Lost Without You: Loving and Losing Tanya

by Jones, Vinnie

  But to Kaley, and to others, Tans was strong. She’d tell her daughter that she was going to be OK, that she’d got through everything, and Kaley believed her because Tans always had been OK. In Kaley’s mind, her mother had survived a heart transplant, so she could survive everything; Tans was going to live forever.

  I think we all tell ourselves this kind of thing all the time. That’s because the fires are too hot, too hard to look at straight on. How could we contemplate a world in which Tans wasn’t there? We couldn’t; no one could. She had saved all of us from a life without her and now our brains couldn’t conceive of her not being there every day, making our worlds better. So, when she said she’d win, we truly believed her. Of course we did. She deserved nothing less.

  But there were many times when she couldn’t hide what she was going through. There were terrible side effects to do with the chemotherapy and she’d also have to take fentanyl – a powerful opioid painkiller – for the pain in her ribs. That drug in particular made her feel like she was losing her independence because she couldn’t drive herself anywhere. Kaley was working full time during the day and I was often filming, so Tans and her mum would have to Uber to doctor’s appointments. It got to the point where Kaley realized she couldn’t let that happen anymore and it was a big turning point for her. Once Kaley saw it for herself, close up – the radiation place with all the other people there, and then the doctors explaining things and not trying to protect her as her mum had often done by playing things down … well, then it was truly devastating for Kaley.

  Fortunately for Kaley, she’d found someone who was to help her, and all of us, through the next few years.

  Kaley and Lauren had started as friends and their friendship had deepened until, one night, they’d had dinner together and then, when they got home, they’d sat together in our driveway listening to music. Lauren had played ‘Coconut Skins’ by Damien Rice and Jack White doing ‘Jolene’ and a whole bunch of songs by Fiona Apple, and Kaley realized she’d never heard this music before and loved it. Kaley came in eventually and was telling Tans all about Lauren and the music, and Tans just said, ‘Oh my god, darling, you’re in love.’ It was just like the moment Maureen had said the same about Tans and me all those years ago.

  Kaley wasn’t convinced, until a moment in 2016 – 19 August – when Tans was rushed to Cedars-Sinai with a bad infection. Kaley stepped out to call Lauren to tell her what was happening and Lauren said she’d be right there. When Kaley came back into the room, even though she was so sick, Tans said again, ‘Something’s happened, you’re in love.’

  This was about six months after Tans had first said it to Kaley but this time Kaley just said, ‘Yes.’ A little while later, as she’d promised she would, Lauren turned up, and she’s never left to this day. I don’t know how we’d have survived without Lauren, actually. Sometimes people come along for incredible, magical, unseen reasons. When they do, cling on to them as long as you have strength in your arms.

  Tans started to have more ‘poorly days’ where she needed to rest. If Maureen was there, Tans would ask her to make her a bacon sandwich or something, and we’d all treat it like a rainy day in. After Tans had had the chemo, it was inevitable that she would need a couple of those ‘poorly days’ and then she would say, ‘Right, I want to go down to La Quinta.’ She loved it down there – we both did – and the sunshine raised her spirits.

  This became our new normal – Tans would have chemo every other week and we knew she was going to be a bit poorly for few days afterwards and need to rest at home, and then she would be back at it, always planning something, always having someone come and visit her – Shane, or her friends Jo and Julie, or whoever it was. Tans was always planning something and always looking forward to something. She was the most positive person you could imagine, even in the face of all this pain and discomfort.

  We really thought we’d beat it; truly, we did. Right up until Christmas Eve 2018. That’s when I think we both knew. Yeah, we knew.

  Tans had been complaining of headaches through the latter part of 2018. Given that she was so susceptible to cancer – she was still having treatment for her ribs and her lungs – and because she’d been getting these headaches, the doctors wanted to be thorough and give her an MRI. We weren’t really expecting anything to come of it; it just felt like a precaution. She had the scan on 23 December.

