by Anne Hagan
###
“There’s a small mass in your cervix.”
“Mass?”
Dr. Welle nodded. “Possibly a tumor. That could explain your tiredness and your general malaise.”
“A tumor?” Lisa gulped, her fear evident on her face.
“It’s not time to be alarmed just yet,” Welle held a cautioning hand up. “We’ll want to do a biopsy just as soon as we can and have the tissue tested. If it’s benign, we have no real problem.”
“And if it’s…it’s…”
“Malignant?” At Lisa’s slight nod, the doctor continued, “then you’ll need surgery to have it removed before it metastasizes elsewhere.”
“Would you be doing the surgery?”
“First things first, Lisa. I’ll perform the biopsy here at Yampa and then send the tissue I take out for testing. If you need surgery, I’ll refer you to a specialist in Denver. We’re not equipped to perform anything but routine procedures here.”
“How soon for the biopsy?”
“The sooner the better.”
###
“Cancer? I knew I should have gone with you!”
Lisa blew out a breath. “She kept cautioning me not to jump to conclusions yet. We won’t really know anything for sure until after the biopsy, Monday.”
“How quick do you get results back from something like that?”
“She said a couple or three days.”
I got up and moved around my desk to my wife. “I love you Lisa Louise,” I told her as I pulled her up out of her chair and into my arms. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together.”
Chapter 4
Late Tuesday Morning, April 9th, 2013
Denver General Medical Center
I couldn’t sit. I was up, pacing the floor in the surgical waiting room. Hours had passed since they’d taken her back but I didn’t even know if she was in the OR yet. The electronic billboard that was there to keep families informed of their patient’s status hadn’t changed in Lisa’s case in nearly three hours.
A volunteer came into the room pushing a cart. People jumped from their seats and lined up for coffee, fruit and cookies. Mindlessly, I fell into line too. When it was my turn, the cheerful young woman waited patiently while I decided that I only wanted water.
“How about an apple, Miss? That’ll perk you up some,” she coaxed me.
“I’m way past the age where people can legitimately call me ‘Miss’,” I said to her. Noting her puzzled look, I decided it wasn’t worth pursuing and that I would just be holding up the line. “I’ll take an apple, then.”
Moving off to a seat in a corner near the conference room doors, where I could still see the billboard but where no one else seemed to want to sit, I flopped into a chair and started to work on the fruit.
I was nearly finished when the woman from the information desk in the hallway walked in through an entry near me and called out, “Hawley family?” She waited while three people stood and gathered themselves and then moved over to her.
“Conference room one,” she told them, pointing at a door just steps from my seat. “The surgeon will be there in just a couple of minutes. He’s scrubbing out now.” The little group moved toward the room, their relief at their wait being over, evident.
“Excuse me ma’am,” I stood and asked the staffer as she turned to leave again, “Any word on Lisa Falk? I mean, there’ve been no updates.” I swung an arm toward the billboard.
“I’m sorry, no. There are no updates at this time.” And then, she was gone.
I sank back down. Five minutes passed that seemed like an eternity.
I’ve got to stop watching the clock…
Another ten minutes went by and then the door to room one opened. Expecting to see the Hawley crew coming back out, I was instead surprised to see a surgeon and an RN in clean scrubs standing there. “Falk family; anyone here for Falk?” the surgeon called out.
“I am,” I said, rising. Relief washed through me that the wait was finally over and I’d get to see my wife soon.
Wordlessly both turned back into the small room. I followed. The female RN indicated I should take a seat.
I was anxious and didn’t want to sit anymore. “How is she? How did it go?” I questioned the man I assumed performed Lisa’s surgery.
“Ms.?” he peered at me as he questioned my identity.
“Falk-Wysocki – Barbara Wysocki. I’m Lisa’s legal wife but I uh…never actually legally changed my name.” I held up my left hand to display my wedding band. He didn’t bat an eyelash.
“Please have a seat Ms. Wysocki.” His tone was muted and that concerned me. I looked between the two of them but their features gave nothing away. Quietly I sat, dread starting to fill me. The RN took a seat right next to me as he leaned back against the door from the back hallway and started to speak again.
“I’m Philip Knox, the Chief of Surgery here at the hospital. One of our best surgeons was operating on Lisa today, Dr. Simmons. I regret to inform you that we lost her. Lisa passed during the procedure.”
“What? What are you saying?”
The RN reached over and took my hand. “She’s gone,” she told me. “Lisa died during the surgery.”
“What?” I was screaming now. “How? How is that possible?” I was shaking with fear and rage. This can’t be happening!
“I assure you, we did everything we could,” he tried to tell me. “When it became apparent that Lisa was in distress, I was called in. I stepped in to assist myself. I’m so sorry. We couldn’t save her.”
“What happened in there? You have to tell me what happened!” I looked at him and watched as he dropped his head, his chin almost touching his chest. Turning then, I looked at the nurse who was still holding my hand. “One of you better start talking!”
