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Three
One day a faith healer arrived to see Jane. She had
been urged
by a friend on Rosemary, who was prepared to try anything.
Mrs. Claire was marvellous, Rosemary was told. She didn't al-
ways cure, but she often helped sick people with the problems
of adjusting to illness.
"Why is this woman coming?" Jane asked bitterly that
morn-
ing. "I won't see her. I don't want any faith healers. What good
can she do?"
Rosemary reminded her calmly that she'd agreed earlier
the
visit wouldn't do any harm and might be interesting. "She thinks
she can help you. She's driving a long way to get here. But if
you really don't want her to come into your room, I'll just give
her tea and she can go."
Jane gave way grudgingly. "I suppose she'll have
to come in
once she's here."
Mrs. Claire was a small, round woman with soft, grey
eyes
and grey curls framing her face. She puffed up the stairs to
Jane's room with great dignity. She had an air of authority com-
bined with a certain motherliness. The fact that Victor would
have disapproved so completely of the visit gave Rosemary a
mild thrill.
Jane had settled down and politely began to play
the hostess.
The faith healer asked for a bowl of hot water. She then pulled
back the bedcover and showed no surprise that Jane, who dis-
liked wearing nightclothes, was naked. Mrs. Claire dipped her
hands in the hot water and shook them violently, scattering
drops in a wide area around Jane. Then she drew her wet hands
slowly over the naked body, pressing hard into the flesh as if
forcing the illness down, from shoulder to fingertip, from hip to
toe. After each sweep, she would shake her arms from the el-
bows, as if to rid them of the evil extracted by her movements.
At the end, Mrs. Claire said: "Now you will sleep. Tomorrow
you will feel better." She pulled the bedclothes up over Jane's
still body and quietly left the room.
Downstairs in the hall she said to Rosemary: "She
is very, very
sick. But I'm prepared to treat her. Can she stop all the hospital
treatments?"
Her offer was obviously serious and sincere. Rosemary
re-
sponded hesitantly. "I'll talk about it with her . . . I'll call you.
Thank you very much for coming." She felt in her purse. "I'd
like . . '."
"Just my expenses for the journey, dear," said Mrs.
Claire
emphatically. "Nothing more. It wouldn't be right. And what-
ever you decide to do, I will be thinking about Jane. My friends
will be thinking of her, too."
Rosemary tiptoed upstairs to find Jane wide-awake.
"Mrs.
Claire told me she could cure me if I really believed." Jane
sounded matter-of-fact. "But I know I couldn't be sure—it didn't
seem possible. I couldn't risk it."
Much later she told her mother that it was then,
after the
faith healer had left, that she'd known she was soon going to
die. She had started to fall asleep, but was filled with a deep
sense of fear and despair and realised there was no hope.
A short time after Mrs. Claire's visit, Rosemary
was woken in
the night bv a cry of anguish. Jane was out of bed, flexing her
leg. "Such a horrible pain in my side—1 must have been lying
wrong," she muttered.
It was at that moment that Rosemary in turn realised
Jane
was going to die. The knowledge remained with her: an inner
certainty and a basic acceptance of the inevitable loss. Yet when-
ever the disease took another turn or there was a false alarm, the
sense of anguish Rosemary felt would increase to crisis pitch.
Was that another mole growing? Another lump? Every step in
Jane's illness, inevitable as we suspected it to be, was nevertheless
an unexpected blow, and she had to muster new resources to
overcome it. Teresa and Jane fought too, each in her own way.
The fear was always there between the three of us—silent, some-
thing to be pushed back, mastered. We didn't talk much about
this. Most of the time our efforts to make life as pleasant as possi-
ble for each other succeeded.
We had acquired a new ally in Michael, whose visits
gave
Jane a different kind of reassurance. He refused to admit even to
himself the seriousness of Jane's condition, and whenever she
grew depressed he worked hard to instil in her a fresh determi-
nation to fight her illness. He used their old love as the weapon
with which to ward off the threat to her. He knew best how to
be close to her, as close as any two human beings can be, and
he burrowed into their joint memory of the Brighton years to
dig out the past. Sometimes it was as simple as using the old ex-
pressions whose meaning only the two of them knew: not just the
endearments but also the words that had acquired a special sig-
nificance denoting a shared experience and a common view of
other people, of events they had lived through, and of life itself.