  That Christmas, as usual, everyone had flown in for the holidays. We all went down to La Quinta and were preparing for a right old good time. I’d been sober for five years by this point; as soon as Tans got really sick the drink was over for me and we’d never been better.

  On Christmas Eve, the phone call came. We took it together, away from the family. The news was terrible – there was cancer in her brain, now. The doctors were saying that in some ways it was more treatable than the ribs and the lungs, but it was hard to believe at that moment. In the next room, the family were all hanging out, chatting about this, that and the other, while we hid behind the bedroom door, crying in each other’s arms.

  Now we had to pull ourselves together, for the family. Tans was desperate that nothing would ruin the holiday she’d planned for everyone. We dried our eyes, kissed each other and walked out into the living room as though nothing had happened.

  We didn’t tell anyone that Christmas and New Year’s what was going on. Tans, for her part, gave an amazing speech at Christmas lunch in which she urged everyone to enjoy every minute because we were so blessed to be together. She was crying happy tears, she said, because she was just so glad that everyone she loved was there.

  I could hardly see straight for the agony of it.

  Back in L.A., at Greenleaf Street in the New Year, Kaley was in Tans’ walk-in closet while Tans was trying to find something to wear to go out. She told Kaley in a fairly off-handed way that they had found a little bit of cancer in her brain, but that they felt really confident that they could get it. Tans was once again very upbeat, but Kaley was smart enough that the words brain and cancer scared her. This felt different. Kaley knew that there were certain cancers – like pancreas, or brain – that frightened everyone the most because people didn’t tend to beat them.

  But Tans did everything to calm Kaley, saying that her radiation doctor was confident in the treatment, that the lung was actually less receptive to the treatment than the brain – all that kind of thing. There were apparently two baby lesions, and one bigger one, but the doctor thought he could get them …

  Tans’ bravery was sorely tested by her first radiation treatment on the brain. When she came out she was crying because it had been a very intensive thing. They had put a very tight cap on her skull and then they turned on the radiation – Tans said she could hear it zapping her in that very small room. She hated that treatment. It would take about eight minutes each time, four days a week, for about two weeks, then they would give her a break because they would want to see if it had done anything.

  Then, like with the angiograms all those years, we’d have to wait to see what the outcome was. In the meantime, Tans would have to take a high dosage of steroids to protect the brain and to prevent seizures. But when the steroid dosage was lowered, in February 2019, seizures did start happening. One of the tumours was on part of the brain that controlled the left side of Tans’ body, so when the seizures hit, she’d lose control of her left arm and hand and her speech was affected too. Tans would do her best to communicate with us with her eyes. We would take her yet again to Cedars-Sinai where the steroids would be increased and then Tans was allowed home, and the cycle continued. But all this would interfere with her chemo …

  What you learn is that medical science is all about balancing risks and probabilities. Tans’ doctors were wonderful in trying everything to make her comfortable, and we recognized how difficult their job was. Lower the steroids and the seizures hit; add the steroids back in and the side effects were horrible. Try to do some chemo but have to miss a treatment because of the seizures … truly,
I don’t know how Tans remained so positive and lovely.

  Another of the side effects of all this was horrific leg pain, making sleep so difficult for her. Once again, she had to take fentanyl, which she described as ‘a very dark drug’. And her treatment once again lowered her already low immune system and we’d have to take her back to the hospital with regular infections.

  It just seemed so unfair that after everything, she was having to face all this. How much should one beautiful person have to take?

  Most of 2018 and the early part of 2019 was a blur of doctors’ appointments, radiation, tests, waiting, infections, ICU visits, and on and on. Sometimes, even though she wanted to be home, we felt that Tans was safer when she was in the hospital. We’d call the doctor when we weren’t sure what to do and there was a tiny bit of relief if they said to bring her in, even though it was so hard on Tans. Through it all, though, Tans defined ‘trooper’. She did everything she could to stay positive and hopeful, even in the face of these terrible diagnoses. We kept on with her heart medication, we kept on trying to be upbeat, we kept on in love.

