Robin French

I think…maybe…probably. Well, we’ll see.

I left you at dialysis, a horrific topic and for that, I apologize. I knew then that it was just a matter of time, and not much.

Dennis passed away three years ago this month, eight days after he decided to stop dialysis.

It was surreal. Even though I expected it, even over the years as he was twelve years older than I, and especially after his second cancer diagnosis that was followed by AFib and heart failure, it still doesn’t seem like it happened to me. Almost like I was watching a movie or…something.

The funeral was six days later, here in town, with a respectable turn-out. Including his ex-wife. I have to say, neither I nor the funeral director had ever been or heard of anyone being “congratulated” at a funeral.

I’ll let you think about that for a minute…

So I spent the next five weeks dealing with not one, but two back-to-back respiratory infections. Ugh. Those, however, were followed by weird symptoms and strange pains in my gut. Naturally, I assumed I’d pulled a muscle or something; ovarian cancer was not on my Bingo card.

Surprisingly, I didn’t panic or freak out or anything. Saw the oncologist in May, had surgery a few days later, and that was it. Okay, maybe not exactly, but close enough. I didn’t need any further treatment, and all the scans and tests in the last three years have been negative for any recurrence.

The recovery phase was a bitch.

My kids came up to take care of me and the animals and the farm. Big sacrifice for them, since two of them hate the outdoors and bugs, and one is allergic to everything, even bug spray! They were great, though. The hard parts included a catheter for a couple extra days—that sprung a leak in the middle of the night; the entire herd escaping the paddock at dinnertime; having to take two naps a day; trying to weed-eat about three days post-surgery and lasting less than five minutes; and having to open and close the overhead shop door (I’d wait until a neighbor drove by).

That’s when I realized that I hadn’t lived alone since 1985. Always either kids or a husband, and I’m not even counting pets. Geez, that sounds lame!

I lasted about nine months. And that’s when Ty moved in. Less than two years later, we got married, and it’s been pretty wild ever since!

Let me clarify that a bit. We did spend a great deal of time taking care of his mom. We brought her home from rehab a couple months after her knee surgery, to her home, down the road from us. After two more months, with no PT progress, constantly going back and forth, often spending the night with her, etc., we moved her into assisted living. She hated it. A couple more months, and she was the Prom Queen of the facility. Unfortunately, by January she needed skilled nursing; she passed away that summer.

We were so behind on all the farm work that it was mostly a write-off year. Nothing had gotten done except the bare minimum, and since I’d been there ten years, almost everything needed maintenance and repairs. We made plans and got by, and now we’re here. Winter. Snow. I hate winter.

However, compared to my last 15 years, all this has indeed been wild. My kids used to tell me I never went out or did anything fun—now they roll their eyes when I tell them I was at the bar three nights in one week. Or two. It varies. I’m not the local drunk, but Friday is live music and Thursday is karaoke. Karaoke, by the way, took me my entire life to get up the courage to do. Won’t lie, having a little FOMO that we’re staying in tonight!

On the other hand, Ty is making spaetzle with mushroom gravy, and red cabbage, and schnitzel. He also cooks most nights, and I no longer have to make all the menu suggestions, do all the cooking, or even do all the dishes.

And we have a lot of company now too. Holidays, dinners, game nights. Next week, a group of us are going to the local small animal auction. I PROMISE not to come home with anything. 😉

Anyway, I won’t bore you with more details, but I love our life together. Except maybe the part where I promised, when we both turn 80, to jump out of an airplane with Ty!

Let me tell you about kidney cancer and its aftermath.

Twelve years ago, my husband had horrific back pain, out of nowhere, and instead of the kidney stones everyone was expecting, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. Surgery followed a week later, a right nephrectomy. He spent four days in the hospital, came home, recovered, and was back at work (retail) a couple weeks later.

For the next five years, he had a CT scan every three months and a bone scan every six. Nothing else ever showed up, thank God. That was 2009.

Two months ago, he was undergoing a baseline lung CT scan, and the tech noticed something down near his left kidney. The following week, he had an MRI. Kidney cancer again. Twelve years later.

At the end of September, he had a left nephrectomy. He spent nine days in the hospital, on oxygen and with an a-fib event for half of that, in the step-down ICU. A few weeks later, he had another surgery to finish an AV fistula in his left arm, for access.

He’s spent a lot of time dozing, not sleeping much at night; food tastes off, even if he goes off his diet and tries things he used to enjoy; he gets tired easily when he walks around, his blood pressure is up and his oxygen is down.

And then there’s dialysis. Three times a week for four hours, or he’ll die. That’s a fact. He is not eligible for a transplant until he’s cancer-free for five years.

There’s a TV show called B-Positive, a sitcom, cute, entertaining. We still watch it, in spite of the fact that Hollywood is not known for its realism. But holy cow, they really dropped the ball on this one.

See, the first season was all about this geeky guy who ran into a quirky old high school acquaintance, and when she found out he was in kidney failure, she offered to donate one of hers. The main scenes revolve around four or five people in a dialysis clinic, who talk and laugh and joke during treatment, often go out to dinner or have parties or date or whatever.

But damn. I’ve seen the inside of two dialysis clinics, and this is NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

You know how, maybe, you’ve walked into a nursing home, and people are sitting around in wheelchairs or regular chairs, and they all look out of it, at the very least, and no one is talking or laughing or joking around? Yeah. It’s like that. Sick people. Not particularly happy people. Certainly not people planning on a night out. It’s depressing as hell.

THAT is the reality.

What else is involved? He’s not supposed to eat much sodium, potassium, or phosphorus. What foods have phosphorus? Every. Single. Thing.

It’s checking vitals once or twice a day, which are transmitted to Mercy Virtual; a nurse practitioner calls once a week to go over everything, or more often if things aren’t looking too good. It’s coordinating appointments and tests with our general practitioner, a vascular surgeon, an oncologist, urologist, cardiologist, and nephrologist—and it took six weeks to get that one. [insert eyeroll]

It’s no showers as long as he has the catheter for dialysis, a couple weeks of wearing a heart monitor, still more outpatient surgery to remove that catheter, weekly blood work and doctor visits.

Because of the effects of dialysis, it’s gone from a seven-day week to maybe three half-days of being able to do whatever he wants—as long as his energy holds out.

Less than two months ago, he was cutting down trees and splitting logs, doing tractor work, and finishing up projects around the farm.