing properly.”

  “No we don’t. She has had the maximum amount of radiation her body can safely take from her cancer treatments. We need to consult this doctor and find an alternative way to do this tes
t that doesn’t involve radiation!” I said decisively.

  The respiratory therapist stormed out of the room rather displeased with my insistent and unreasonable position about what she considered to be a routine procedure. I was making her job difficult and she obviously resented it.

  There was absolutely no way I was going to let this happen to Althea, given her history and her demonstrated ability to eat. She had accumulated two MRIs, three CT scans, and at least two chest X-rays over the past twelve-days. She ate solid food last night and nothing went wrong. I stood fast in my conviction and watched the therapist still mumbling to herself disappear around the far corner of the nurses’ station.

  “Althea,” I turned and looked her squarely into the eyes. “I am very concerned about this test. I believe this procedure is unnecessary since you are already swallowing. What is your opinion? Do you want this X-ray?”

  Althea calmly thought for a moment, giving it thorough consideration. Her eyes moved up and to the left and then straight down in front of me. Raising her head and looking at me with love in her eyes, she shook her head left and right mouthing the word “No.”