Knox picked up a chair near the back hallway door and, after covering the six or seven feet between us, placed it down right in front of me and sat. He leaned forward and looked directly at me. “I’ll be reviewing all of the case notes, charts, and the video log but here’s what I think happened. Please mind you, at this point it’s just an educated guess.”
I nodded, “Go on.” My eyes welled up then as reality started to sink in. Tears began to roll. The nurse reached for a tissue box and held it out to me. I took one but I left the tears to fall and waited for him to speak again.
“We had an emergency procedure come in that bumped Lisa’s removal procedure back a little bit. She waited in surgery prep for a couple of hours longer than she otherwise would have. During the procedure, I believe – this is just my thoughts without a full review – Lisa suffered a spell of deep vein thrombosis which caused a blood clot. The clot moved quickly to her lung and caused a pulmonary embolism.”
“What does that mean in English?”
“The clot…or clots, blocked the flow of blood to her lungs and possibly even to her heart and brain. We couldn’t break them up.”
“This deep vein thing; that has something to do with her having to wait?”
“It’s possible but not very likely. We administer Heparin before surgery to counteract clotting and we normally continue it even after surgery for patients at risk for clotting from being held motionless for long periods of time. I mention the wait because it did happen but Heparin is fail proof.”
###
Our house already felt empty. At first, I moved about it with unseeing eyes. At some point in the early evening, I noticed it was snowing hard outside. I was drawn to the long windows to peer at the strange April storm blowing beyond.
I don’t know how long I stood there, but finally, growing cold with the draft, I turned away. Before me spread the rustic beauty of the log home we’d traded for when we’d sold our last bar in Chicago and taken on the Willie’s project.
Most of the black and glass furniture Lisa had loved so much for the townhouse we’d had in Chi Town was in a storage unit back there now. It just wasn’t a fit for this place and we hadn’t wanted to
transport it all the out here anyway. Still, as I looked about, I saw so many books and photos and objects we’d bought together as we crisscrossed the country buying and rehabbing failing bars with promise and then reselling them and moving on.
I moved about now, touching this and that and remembering…just remembering. There was the brick we’d gotten when we went to our first ever – and only – NASCAR race when we were in Indy. It lay on a side table now like a paperweight for the mail.
There was the photograph taken from the camera attached to the Ferris wheel on the boardwalk in Myrtle Beach not long after it officially opened. I smiled at the memory as I looked at Lisa’s laughing face.
In the kitchen, hanging from a rack over the center island, were the copper bottomed pots and pans that cost the moon but that she insisted I have just because I said I liked them. Tears started to well up again as I thought of the meals we’d both made and shared the last few years using them.
Our house phone rang. Lisa had always insisted on having a landline wherever we’d lived as a default business line. As I moved toward it, my eyes landed on a cut crystal vase resting on a sideboard by our little breakfast table. Ignoring the phone, I went to it instead, feeling compelled to touch it. I bought Lisa flowers for our first Valentine’s Day together. As I ran my fingers over the bumpy texture, I remembered that she’d had nothing to put them in. Our dinner date had turned into a shopping trip to Macy’s instead for the piece. We celebrated Valentine’s Day at the mall food court over quick serve Chinese food.
The phone stopped ringing and voicemail picked up. My mother’s voice came on the line.
“Barb, baby, I’m so sorry. We were at appointments all day for dad. We just got your message. Sweetie? Are you there? Sweetie, pick up please if you’re there.”
Letting out a breath as I reached for the phone I’d headed toward when the voicemail came on, I spoke into the receiver, “Hi mom; how’s Dad?”
“Struggling, as always but that’s not why we’re calling…I’m calling. He’s asleep. It’s been a long day for him. What on earth happened out there? Tell me it isn’t true!”
“It’s true…I wish it wasn’t.” I relayed the little bit of information I had.
“Oh Barb, honey, how very awful. I…I…I don’t know what to say.”
“They’ll be doing a full autopsy to get at the actual cause of death. I’ve been told her…her body will probably be released Thursday. The funeral will probably be Friday or Saturday.”
It was quiet on the other end of the line. After a prolonged silence, I asked, “Mom, are you still there?”
“Yes, yes. I’m sorry. I’m just contemplating who I can get to come and stay with your father so I can come out for the funeral.”
“You don’t have to come out here. Stay there with dad.”
“I should be there with you; I really should.”
“How is he? You never told me.”
“He isn’t doing so well. They keep adjusting his heart medication but, so far, they haven’t seemed to hit on the right combination. He’s tired all the time and he complains constantly that he can’t seem to catch his breath.”
“Mom, just stay there with him. I’ll manage just fine here. It will be a very small service here with just some local friends we’ve made in the six months or so we’ve been out here.”
“What about her family?”
“There’s none to speak of that would come here. She only had a few scattered cousins left, to speak of. Her parents are both long gone, remember?” I continued, “She didn’t have any siblings. The aunt who raised her is gone now too. We buried her a couple of years ago.”