At other times it could be as delicate as bringing to the surface
detailed recollections of old times when there had been friction
as well as harmony between them. His attempt to reactivate their
old relationship involved risks for both.
Michael held Jane's hand, kissed her, embraced her
gently to
avoid hurting her. Physical contact had been important to them
then, and now Michael made deliberate use of it to tell her,
more emphatically than words could, "You're still Jane." She
had not said that this was the kind of reassurance she wanted,
not in so many words, but perhaps she had conveyed her need
for it when she complained of her swollen leg, of the ugly scar
left by her operation.
Putting his arm around her, Michael tried to persuade
Jane to
get out of bed, helped her to walk down the stairs, then urged
her softly to go up again. He explained to her why this was im-
portant, how it would contribute to her recovery, speed it up.
"I know it hurts, but you've got to do it." And she did.
Jane responded emotionally, too, opening up to Michael in a
way she had not done since the Brighton days. "Apart from
Mum and Teresa," she wrote in her diary, "the person who has
helped me most and to whom I've felt closest is Michael. I have
felt very near to him physically and emotionally. The few
times we've been alone I've felt that we really do belong together
and that part of me—a very suppressed part—has been missing
him since we split up."
But did she have the right to fall in love all over
again, and to
draw Michael in with her? She wrote of the "danger" of be-
coming too involved with him and of what this might lead to. "I
have just used the word 'danger.' Why? Is it because I am scared
of becoming too dependent? Of hurting him? Of him not caring
for me?"
Or was it because she knew how uncertain the future
was? "Is
it because this whole cancer business has made me more vulner-
able, more in need of people, and when I sense him caring for
me, is it not purely for me, but for me in my present situation?"
Michael himself, when he later recalled these days, did not find
it easy to disentangle his motives. He and Jane had come closer
to each other again shortly before she left for Greece. The
process of mutual rediscovery had fascinated them, and both
regretted that they had kept their distance for so long; but they
remained deliberately casual about it. "If I wasn't going abroad,"
Jane wrote at the time, "I'd probably be tempted into having a
full-blown affair with him." Michael was thus the first person she
phoned the day she came back from Greece and got the bad
news from Dr. Sullivan.
It was at this point, after three weeks with us,
that Teresa had
to go back to America. She would have given anything to put
her arms around our daughter and say simply: "Jane, you're
going to die, let's talk about it." It was only in deference to
Rosemary that she said nothing. Ironically, Jane's mother didn't
know what Teresa was thinking. Rosemary believed that she and
Teresa had understood each other perfectly, that they had
agreed not to tell Jane how slight her chances were. In fact
Rosemary was deceiving herself, because that was what she
wanted to believe. Teresa had agreed to no such thing.
Richard and Joan had arranged to fly over from Boston to
take Teresa's place, and Rosemary was fearful that they might
just burst in, tired and strained, and tell Jane the truth outright.
Teresa agreed to meet them at the airport and discuss this with
them. "When they go back, I think Victor should come. You
shouldn't be alone," she added.
The next morning Teresa met Richard and Joan at the
London
air terminal and took them to a cafe to talk. Richard was tired
and strained. "I think Mum's hiding her head in the sand and not
facing up to reality. She won't admit to herself that Jane's going
to die and she won't let any of us tell her. That's wrong."
"Rosemary feels we shouldn't tell her there's no
hope," Teresa
pointed out. "The doctors agree. But whatever happens, it's
Rosemary who will have to deal with the situation as it de-
velops. You'll be back in Boston, Richard. I think Rosemary
should handle it as she needs to and we should support her."
"If Jane knew she hadn't long to live she could choose
what
she wanted to do with the time she has left."
"There's not much she can do at the moment," Teresa
said.
"Just lie in bed and wait for the next operation."
Joan spoke up: "Suppose she'd rather not have this
operation?"
"She knows that if she doesn't have it, she'll die,"
Teresa an-
swered. "She wants any treatment she can get. She got real mad
when one of the doctors waved chemotherapy aside and said
it was of no positive value for her."
But, Joan persisted, would Jane still feel the same
if she knew
how little chance she had of recovering? Teresa had no reply.