  Tans never spent a night alone.

  Valentine’s Day 2019 came and went. I think I knew it was our last but, at the same time, I didn’t want to believe that this was our final chapter. Tans really tried that day, but she couldn’t take in the stuff that I’d got her. It was the first time where there really was no point buying a Cartier bangle for her – she would have never worn it. We were running out of time. I got her a massive bunch of flowers and it was as much as she could do to smile that day.

  And I got her a blow-up heart balloon on a fucking stick.

  In my mind, I kept pushing it away. I would walk down a street and want to scream, but I had to keep it together for everyone. When the plane you’re on starts bumping and swooping, the first thing you do is look at the cabin crew to see if they’re panicking. I was the airline staff in our lives; Tans and Kaley and her family were the passengers. If she looked at me and I was panicking, Tans would be frightened. And I couldn’t have her frightened.

  But yeah, sometimes on the way to golf I’d pull over and just scream.

  Tans always said that if you want a doctor to look after you, allow them to see that you’re a human and always be really nice to them. She was forever forming connections with her doctors and nurses. Tans was so extraordinary that no one would ever forget her in any case, but she always made the extra effort to be lovely to the people looking after her; it was just her way.

  Her main doctor, Dr Rosenfelt, had been having some health issues of his own and she always made a point of asking him how he was feeling, how his wife was doing, where they were planning to go on holiday. He was a busy man and a serious doctor but he just couldn’t help himself, so he’d hang around a bit and talk to her.

  But each chemo would cause a setback requiring a blood transfusion or fluids, or she’d get another infection – Tans was so weak. Having to drive her back and forth to Cedars-Sinai in all that traffic and heat was horrendous; I don’t know how Kaley managed it, but she’d really stepped in at this point.

  Kaley had taken 2019 off work. She had dearly wanted to look after her mummy, and in the last six months of her life, Kaley was our strength. It was almost as if Kaley felt that she was there when this all started and would see it through to the very end. Her bond with her mum was a spiritual one, I think. Perhaps it was because of the heart transplant – it made Tans the person she was and was part of Kaley’s story from the start, and made the two of them like one person. Watching it from the outside, sometimes it looked like an out-of-body relationship; more than mother and daughter, it was like they’d fused through that early trauma into one person from two.

  Dr Rosenfelt was worried that Tans’ quality of life was now becoming subpar and in May 2019 it was he who first mentioned that perhaps hospice might be an option. Tans was so out of it on the fentanyl that Kaley doesn’t think it quite registered. Kaley called me – I had unavoidably been in the UK at the time – and I had to call the doctor myself to hear what he had to say. I told Kaley that we’d keep going with the chemo, that we’d get through this together, all of us. I don’t think I wanted to admit to what I was hearing.

  Tans always felt safer when her own mum was around, so we flew her out. Then we flew Lou out too. These were signs of the final things.

  Still there was one last attempt at chemotherapy. Tans was scheduled to do the second round of it on a Monday, but on the Saturday night she was showing signs of having another seizure. Kaley gave her an extra steroid, but then rightly decided to take Tans to the emergency room. Lauren went straight to the hospital from work, and then she too decided to take a leave of absence.

  Kaley fell asleep in the room with Tans but was shaken awake by Dr Rosenfelt. He took her outside and quietly told her he thought Tans had about a month left to live. The last chemo was cancelled and then, when we were all together, we were invited to go to Cedars-Sinai for a meeting.

  17

  DAYS, WEEKS, MAYBE MONTHS

  There’s a room in Cedars-Sinai I hope you never have to see. Every hospital has that room. It’s usually off to the side of a ward with chairs along each wall, a window if you’re lucky. Maybe someone has hung some standard hospital pictures – mountains, a lake, a peaceful waterfall. There’s no sign that it’s ever used for patients: no treatment table covered in paper, no receptacle labelled ‘SHARPS’, no monitors, no bank of plug outlets, no sink, no otoscopes hanging from a hook. Just a room, a place to meet.

