Dyed cancer cells / Photo: GE Healthcare

Tubes. I will never get used to the tubes. Not in the beginning, not ever.

Tubes into his nose, tubes into his mouth. Tubes taped to his arm, disappearing into his wrists. Tubes for food and nutrients, tubes for medicine and morphine, tubes for oxygen. Something beside his bed keeps going beep beep beep and fluid trickles from under his gown each time. Jesus. beep beep beep. And tubes that are shoved into his dick and go beep beep beep each time a little piss passes through.

Do I really need that? Is that necessary? Who’s fucking idea was it to have the tube crammed into my dads urethra? beep. Not a situation I want sound effects for. The beep screams ”your dad is hooked up to a machine, a machine that pisses for him! Shall I remind you of that fact over and over?”

Photo: Pink Sherbet Photography

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“Ok, I love you. Ok ok, we will see you real soon, alright? Rest up, love you.”

He says “help your mom.” Just like that – “help your mom.” Something is crashing down, but it is crashing slowly and I don’t know what it is yet. But plaster shakes loose from the vaulted ceiling of my being when he says ‘help your mom.’ Like a monster still too far away to see has taken a step in my direction.

I will, don’t worry.

“She needs you guys, help her while I’m in here.”

I wonder how much of him is buried under the protective blanket of morphine. I wonder how much of his brain they took. His eyes swim in and out of focus, he is fading.

In the hallway the open spaces seem immense, swelling and stretching. My head looses all its weight and a riot of black sparks dance into my vision. I take a breath and almost choke on it. I was not breathing in there. I was holding my breath. I didn’t notice.

The world is slipping and my feet find their place on their own. I have my arm around Dustin and he doesn’t know I’m passing out. He soldiers somberly down the corridor. My head bristles like a waking limb and light comes back into the world. The hallway snapped back to its usual size and I walked on with my brother.

I think I acted the way I was supposed to. Happy and Normal. I didn’t know then that pain and dread and senseless hope are my new normal. I didn’t know you can be happiest when you are full of despair. The less you have to be happy about the easier it is to be happy for the small things, like 5 minutes of silence and honest eye contact. The iodine was that putrid, hateful brown. His eyes struggled through fatigue and morphine, he said he loved me. I remember that.

Read parts I and II of A Memory of Cancer. Reprinted with permission.