All she could say was, "She keeps pressing for statistics, and we just
hedge"
Jane was delighted to see her brother again. She
knew she
could rely on him for help, both practical and emotional. She re-
membered how protective he'd been during their childhood. She
looked up to him and admired him—most of the time, anyway.
We had tried to bring both children up to have an equal share
of whatever was available: schooling, holidays, pocket money,
treats. But things aren't always so easy. The older child is nearly
always ahead, stronger, more experienced. Inevitably, Richard
took command when they were little—a fact that Jane sometimes
resented but usually came to accept. In her teens, Richard en-
couraged Jane's attempts to find her own life style, away from
the family pattern. He was ready with advice and offers of
practical help when she needed it. They had been close in their
childhood, but for several years since he had left England to go
to Harvard they had seen little of each other, only meeting for
brief periods. Now she wrote in her diary: "It doesn't feel as if
it's been a long time since we saw each other and I find I like him
a great deal as a person."
There had been a time, before their teens, when the
relation-
ship between Richard and Jane was in bad shape. They fought
continually, each playing on the other's weaknesses until the
whole family grew strained and irritable. Then we bought a
boat and spent our weekends aboard. Our lives were transformed.
Every voyage became an adventure. Arguments continued, but
were more often concerned with the processes of learning new
skills: sailing, rowing, lighting camp
fires and mastering the
problems of outdoor cooking. Their early relationship, trusting
on her part, protective on his, was basically restored. They grew
up, became self-reliant, and as they advanced into their teens
learned to act in more adult ways. Soon boyfriends and girl-
friends appeared on the scene, but by that time Richard had gone
on an English-Speaking Union scholarship to America. Jane saw
him only during the vacations, either in England or in the United
States, usually in the company of his current girifriend. Now,
on meeting Joan for the first time, she wrote: "Joan is extremely
nice, but I feel we're not totally at ease with each other and it
may be my fault. Joan obviously means far, far more to him
than anyone else has done and I am glad for them both and
think they are good for each other. But maybe a part of me
wants Richard for myself."
As it turned out, Jane quickly developed a good relationship
with her brother's fiancee. Joan, who had been a paramedic, was
both knowledgeable and direct, and Jane could see she was eager
to help in every way she could.
Jane wanted to know everything Joan and Richard could
tell
her about melanoma. She apparently sensed that she was being
kept outside the knowledge the rest of the family shared. But
she could communicate easily with Joan, and it was to her that
she first put the question: "Am I dying?"
Joan could only answer that it was impossible to
know. She
thought Jane should share in the whole truth, but obeyed Rose-
mary's embargo. She herself had worked as a hospital volunteer
when she was only twelve years old, and had often sat with the
dying when the doctors and nurses had given up hope. In that
hospital nobody was ever officially declared to be dying, but the
messages of rejection were quickly picked up by the staff, and
usually by the patients too.
Two days after their arrival was Jane's twenty-fifth
birthday.
She woke with a blinding headache, in a deep depression. She
lay all day in a darkened room, unable to bear even a crack of
light. The bedroom quickly filled with flowers and birthday
presents as friends arrived, but Jane could neither talk to them
nor look at their gifts. Michael, who had so often managed to
cheer her up, was upset at his failure to do so this time. Nothing
helped her until the end of the day, when Richard went in for
yet another attempt to talk to his sister, to get her to voice her
misery. Then she wept and felt better—well enough to invite us
all to have supper in her room. Soon she was sitting up
and
laughing, cracking jokes.
But behind the scenes we were preparing for the third
opera-
tion. We had rented a flat near the hospital. We were anxious
that Jane's morale should be as high as possible and her stay in
the hospital no worse than it had to be. The day before she
went in, Richard recorded tapes of her favourite music. He
planned to buy earphones for the tape recorder so she could
listen to music without disturbing the other patients, but first
he had to find out which earphones were the lightest, the most
comfortable in bed, and the most dependable at conveying the
best sound. The recorder and earphones would help Jane to
escape from the noises of the hospital ward—she particularly
hated the distorted, pervasive TV—and from unwanted con-
versations when she was feeling low.
