Whole Moon, Part 2 by Terri Rimmer - originally published on Associated Content

(This is Chapter 2 of Full Moon which was published this week on this site).

November 1, 2005

I was in a research study and had told a doctor there about your diagnosis.

Without any hesitation she blurted, "Oh, hunny! It's over!"

I was shocked at her complete lack of bedside manner.

"He quit drinking," I said.

"Too late," she chimed in a sing-song way much to my surprise.

"How long have you been a doctor?" I finally managed to ask, trying to hide my hurt.

"Ten years," she said.

I thought to myself, "You need to get a new profession."

Another "normal" doctor I spoke to who I've known for a couple of years said that it sounded to him like you were in the late stages of liver cancer and it didn't look good. But he was compassionate and gave me the names of some doctors.

I told him about my experience with the other doctor and he couldn't believe it.

The kind doctor said, yes, it sounded like the cancer had probably started somewhere else.

Your doctor has now told you that chemo, radiation, nor will surgery help you because the cancer has spread throughout your body and none of those methods will help.

I can't believe it.

Still in denial, though, I refuse to say that you might or are going to die.

You have lost so much weight except for in your stomach where the tumor is. Your legs, arms, and face are withering away, your skin is flaky and now your feet are swollen.

Once you showed me a picture of you from the 1970s when you were skinny. Ironically you always wanted to lose the weight again since you have gained weight through the years but now you have lost the weight you always wanted to lose - but how you have lost it.

Your eyes look haunting. When I look into your face I see the little boy that was once there, the one I never got to meet.
Everything is moving too fast.

Every day a different doctor tells you something different.

You don't know who to believe.

At the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, several hundred miles away by car they have told you they might be able to help you.

I take you around one day to get copies of all your records from the doctors.

When we walk into one lobby the staff is snooty and insensitive.

Another waiting room at another office is full of cancer patients, some bald, all quiet and I look at them thinking to myself about what you're going through and will go through.

We eat at one of our regular spots only this time the college students don't bother you with their loudness like they did before you got sick.

You are just matter-of-fact about them now.

It amazes me.

As we're leaving after one of our dinners there a guy wearing leg braces and walking with crutches, falls in front of you at the front door.

You don't hesitate and you help him up with both hands, using all of your strength to do it as his friend holds the door open.

"Thank you," the guy with the crutches tells you and you tell him "No problem."

The next day we're talking on the phone and you start crying.

"I could help that guy up," you say, referring to the guy with crutches. "Even in my condition as sick as I am and sick as I felt I helped him up."

It's like you are getting closer with God.

You have always helped people but now it is more personal to you.

Even your deadbeat stepson helps you carry your things in one day at work because you don't have the strength.

Now you make fun of your friend who is just a big druggie and you realize he's not where it's at.

When you first got sick they put you on Darvocet and it made you mean so you got off of it.

One time you were rough with my dog Ripley who you are bonded to and you blew it off at the time but later felt bad. You told him and me it would never happen again.

You are going for a procedure at the hospital where they will drain the excessive fluid from your liver to give you some relief for now. I hope it goes okay. I'm worried as usual.

But you are so miserable you can't go to the bathroom by yourself, put your shoes on, get dressed, or shower.

Your stomach is so huge it looks like you're carrying triplets.

One of the times I come over and bring Ripley as usual and we watch movies at your house Ripley falls asleep in your arms.

"He needs a pacifier," you joke as you look at him, lovingly.

I had put Ripley in your arms for you since you couldn't bend over to pick him up.

Just a few weeks ago you were able to.

We watch some of our old favorite movies and some new.

A lot of comedies and nothing too serious.

You also like "Grey's Anatomy" which you watched before you got sick and now "House."

When there are death story lines we get quiet and I wonder what you're thinking.

We especially like "Madagascar" and the cat in that movie reminds you of my feline.

A month ago you brought home pomegranates and started cutting them up, eagerly, telling me about how they're supposed to be good for cancer.

I tried them for the first time and they were good.

It was the first time you'd ever bought them or eaten them.

I also researched foods that were supposed to be good for you and then you would get cravings like the time you wanted red candy apples, only I couldn't find them anywhere.

One day you left a message on my machine, joking, saying, "Your mission if you choose to accept it is to find candy apples."

I live on Mission Street so it was always an inside joke with us about different "missions" we'd be on.

Your ex-stepdaughter has her first child, a little girl named Katherine.

You love her as your own and are at the hospital the whole time.

Pictures are taken with her and you and you tell me from here on out that every time you hold her your pain goes away.

It's amazing to you and you don't know why that is.

You talk about being there for her and watching her grow up and you are hopeful.

She looks just like her mother.

She has huge eyes that follow you.

You hold her and she opens and closes her eyes, back and forth; looking up at you, then down, then up again.

You marvel at her every day and you can't get enough of her.

One night you want me to come over but your ex-wife won't let me and you're pissed.

She is ranting and raving and you are too tired to fight her again.

You call me on my cell phone on the way there and tell me it's off so I turn around and go back home.

You can no longer work.

I talk to another doctor who tells me it doesn't look good and sounds like late-stage liver cancer.

Soon it is Thanksgiving and I go to your house for a late dinner after seeing some friends and feeling guilty for that.

You insist on making me a plate yourself and refuse to let me serve myself in any way.

I am guilt-ridden as I watch you do this and as I eat you watch TV close by, waiting for me to finish so we can talk.

I don't let myself think that this might be your last Thanksgiving.

You have to live, I tell myself.

There is no other way.

You tell me that now you realize who your friends are and that you don't have any friends.

I am sad for you.

Once again, your ex-wife is boycotting Christmas, only this year, because you're sick.

I don't know what to get you for Christmas because the one thing you need I cannot give you - survival.