The anniversary is fast approaching -- on December 4th, 2006 Sheila Nassif Mrochinski passed away in my arms. It was a horrible time because she died way too young (not yet 50) and it was a glorious time because her death finally ended all the suffering she had endured the previous two years since her diagnosis with breast cancer.
She had contracted IBC (inflammational breast cancer) -- where her first real warning sign was a rash on her left breast and upper back (and a slight pain in her hip, which turned out to be a broken back)-- a sign that this killer cancer has already spread to bone, lymph nodes, and beyond. Those last two years saw multiple treatments of "radiation therapy" (at least six segments of her spine) and numerous intravenous doses of killer concoctions of dreaded chemotherapy. And other drugs to strengthen bone, or promote red cell growth, or whatever!
At one point my dear wife asked me to "put an end to this" as she could no longer stand the pain, the stress, the hopelessness (and it was that hopeless, no matter what her doctors said). We talked long and hard about suicide, and murder, and end of life, and issues of heaven and hell.
I so wanted her to be happy -- every moment I was with her, even during this devastating time in her life. And I felt so inadequate to the task. She could not eat what she wanted (fresh fruit and vegetables) due to the threat of infection; she could not do what she wanted (because of lack of energy, and hope, and direction); and I had become the doctor's bully boy -- supposedly helping her to extend her life by doing "all the right things." But really, there were no right things. And so she died in my arms, where we had spent many happy days together -- even during the time of Hospice.
And I should have died there as well.
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