The disagreement about how much of the truth Jane
should be
told kept surfacing. Rosemary admired Richard for his com-
mitment to the truth, but she was still unsure whether Jane was
ready for it.
As he recorded the music, Richard told his mother:
"Jane said
if there's only a ten per cent chance of her surviving this, she'll
give up. I've given her the impression it's roughly a one-in-three
chance she'll recover, but of course it's much less. It's pretty
hellish not being able to be straight with her."
"I thought one in three was about right. Teresa rang
a doctor
friend and she gave us those figures," Rosemary countered
quickly.
"That was before we knew she had to have another
operation.
Now it's much lower."
Rosemary felt cornered. "I don't think statistics
mean much.
What is a statistic? When it's you or me, that's different from a
number on a piece of paper. I'm sick of all this talk of statistics."
Joan came into the room, taking care to shut the door behind
her. "I've been talking with Jane about mind over matter. I told
her about the cancer research to determine whether sick people
who were religious actually had a higher survival rate than
atheists. The statistics showed that both deeply religious people
and strong atheists had the same chance—it was the half-believers,
the people who weren't sure, who had a lower survival rate."
"How did she react?" Rosemary was aware that Joan
was on
Richard's side.
"She was terrifically pleased. It took a load off
her mind. It
was an awful feeling for her to have—that whenever she got de-
pressed, she might be failing to keep herself alive."
"We ought to be quite plain with her," Richard said
abruptly.
"We should just tell her."
"There's another point, Rich." It still seemed to
Rosemary that
death was probably far enough away for Jane to believe she had
some life left to live. "You know how depressed Jane can get
and what a pain in the neck she can be. If we tell her she's
finished and she goes right down, then nobody will want to be
with her. What keeps her so balanced—and remember, she only
collapses with us, she's usually bright and positive with others-
is having so many friends visiting and holding the outside world
open. If she sinks into withdrawal, they'll soon give up coming.
Nobody will want to talk to someone who won't respond. She'll
have a really miserable existence."
"You could be right," Richard conceded reluctantly.
Rosemary pressed her advantage. "She gets so much
happiness
from the visits, the flowers, the phone calls. Just think, the al-
ternative might be for her to lie silent and withdrawn in increas-
ing pain while the illness gains ground. That's a pretty grim
prospect for her—and for the rest of us, come to that. After all,
Rich, it can be argued that we're all due to die one day. I might
go under a bus tomorrow . . ."
"Mum," said Richard impatiently, "I think you're
evading the
issue when you talk like that."
"That's enough for the moment." Rosemary retreated
to the
door. "Jane'11 think we're talking about her—which we are. I'll
take her up some coffee."
End of argument—until the next round.
We tried to make sure Jane didn't feel she was isolated,
but it
wasn't easy. And we made mistakes.
"Rosemary," Joan said later the same day, "do you
realise—
when you were talking in the hall yesterday—Jane could hear
every word?"
"My God! What was I saying?"
"Nothing much, but she heard it all quite clearly.
I thought
you'd want to know."
Rosemary tried to remember everything she'd said.
Had there
been anything that could have killed whatever hope Jane might
have left? She had been relieved to learn that Teresa had talked
with Jane about the future and Jane had seemed strangely
matter-of-fact about her chances. "I don't know what all this
fuss is about," she had said wryly. "The worst thing that can
happen is that I shall die."
While the operation was in progress, Rosemary remembered
that remark. We were aware how serious the situation was. The
cancer was in the centre of Jane's body. It was possible she might
die if things went wrong—we wondered if that would not be
preferable to the succession of operations that seemed almost
inevitable. We distracted ourselves as best we could until it was
over and Richard could phone for news. He was told that Jane
was doing well.
Yet this time her recovery was very slow. For days
she lay
virtually motionless, barely talking, eating almost nothing. Rich-
ard, Joan and Rosemary took turns sitting with her, but her
friends were told not to come for a while.
The surgeon explained to Rosemary that he didn't
think he had
removed the whole of the cancer. He'd operated as far into her
body as he could without endangering Jane's life, but the area
beyond remained swollen. He believed the cancer was still there.
"What shall I tell her?" he asked kindly, and waited
for Rose-
mary's reply. What could she say? It sounded like the death
sentence for Jane.
"She'll have to know," she murmured hesistantly.