“I remember that, now. Such a shame that she had no one else.”
“She had me mom…she had us. Lisa always said we were all the family she ever needed anyway.”
My mother sniffled at the other end of the line.
“Mom?” I prodded her gently.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“For what dear?”
“For loving and accepting me and Lisa too.”
Chapter 5
Saturday afternoon, April 13th
Steamboat Willie’s
“It was a nice service,” Kane’s Uncle Roger said from his perch on the bar stool next to mine.
“Thank you for coming. I appreciate you being there.” I meant the words but I felt like I was speaking from outside my own body. It had been a rough week all around and a very emotional morning.
Kane himself moved toward us. “And you as well, thank you too,” I told him.
He gave me a tight lipped grin and a nod in response. He pointed to my coffee cup and I nodded back at him to go ahead and refill it. The bar was closed for the day but several of us had naturally seemed to drift that way after the funeral.
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Roger began hesitatingly, “what will you do now? Will you stay on here or will you keep on moving about and doing rehabs?”
“That, I can’t answer for sure. The rehabs are in my blood but it’s all up to the courts and how big of a cut out of Lisa’s estate they take.”
He quirked an eyebrow in my direction, his question obvious on his face.
“Lisa and I were legally married in the eyes of the federal government but we weren’t in the eyes of the State of Colorado. We have a registered Civil Union here which doesn’t seem to mean much when it comes to probate. There are three bars that we kept in her name for tax purposes that are now going to be all caught up. We would use the income from those and the sale of more recent properties to buy the next place.”
“Such a shame, that. So, no will leaving those to you?”
“There’s a will.”
“I don’t understand then,” he said, shaking his head. “Probate isn’t required for wills, only for the lack of one. You can leave your assets to anyone you want if you have a will. Do you have a lawyer?”
“Yes.” It was my turn to appear puzzled. “We actually use a firm that’s got offices around the country since we move around so much.”
“I’d be talking to them soon, if I was you. Get that will looked at and those assets transferred to you.”
###
Wednesday, April 17th
Meecham and Seer Law offices
Denver, Colorado
“It’s not quite so simple Ms. Wysocki,” the junior lawyer was telling me, his tone borderline exasperated.
“What’s so hard about it? I guess I’m just not understanding. It’s a valid will. Lisa’s estate shouldn’t even be in probate.”
“It may very well be but it’s being contested as invalid.”
“By whom? The state?”
He shook his head. “By a group claiming to be Lisa’s rightful heirs; a Hake Swogger, a Heath Swogger and a Heidi Lykins. Are you familiar with them?”
“Well isn’t that fast?” I was livid.
“How so?”
“I’m vaguely familiar with them. They’re Lisa’s cousins by marriage and her only living relatives. I took the time to bother to notify the two I could track down, Hake and Heidi who still live in Iowa where Lisa was from, about her death and the funeral but they couldn’t even be bothered to send so much as a card let alone show up.”
“So they’re first cousins, then?”
I nodded. “Is that important?”
“You said they were her only living relatives so, in the event there was no will, they would be her legal heirs in the eyes of the state.”
“And again, there is a will. How can they contest it?”
“They can contest anything they want to. It will be up to the court to determine if their claim is valid.”
“Even if they don’t live in Colorado?”
“Their relative location has no bearing on their claim.”
“What are my chances here?”
“We’re not in the business of laying odds Ms. Wysocki. If you wish to retain us to represent you in this matter, we’ll work to
serve your best interests.”
###
May 2nd, 2013
“I don’t know what to do mom; I feel like I’m drowning.”
“Is there anything we can do to help?” her voice came back across the line.
“I appreciate that, but no. Just listening is enough.”
“Fill me in, baby. What’s going on?”
“The probate court out here froze all of the assets of Lisa’s estate pending their final decision. That could take months. Meanwhile, her medical bills are still piling up.”
“But, she had health insurance…”
I cleared my throat to keep from swearing into the phone with my disgust over our insurers. Instead I told her, “She did, yes, but she had a high deductible and it was a cost shared plan too; in other words, worthless. Since the funeral, I’ve run though what was left of the life insurance proceeds trying to pay off the medical bills but there’s just no end.”
“You would think when someone passes during a procedure that they would just…I don’t know…but not bill you, that’s for sure!”
There really wasn’t a response for that and mom was on a roll anyway.
“You could just do what I do with your father’s stuff; send them twenty dollars every time they send you a bill. They’ll see you’re making an attempt to pay and…”
“That isn’t going to work. Some of these bills are for thousands of dollars.”
“Oh.”
“Once this case is decided, hopefully, I’ll be able to tap the cash flow that’s in holding right now, pay off the bills, pay off my lawyers and try to put my life back together…somehow, maybe…I don’t know. Right now, I feel like I’m circling the drain.”
