“all the world’s the stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts…”
As You Like It
William Shakespeare
My sister, Sarah, passed away just before Christmas last year. “Passed away” seems apt for what she did because she did seem to be moving on – not just dying. I had learned from her throughout my life, but nothing as valuable as I had learned from her in the weeks before her death. As in life, she approached her death with a certain special touch of class.
She had learned of her cancer, ovarian, four years earlier. She was a nurse. She understood early that this was not a cancer you could beat, but it was one you could delay as long as possible. She set out to delay it. She retired and threw herself equally into her cancer treatments and into her family. She and my other two sisters took the Mediterranean cruise they had always talked about. She spent lots and lots of time with her children and grandchildren. She did not want the cancer to be the center of conversation or concern. It was there and she would talk about it, but there were other things to talk about.
Every six months or so I would get a report from another sister of the results of the last ultrasound or CT scan. Sometimes the news was good and we continued. Sometimes the results meant another round of chemo, or another surgery. She never liked a fuss and did not want to be worried about or talked about too much.
Last Fall the tone changed. While beginning an experimental procedure, she confronted a final betrayal by her weary body. She had a sudden drop in blood count and platelets and was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome, a final failure of bone marrow that may occur from countless rounds of chemotherapy. The game had changed; the rules were different. This was no more a game of delay, this was a fight for each day. The new experimental treatments were cancelled. She began regular transfusions of blood and platelets. The platelets never did much for her and the blood did just a little more.
I too struggled with denial. I could always imagine that Sarah, despite her cancer, would always be around as she always had. So I was shaken by her letter to me that said, quite simply that she didn’t have long to live and that she wanted to see me. I called her and arranged to fly to Philadelphia. (more…)