I promised to
tell her everything, but not now, not today. Aloud she went on:
"She's so weak; let's wait until she's a bit stronger. Then we must
tell her."
The next day Jane was slightly better and there was
some good
news. A biopsy report showed there were no cancer cells remain-
ing in the area after all. The swelling hadn't been caused by a
tumour; it had been merely a reaction to the diseased area removed
by the operation.
But in the following few days Jane didn't improve.
There
seemed to be little life left in her. The skin around her mouth
was white, her eyes—when she opened them briefly—were un-
focused and vague. She might have been in a void where the
passage of time was meaningless. If she was experiencing any
thoughts or feelings, nothing showed in her face.
Later, when she was alone, she was able to express
herself in
her diary in handwriting that was large, sprawling, uncertain:
"For most of the time I seem to have lost all sense of reality. I
think I need a shrink or something. Most of the time I feel so
ill that it doesn't matter. . . . I certainly
can't relate much to any-
one on the ward. The women are good-hearted enough and the
one next to me is very concerned that I'm not eating enough.
But the doctors and nurses don't give a shit. . . . It's incredibly
difficult to write straight and I have at last found a tiny corner
of
reality. It certainly isn't adequate though."
Rosemary was close to giving up all hope when suddenly
there was a dramatic change in Jane's condition. She was able to
sit up in bed and there was colour in her cheeks. The cause of
this seeming miracle was a blood transfusion.
Jane had always been squeamish at the sight of blood.
Now
she had to put up with a whole plastic bagful of it, menacing,
suspended over her head, filled with the red plasma that was a
sickening reminder of the seriousness of her condition. The ver-
tical metal stand looked firm enough, but the horizontal bracket
which extended from it, and from which the bag was suspended,
was designed to slide up and down as necessary and to be ad-
justed at varying heights. To Jane, with her aversion to this
gibbet, the contraption looked anything but secure. She was
attached to this monster by a thin red tube whose needle, taped
into her vein, added to the irritation caused by the need to keep
her wrist steady, fastened to a splinter. The hated blood fed
slowly, drip by drip, into her arm. She fretted about the tedious,
continuous process, impatient ror it to end, rearrul that something
might go wrong. During the night she began to worry that the
bag wasn't held securely in place, and asked a nurse to check.
"It's perfectly all right," said the nurse, after a glance at the
blood transfusion unit.
Next day Jane told us how she had tried to hold the
nurse's
attention, longing for company to help her shake off the night-
mare feeling of fear and isolation.
"I do feel very peculiar . . ." she had begun, but
the cry for
help went unrecognised.
"You must go to sleep now," the nurse had said firmly.
"Every-
thing is all right."
In the middle of the night Jane was awakened from
her deep,
drugged sleep by a crash. The bar holding the drip feed bag had
slid down the vertical stand and collapsed on her bed, dislodging
the tube connecting her to the transfusion unit. The blood burst
out, spattering all around, bright red on the white sheets, spread-
ing over Jane herself as she recoiled in terror. The more she
fidgeted, the bloodier she got. The liquid rapidly coagulated,
sticking to her inexorably, making her look like a casualty. With
Jane's particular fear of blood, the incident was a living night-
mare, but by the time we arrived in the morning she had been
cleaned up and had even managed to get more sleep. Only her
indignation remained as she described the scene and spoke angrily
of the nurse's offhand attitude. Her resentment was greater than
her fear. To her relief, no more transfusions were necessary.
But she was often in severe pain. When Rosemary pointed this
out to the surgeon, he turned angrily to the house doctor. "Why
is this girl suffering? She should not have to be in pain!"
Rosemary saw one of the younger nurses in the corridor near
tears. "It's always the same," the nurse half-shouted over her
shoulder. "The patients don't tell us what's wrong, then they
complain and we get into trouble."
Jane was not given additional medicine for many hours.
The
nurses said they had to wait for specific authority. When the
doses were increased, she still complained of the pain. Rosemary
told Richard that the house doctor, after being criticised by the
surgeon, seemed to imply that Jane was playing up. "I told him
she always made a fuss when she was ill. Then I felt terribly dis-
loyal. She really is suffering."
"Jane never invented symptoms," Richard said indignantly,
"and she's not making things up now."
