Shock

How long does a mourner stay in shock? I suppose that my having come up with this question is a sign that perhaps I'm beginning to recover. It wouldn't have occurred to me during the past three years since Al died and the eighteen months before when we where doing everything in our power to save his life that I was in shock.

I distinctly remember the moments of revelation about his diagnosis, each one a blow to my head and heart and stomach. I remember hearing the emergency room doctor at Berkshire County Memorial Hospital listing the places where the cancer had invaded--Al's lungs and heart and liver and bone. Stage IV, the worst stage, the worst prognosis. I remember helping him out of his clothes and into a wrinkled cotton hospital gown, tying the three frayed bindings behind him. I remember writing on a borrowed piece of paper the articles of clothing and toiletries that he dictated for me to pack and bring back to his room at the hospital. Back then he was still strong, focused, and in command, and I was still his sidekick, acceding to his will at times of stress, both of us agreeing that he was the better captain of our ship. Back then I thought around him, found space for my ideas where his thoughts left off, yielded willingly to his stronger will.

I remember driving home in a fog that I'll now call shock to collect the first of his things. I seem to remember that there was actual fog on the road from the hospital to home, not an unusual occurrence in the mountains, but who knows and what does it matter? I remember taking the curves with extreme care, a woman with a mission, or no, a task. It wasn't until later that I found my mission, which was to save him, and threw myself into it with all of my might. I remember falling into our bed, exhausted and numb, sleeping like the dead, and waking to the sun shining through our big picture window. I remember opening my eyes and feeling for my feelings, but all I felt was that I had been emptied out overnight. All I thought was Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. All I thought was What will I do? I didn't, couldn't, move for a brief time, just stared out the window at the sun rising and shining on another day, just another day, and tried to take in the end of the life I'd been contentedly living and the start of a different life that I didn't want to face.

But I couldn't dawdle. Al was waiting. He needed his toothpaste and slippers. He needed me by his side. So I got up and started packing for our different life together. I found an old spiral bound notebook from a former student with only a few filled pages, ripped them out, and added it along with a couple of pens to my bundle. I walked Star and fed her, telling her what a good girl she was, burying my face in the warmth of her curls. My voice sounded thin and teary to me, but she didn't react noticeably to the change or even to Al's unusual absence. I got in the car and drove the forty-five minutes to the hospital and found Al walking the halls, trying to establish an exercise routine to replace his daily run. I saw that overnight fog had settled on him too. His eyes had a newly distant look to them. I needed to bring him back to the linoleum floor and florescent lights of the hospital so he could fight. I said to him, "Don't leave me." I watched his hazel eyes begin to refocus on me and determination form on his face. "I won't," he said in a hollowed-out voice.

I wouldn't have called it shock. After all, we acted decisively and efficiently. Or I did. He was too sick. Fluid was building up around the chambers of his heart, an overflow from his lungs. He had expressed a belief that only Sloan Kettering had the resources to save his life, so I set to work getting him to the chief of pulmonology. I called every doctor, friend, and acquaintance to get us an appointment. Then I called friends of friends and acquaintances. I surprised myself, ignoring my usual reserve and breaking through my natural shyness. Transferring from another hospital to Sloan Kettering was very difficult. The best I could do was get an appointment for an office visit in three weeks.

I had just started a semester-long sabbatical with a book contract to fulfill. Would a person in shock have studied and interpreted every nuance of non-small-cell adenocarcinoma she could lay her hands on? Have gathered its devastating statistics and been able to convince her opinionated, fact-driven husband that we would beat the horrible odds? Have honored his refusal to be taken in an ambulance, and driven the two and a half hours to the city with her husband throwing up into one of the plastic bags she'd packed for just that purpose? Would she have researched alternative treatments, found foods that he could bear to eat, spoken with every doctor, and taken charge of his treatment? Could she have (with the help of her understanding co-author and sympathetic publisher) finished her book within three months of the original deadline? Could she have returned to an indifferent work environment, taught a full load of courses, and still have accompanied him to every chemotherapy session and every alternative therapy?

And eighteen months after the diagnosis first hit, could she have taken one last devastating drive down the winding Taconic while her husband held her right hand until he slipped into a coma, straining to honor her promise to him that she would not let him die in a hospital? In the three and a half years since Al died, would a woman in shock have maintained high-level working duties and responsibilities, traversed the political minefields of academia, learned how to run a house on her own, and developed a new social network?  I guess so. I'm only beginning to understand shock from the inside out.

I know it's still with me. Like fog, it lifts at times, and I have clarity. At other times it falls, and I function through memory and instinct. That seems to be adequate for most of my dealings with acquaintances. My friends provide a lifeline when I begin to drift. And I suppose that, despite the shockiness, something within me is determined to not just live, but to relish life. That's a struggle. Al and I were very close, and during his illness we grew even closer. We were each others' boosters and best friends. When he went, pieces of me that had melded with pieces of him went too. I hope I'm growing new pieces to take their place, but for now I exist with empty spaces. I refuse to fill them with just anything or anyone.