On September 26, 1973, after too many hours (from my point of view!), our son Jamal was born.
Leaning over the side of my bed an looking at him in the hospital's bassinet (polycarbonate box on wheels), I cried with joy.
On November 19, 2019, I held his arm as the doctor - whose name I forgot as soon as he introduced himself - injected the lethal doses of many syringes into the PICC line, I cried. That was awhile ago, yet I cry every day, several times a day.
46 years and 52 days is too short a life!!!
Someone had sent him a pair of ankle socks with the words "Fuck Cancer" on them. They never would have fit his size 15 feet, but the sentiment was valid. He was very angry that he was dying, but he knew the outcome before his first hospitalization. When he'd told us he was going to be operated, he also told us he was looking into the medically assisted death option. It seems he'd spent a good part of the year researching his odds, and he didn't think they were good, even before that first operation - "radical neck" is its name.
It was early morning August 21st, when I left him in the hospital. It was supposed to be a four-hour operation; it lasted nearly eight hours.
He was supposed to be hospitalized for three days; he was only released on Sunday September 1st, after they'd installed a PEG-tube for supplemental feeding - to keep up his strength during the chemo and radiation therapies.
He was supposed to begin those therapies the second or third week of September, but he took an ambulance to the ER early on Sunday September 15th, and never came home again.
After a few days in "stretcher care" - an alcove off a corridor in the ER - he was shipped up to a room on the 18th floor of the Montreal General. From there, they transported him a few times back and forth to the new Royal Victoria Hospital where the chemo and radiation therapies were given. Eventually, someone had the bright idea to transfer him to the Vic ... as soon as they could find a room.
While in the Vic, they called Code Blue on him TWICE!! He'd had trouble breathing both times. After the second time, they decided to perform a tracheotomy, so he'd be able to breathe when the treatments and/or the cancer made breathing normally too difficult.
We spent from September 21st through the afternoon of November 16 (after which he wasn't able to text or write due to the extreme swelling of his arms/hands/fingers) exchanging messages on the Messenger app. Now, I wish I could figure out how to save them. If I can't find a way, I'll transcribe them here. Since he always lived either with us or in his apartment upstairs on the second floor of our triplex, I have no written letters from him; these texts are all.
Leaning over the side of my bed an looking at him in the hospital's bassinet (polycarbonate box on wheels), I cried with joy.
On November 19, 2019, I held his arm as the doctor - whose name I forgot as soon as he introduced himself - injected the lethal doses of many syringes into the PICC line, I cried. That was awhile ago, yet I cry every day, several times a day.
46 years and 52 days is too short a life!!!
Someone had sent him a pair of ankle socks with the words "Fuck Cancer" on them. They never would have fit his size 15 feet, but the sentiment was valid. He was very angry that he was dying, but he knew the outcome before his first hospitalization. When he'd told us he was going to be operated, he also told us he was looking into the medically assisted death option. It seems he'd spent a good part of the year researching his odds, and he didn't think they were good, even before that first operation - "radical neck" is its name.
It was early morning August 21st, when I left him in the hospital. It was supposed to be a four-hour operation; it lasted nearly eight hours.
He was supposed to be hospitalized for three days; he was only released on Sunday September 1st, after they'd installed a PEG-tube for supplemental feeding - to keep up his strength during the chemo and radiation therapies.
He was supposed to begin those therapies the second or third week of September, but he took an ambulance to the ER early on Sunday September 15th, and never came home again.
After a few days in "stretcher care" - an alcove off a corridor in the ER - he was shipped up to a room on the 18th floor of the Montreal General. From there, they transported him a few times back and forth to the new Royal Victoria Hospital where the chemo and radiation therapies were given. Eventually, someone had the bright idea to transfer him to the Vic ... as soon as they could find a room.
While in the Vic, they called Code Blue on him TWICE!! He'd had trouble breathing both times. After the second time, they decided to perform a tracheotomy, so he'd be able to breathe when the treatments and/or the cancer made breathing normally too difficult.
We spent from September 21st through the afternoon of November 16 (after which he wasn't able to text or write due to the extreme swelling of his arms/hands/fingers) exchanging messages on the Messenger app. Now, I wish I could figure out how to save them. If I can't find a way, I'll transcribe them here. Since he always lived either with us or in his apartment upstairs on the second floor of our triplex, I have no written letters from him; these texts are all.