"I told him she'd been brave until the pain got bad.
He just
replied: 'Ah yes, pain . . ."'
Later it was found that Jane was particularly resistant
to drugs
and needed heavier doses than many people. But she was now
making steady progress, and friends could visit again. Sometimes
the cancer ward had almost the atmosphere of a social club.
Watching Jane with her friends and the other patients, we be-
gan to hope once more.
One afternoon she was enjoying a forbidden cigarette
when
there was a roar from the far corner of the ward.
"She's smoking again!" a little old woman shouted
from her
bed, frantic with fury and fear. "She'll blow us all up! It's dis-
gusting, absolutely disgusting. You ought to be ashamed of your-
self!"
"How can it possibly blow anyone up?" Jane asked
the world
at large above the continuing mutter from the distant corner.
"What nonsense!"
The ward sister appeared. "Jane," she said, in a
tone that was
polite but firm, "it really is dangerous. There are oxygen cylinders
in here, and they might explode. You must go into the corridor
if you want to smoke."
Jane was not ready to leave her bed, so she put out
the cigarette
without argument. But she began to grumble when the ward sis-
ter was out of earshot, and the old woman muttered in her
corner. The rest of the ward, mostly sympathetic to Jane because
of her youth and serious illness, maintained a neutral silence.
Later, the ward sister spoke to Rosemary in her office. "Jane
really must make an effort to get out of bed and move around,"
she said. "She may have many months of lying in bed in the
future. She should get up now, while she can."
Rosemary argued that her daughter was very weak, that she
wasn't pretending about the pain, and that so far the disease
had moved more rapidly than they'd been led to expect.
The ward sister looked sympathetic, but still insisted that Jane
should get up. It would be good for her body to be moving. She
also spoke to Richard and Joan) who proved to be more realistic
and less protective.
That evening Richard gave Jane a blunt lecture on
the need to
get out of bed. Jane listened, wept, protested, and eventually lost
her temper. Richard persisted, but he went home worried that he
had overdone it. Maybe Jane herself really knew what was best
for her.
The ward sister was right. When we arrived the next
day Jane
was already out of bed, cheerful and hopeful. Michael also came
that day. He was able to persuade her to sit in a wheelchair, and
he pushed her into the corridor where she could smoke. Having
only recently recovered from an appendectomy, he could relate
to Jane's weakness and lack of confidence. He worked hard to
steer her away from the preoccupation with illness that he felt was
pulling her down, away from life. He urged her to leave the
cancer ward and take the lift down to the hospital shop. At last
she summoned up the courage to make the journey and they
smoked a ceremonial cigarette together, four floors down, by the
entrance to the hospital. Then Michael, still weak from his own
operation, supported her back to bed.
We allowed ourselves to hope that Jane was in remission.
There were no obvious new sources of cancer in her body, and
although she was still ill, her pain and weakness might have
been the result of the operation. Now the doctors saw it as
their job to prevent the recurrence of cancer, to kill off any
diseased cells that might still remain in her body before they had
a chance to multiply and grow into tumours. This, they explained,
could be done by chemotherapy, a treatment which had shown
an increasing rate of success over the years as new research con-
tinned to produce more effective drugs. The drugs would be
introduced into Jane's bloodstream by injection, and would travel
around her body until they encountered a cancer cell. Then they
would attack it, poison it, and kill it.
Jane was well aware that chemotherapy could have
unpleasant
side effects. She had seen women who had lost all their hair:
one walked around the ward with a kerchief round her head;
another wore a wig by courtesy of the National Health Service.
Jane dreaded losing her hair, but she knew it did not happen in
every case and she was prepared to risk it. Chemotherapy some-
times causes loss of hair because the drugs, to be effective, have
to attack the most rapidly growing cells. Not all of these are
cancer cells. The cells in the scalp grow very quickly, and some
of the drugs, being unable to discriminate, attack them too. Other
side effects can take the form of nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea. But
these vary from person to person, depending on the combination
of drugs chosen for each case and on the different reactions to
them.
Jane's course of chemotherapy began with one injection
a day
for a week. Then she was to have a three-week rest, followed by
other doses—one every month for about a year—until all the stray
cancer cells in her body had been hunted down and killed.
