This article appeared in the Artella Daily Muse, in the Heal Estate Section, on June 4, 2008
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My husband Chet died just three weeks ago today. I thought it might be helpful to me to trace my grief process, using the "Five Stages of Grief" model. Perhaps it can also be helpful to others. Of course, by its very nature, this topic is an extremely personal one, so be aware that I am opening my heart.
Late in the afternoon on July 28, 2007, our family physician called and said that she had seen something in Chet's routine blood test that she felt should be checked out. She suggested we go as soon as possible to the Emergency Room of the hospital near our home to have some tests done. We decided to wait until morning (Friday, July 29) to go into the hospital. What the doctor had seen was an elevated liver count.
By the time we went to the hospital Friday morning, Chet's skin and eyeballs had a decidedly yellow tinge. We spent Friday and Saturday having all sorts of tests. Then on Sunday, July 1, they told us that Chet had bilirubinemia – too much bilirubin in his blood. When I asked the doctor what was causing it, he told us something that I was to hear over and over in my head and heart for the next ten months (and still do, as a matter of fact). He said, "The primary cause of asymptomatic bilirubinemia is pancreatic cancer." Lots of time and lots of tests later were to prove that doctor's diagnosis spot on.
Chet spent the next several weeks in and out of the hospital – they removed his gall bladder, fitted him with a biliary stent (and then another when that one failed), treated his malaria-like chills and fever. They sent him for test after test. When we were finally referred to an oncologist, she told us that even though the tumor was not large, and had not metastasized, it did compromise a major artery in the abdomen, and hence was not operable. They told us the prognosis was death within six months if we did nothing, and death within 9-12 months if Chet went through chemotherapy and radiation.
They sent us to the radiologist, who read the records, and said, "No one will say this is for sure a malignant growth. They say 'probable' or 'suspected' or 'apparent'. I will not radiate a non-malignant tumor, and until we have proof, I will not administer radiation treatments.” Suddenly it seemed we had been given hope. All the denial that we had tried to stifle came rushing out – maybe he really didn't have cancer. Maybe he really wasn't going to die. After all, this oncology radiation expert didn't think so.
His recommendation was that Chet undergo a camera-directed biopsy. When we talked to the technician – the best in our area, people had said – he told us "I will have a radiologist in surgery with me. We will not stop until we find malignancy for sure, or until we can be certain that there is none". About 45 minutes later he came and told me that it only took three tissue samples to find some malignant tissue.
So, all our denial came crashing down around our heads.
That was our denial phrase. It ended abruptly with a positive diagnosis of pancreatic cancer on September 7, 2007 – just about two months after the first mention of that diagnosis. We now had no choice but to face up to the reality – Chet had pancreatic cancer.