  It’s the worst room in the world.

  The first time I went to Cedars-Sinai with Tans – years ago when she was first sick with cancer – I remember walking past that room. Tans was there to have laser treatment for her melanoma and, as I passed the room, I noticed that there was a group of people in there. They looked like one family and they were all crying, distraught, their heads in their hands, which I noticed were shaking. That day, all those years ago, I paused as I passed, looking through the little slit of the window in the door, and I thought, ‘I never want to be in that room.’ I said a little prayer then to something, someone, I don’t know what. But I knew I never wanted to be in that room.

  In June 2019, me, Lou, Maureen, and Kaley, were invited into that room. Same room, same shitty pictures on the wall, only this time they were accompanied by little thank-you drawings and paintings for the nurses and the doctors sent in by children. Five-year-olds, three-year-olds, eight-year-olds – all had daubed bits of white paper with thick finger paint – it felt like we were in an infants’ classroom. Innocence, the beginnings of life, hope and security, play and simplicity, were all stuck to the walls of that room …

  … In which we sat, surrounded by counsellors and doctors, who were talking as though Tanya Jones had already gone. So instead of being in an infants’ classroom, in fact we were in the opposite side of life: the dark, painful, horrifying end of God’s waiting room.

  We arrived at Cedars-Sinai that day in one life. We went into that room and, when they were done talking to us, we left that room and walked into a completely different, new, terrifying life. We’d gone in one door and come out the same door but it was a million miles from where we’d entered.

  The whole meeting took about 20 minutes.

  Fifty feet away, down the corridor and to the right, Tans lay in her hospital bed, talking to Lauren. She kept asking Lauren why the doctors kept taking Kaley away? ‘Why are they talking to her? Why aren’t they talking to me?’ Tans asked.

  As I left that meeting room, I realized I was completely numb, as though I’d been given a massive dose of anaesthetic. My limbs were cold, my legs were weak; had I just run a marathon? No. I had just stood up and walked into the opposite part of life.

  As those counsellors had talked to us, I had heard myself say ‘OK … OK’, but it wasn’t going in, not registering in any part of my brain. I think they mentioned hospice, but she wasn’t doing that, I knew – she was coming home. Simple as.
But all you know is you’re in that room that you never wanted to be in, and you know when you come out … You can never bring yourself around to what they’ve just told you.

  What exactly had we been told? It hit us like a sledgehammer. I can hardly bring the words to the page.

  Days.

  Weeks.

  Maybe months.

  We who loved her so had had to leave that room with those four words coursing through each of our hearts like poison, and we had to walk the 50 feet to where she slept, oblivious to the sentence she’d just been handed by the hateful, evil, unfair universe.

  It was the longest 50 feet I’d ever walked in my entire life; I know that. Longer, more draining than any football match; harder, more painful than any training session; more terrifying than any fucking dance routine at the Royal Variety Performance. In the room, the grief had been horrific – so horrific that I don’t know how I got the words out – but I had just about said to everyone, ‘I just don’t want her to know. I don’t want her being scared.’ Because, at that stage, there was no point her being scared; what was the point of that?

  And then we four had walked to join her in her room, where she now slept, her body gently rising and falling with life. Lauren looked at us, then looked away. The cold world hadn’t reached Tans, yet; she was surrounded by us: Her father, Lou, her hero, the man who’d walked her to a field more than four decades earlier and had pointed out a pony there that was hers to ride. Her mother, Maureen, who’d said ‘Who is he?’ the day after the night Tans and I had fallen in love. Her daughter, Kaley, who had been born at the start of her mother’s second life, at the beginning of her second heart, and who had been her everything, every day, forever. Lauren, who had dropped everything and been there for us every single day, every single moment we needed her, so that she too was now family.