Not long ago Rosemary had thought Jane was on the point of
dying. Now they were starting on treatment that could last a
year. Tomorrow, the picture could change again. Nothing seemed
final, neither hope nor despair. Victor still put off flying from
Washington. He had become optimistic. Even if Jane's chance
of survival was only one in five—as he gathered from one set of
statistics—he persisted in believing she would be lucky. He had
always been lucky himself, especially during World War II
when his life had been in danger several times.
When Rosemary urged him on the phone to lose no more
time
in flying over, Victor repeated his old argument. If he came now,
Jane would be bound to jump to the conclusion that he had
returned because she was dying. "Do we want her to think that?"
"I need you and Jane needs you," Rosemary persisted.
"You
must come now."
He seemed not to have heard. "Of course," he said
soothingly.
"When you want me, just tell me. I'll get on the next plane."
"I'm telling you to come now, so that we can all talk together
before Richard and Joan have to go back." Her voice was high
and strained, and she spoke slowly, with insulting clarity.
There was a short silence, then Victor said quietly: "I'll come
on Wednesday."
When Jane was told her father was coming, she asked
Joan: "Is
it because I'm getting worse?" Joan's answer was matter-of-fact.
"You know that Richard and I must go back soon. Your father
wants to be with your mother and you." Jane asked no more
questions.
On the first day of the chemotherapy, Rosemary went
to the
hospital hoping that Jane would be one of the lucky ones and
suffer few, if any, side effects. Her bed was empty. One of the
other patients spoke to Rosemary. "She's in the bathroom. Poor
Jane. She's been terribly sick." People murmured in sympathy.
The bathroom door was open. Rosemary slipped in, shutting
the door behind her.
"Oh Mum," Jane wailed. "I've been sick twelve times.
I feel
so awful!"
She was vomiting violently and continually, and struggling
simultaneously with diarrhoea. When she was finally helped back
to bed, she sank back and lay still, only to be racked over and
over again by vomiting. The ward sister talked to her kindly,
telling her it would soon be over. "Every day it will get easier as
your system gets adjusted to the treatment. You will feel better
tomorrow, Jane. In the meantime we'll give you an anti-emetic
injection which will stop the sickness."
"I don't think I can go through with this," Jane
murmured
weakly, but we were determined not to let her give up, and
finally persuaded her that she must continue with the treatment.
Whenever she complained of nausea, she received another anti-
emetic injection. Tomorrow, we assured her and ourselves, she
must surely suffer a less violent reaction to the chemotherapy.
Tomorrow must be easier.
The curtains had been pulled round Jane's bed to
shut the
world out as much as possible. The promised injection seemed to
relieve her, and she slept at last.
The next day the sickness was slightly less, but
Jane was having
difficulty with her tongue, which lolled out of her mouth. She
couldn't swallow properly and mopped at her saliva. The doctor
didn't seem concerned.
When Rosemary arrived early the following day—she
had spe-
cial permission to come before visiting hours—Jane was a frighten-
ing sight. Her tongue appeared even more swollen and sticking
out of her mouth. She could only mumble. She managed to
convey that she must drink; if she didn't, she'd have to be given
another saline drip. The saliva dribbled uncontrollably from her
mouth. She kept trying to drink the blackcurrant juice that Rose-
mary held to her lips, but she couldn't swallow. The paper tissues
with which she feverishly mopped her mouth were stained purple;
so were her lips and nightdress. Her eyes rolled in fear as she
fought to swallow small mouthfuls of juice, failing again and
again. She would signal for yet another tissue and frantically try
to catch the liquid as it ran down the sides of her mouth, round
her tongue and on to her neck.
Appalled, Rosemary asked for the doctor. He came
quickly,
but still appeared unconcerned, reiterating that Jane's tongue
wasn't swollen. They would take an X-ray to find out what was
wrong. It was hard to believe his detachment wasn't put on—
perhaps to hide an inability to cope. Rosemary felt very fright-
ened. Jane had motioned to her to draw the curtains round the
bed. She did so. This was in fact a mistake. If the nurses and
other patients in the ward had seen her continual distress, she
would have been given help and support.
