slice of heaven

Yesterday was the last of a seven day run of being attached to a bag of chemotherapy. Now we wait while the little buggers continue to destroy Tad's immune system...and the cancerous cells that are colonizing it.

They keep telling us this may result in painful mouth sores, nausea, spikes of fevers, opportunistic infections, loss of all hair - among other things.

Tad's appetite is definitely waning particularly at night when even the smell of my Trader Joe reheated meals seems to bring him a wave of ick.

But one of the highlights of not having to have a tube with chemo pumping into his heart was that he actually got one hour of freedom from the towering IV rolly-thing allowing us just enough time to take a short walk yesterday.

Tad wanted to go to a coffee shop (namely Peets) but the nurse warned that the two block walk was too far away. She insisted we stay close to the hospital. It was a glorious sunny day in Pacific Heights so we walked along the hospital's edge taking in the lavender, ginger stalks, broom and callas.

With the warm sun pushing us along we decided to slowly wander a demi-block up Sacramento to Lafayette Square past porticos, mansions and sculpted shrubs. For a few minutes we sat on the edge of the park and Tad was actually able to touch grass for the first time in 12 days. People were lying out sunbathing higher up in the park despite the bracing cold Pacific breeze.

I was much more acutely aware of all the sensual pleasures of being outdoors than I am when I leave this place daily. I was vicariously living this reconnection with the non-hospital world. It was no doubt the fact that I was doing it with Tad that made the smell of lavender and rosemary stronger, the colors a bit brighter, the clouds a bit more puffy. Though I hold on to a fantasy of that first day when in a month we step back into his yard, see all the flowers that have appeared since the last visit, admire the burgeoning vegetable blossoms, I am also painfully aware that I might leave this place with an urn of ashes. I don't let myself feel that pain much anymore.

All we have is this moment.

We made our way back down to the hospital and once inside popped into the lobby cafe where little white haired ladies with shockingly red lipstick volunteer as part of the hospitals "guild" to serve simple fare to anyone who'll stop by, apparently as an ongoing fundraiser for the institution. Tad sipped a cup of coffee by lifting the face mask and I ate my first grilled cheese sandwich since childhood.

It seems funny to me that this 19th century tradition of "guilds" still exists in the corporate, big-stakes world of modern medicine. I just checked the hospital's Web site and noticed that last year this "non-profit" had a turnover of several billion dollars and a profit of some $500 million. If they'd distributed last year's profits among all the volunteers each one would have made $100,000.

When we got back to the room June the perky 40-something white nurse who always talks a couple decibels above social norms asked us where we'd been. When I told her "the park" she laughed and called me a joker. Then her face changed when she realized I wasn't joking. "Oh my god! Don't ever leave the hospital premises again!! He looks strong on the outside but on the inside he is totally compromised."

She joked about it again this morning when she woke us for breakfast with a slightly stern smile, "Maybe you're so tired because of that crazy walk you took." Then she broke into a long list of all the things that could have gone wrong.

Apparently our twenty minutes of blissful freedom were a serious risk. To me they simply felt like a slice of heaven stolen in the midst of this struggle.

This morning is all about trying to manage Tad's chills, fever and body aches and hopefully finding the organism that's causing them.

Such a small slice...