Rosemary thought of Victor flying from America that day and
soon due to arrive at the hospital. She imagined his feelings at
seeing Jane in such distress and decided to tell him not to come.
If this was what chemotherapy did for Jane, Rosemary swore to herself,
there would be
no more doses.
When she spoke to Victor on the phone, he insisted
on coming
straight to the hospital. His first sight of Jane in six months was
a terrible moment for him. He put an arm round her in anguish.
She tried to say something, but no words came out, only an inco-
herent mumble. As she returned his embrace, he was overcome
with despair. What had they done to her? Then she spoke )ust
one word, "Dad . . ." He said, "Jane," and broke down. His face
touched hers, and he could feel her tears on his own cheek, as
they mingled with his own.
The reunion was too painful for both of them. It
made Rose-
mary realise how weak Jane had become. After a short time, Jane
indicated that he should go. By now she was unable to produce
even a whisper, only a breath of sound, and she pointed with her
finger to make sure she was understood. But she wanted Rosemary
to stay.
A porter arrived to take Jane down to the X-ray room
in a
wheelchair. Jane managed a feeble "Nonsense!" but allowed her-
self to be helped into the chair and they set off, with her head
lolling uncontrollably, her tongue protruding, the saliva dribbling.
The wait outside the X-ray room seemed endless. Finally the
radiographers began their work—or attempted to. Jane had by
now completely lost control of her head and shoulders,
which
sagged helplessly. They tried to position her neck for an X-ray,
but she couldn't hold her body in place as they took the picture.
They tried again and again.
Then an emergency case required their attention and
we were
shifted to a tiny room like a cupboard, where we would be
sheltered from the X-rays, to wait until the radiographers were
free again. The door was closed. There was hardly space for the
wheelchair. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, giving a dim
light that added to the sense of anxiety in the small cell.
Rosemary struggled hard against the panic that threatened to
be slipping further and further away. She couldn't speak, but
she intimated she felt sick. Rosemary pounded on the tightly
closed door. Miraculously it opened, and a basin was handed in.
They began to wonder if they would be there for ever.
When one of the radiographers opened the door again, Rose-
mary's nerve failed. She ran. The sight of her daughter degenerat-
ing into a total wreck, a sort of classic village idiot, head lolling,
mouth drooling, with no help or comfort, was unbearable. She
rushed back along the corridors, up the stairs, along more pas-
sages, running from terror, running for help.
She didn't stop until she saw the rest of the family standing
at the entrance to the ward. Richard quickly grasped the situa-
tion and hurried with Joan to the X-ray room. Desperately,
Rosemary turned to Victor.
"Calm down," he said quietly. "Things will get very
much
worse."
She knew that this surface matter-of-factness was
designed to
hide his inner despair. She said nothing of her need for comfort
because it seemed to her that there was none. He had spoken the
truth.
Richard whisked Jane out of the X-ray room almost
before
the radiographers grasped what he was doing. Soon she was back
in bed, surrounded by a team of nurses and doctors. They told us
Jane must rest, we should go now. We returned to the flat, but
all felt guilty that we had left Jane alone. Richard couldn't keep
still, and finally asked Joan to go back to the hospital with him.
They set off at once to find out what was happening.
The phone rang. Rosemary braced herself for more
bad news,
but it was Jane's voice, ringing clearly, full of happiness: "Mum,
I'm all right! They gave me an injection and it happened right
away—1 got human again!"
One of the doctors had recognised a very rare reaction
to the
anti-emetic drug. Neutralising it had been a simple matter. The
chemotherapy could continue.
The evening before Richard and Joan left for Boston,
friends
had planned a party. Jane said that the family should leave the
hospital early, before visiting hours were over. She would be
fine, she insisted. Richard stayed with her for a few minutes
longer. She kept up a brave front as she said goodbye. He couldn't
tell her what was really on his mind. Instead he said: "If you
don't get to Boston to stay with us soon, I'll come over at the
end of the summer." Then he joined the rest of us and Jane was
alone in the crowded ward.
As soon as he had gone, she broke down and wept for
a long
time.
That night she wrote in her diary: "The reality of
the pos-
sibility of my death has struck home to me in that I might not see
Richard again—and although we've hardly seen much of each
other in the last ten years I do feel very close to him and love
him very much."
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