Chapter Three

Low C

Not many marriages start out with friendship first—no kissing, no passionate exchanges of saliva, no awkward moments fiddling with the keys at the front door—then turn that friendship into love; a deep love built on a foundation of mutual concern and admiration rather than solely on chemistry—but ours did. The first time I met Mary she took my breath away, I was so busy trying to impress her I don’t even think we’d really met. If we did I’m sure she didn’t even notice who I was. I was young—just twenty-two and had a scruffy half-grown beard. I drove a black 1979 Pontiac Trans Am with the words Death Dealer written down each side. I was working as an undercover informant for the local police department and busted druggies in the evenings, ran my body shop by day, and squeezed in an occasional class at the local university with the dream of being an attorney.
Mary, on the other hand, was an angel. I knew from that first moment I watched her interact with others, that if there was a heaven and if I had a chance of getting there, Mary would be the one who could help me be a better person. What is Newton’s third law of motion? Opposites attract. She attracted me, but I repelled her. I didn’t have a chance. She was a beautiful slim brunette, with thick shoulder length hair that fell in soft curls as it brushed her slender face. I had been the nerd—you know—the kid in high school that wore the black boots with metal rings and straps. She had been a cheerleader and went to every high school dance with a different guy. I had rarely dated through my high school years and she rarely had a night without a date.
It was the fall of 1980. Hairstyles were full—the Farah Faucet look—and shoulder pads made the fashionable dress look like quarterback’s football jersey. I was still wearing the same kind of 501 shrink-to-fit style jeans I had worn nearly all my life, and yes, I still wore work boots. We both lived in the same apartment complex; me in unit twenty-seven and Mary just two doors down in twenty-nine. We met the first time at a young adult group that gathered on a weekly basis in the apartment complex where we lived. Being a little anti-social by nature, I was reluctant to go at first, but that first meeting sunk the hook, line and sinker deep into the corner of my heart. It was a chance to nonchalantly get to know a beautiful shining light that would change my life forever, and that’s what kept me going back for more.

July 8, 2010
The radiologists called today. The lump is cancerous with a capitol C. Mary tried to text me, but I was in class and I didn’t look at the text. I drove home and walked into the kitchen after class and said good morning to Kayshia, she was sullen. I ramped it up a little and asked her why she was so sad. She said, “didn’t you get mom’s text?” I knew immediately that she had gotten the results. Kinley was in Mary’s sewing room with her mom. Both were in tears and Mary was trying to console her youngest daughter. There was my beautiful bride, telling her daughter it would be alright, when she herself was scared of what the future would hold. It’s not right. I’ve never felt like I might outlive Mary until today. It’s a scary thought that I might lose her, long before her time should come. I’ve looked at the survival rates for breast cancer and they are pretty good. A lot depends on the type and staging of the cancer. We won’t have the rest of the pathology reports for a few more days. They will give us a better idea of where we stand. We have seen the tears flow from all the children today and I have shed a few too. I have been taking a class at BYU, Strengthening Marriage and Family, and have been thinking about how I can do a better job in my relationship with Mary. I wrote a poem for Mary several days ago, and had put it in her work bag so she could find it at work. I wanted her to know that I love her today, so I went into the bathroom and dug it out. There she was in a towel, fresh out of the shower, with both of us crying as she read my poem. I don’t know what I’d do without my Mary.

It was Christmas time 1980 before I really had a chance to talk to Mary in any depth. The young adult group had scheduled a Christmas caroling activity and somehow I had managed to maneuver my way by her side as we walked from door to door singing in the bitter cold December night air. I grew up in a musical family but caroling wasn’t what I had come for. However, it was that night that I knew my first instincts about her were accurate, especially as her kindness and warmth seemingly melted the frigid night air. By that night I’d also shaved my scruffy beard, cut my hair, and sold my radical car, all with the intent of getting a little closer to the girl who walked by my side. I knew she dated lots of guys because I’d seen her come and go on a many different occasions.
It took several more days before I could muster up the courage to ask her out. Rejection would be devastating after the months of preparation. I finally decided that asking in person, face to face, lessoned my chances of refusal so I casually walked the lengthy distance to her apartment door and knocked. It was her roommate that answered, a buxom semi-cheery girl that sat jealously at home, night after night, as Mary lived the college social life she could only dream of. She invited me in and closed the door. We chatted uncomfortably about the upcoming young adult activity while we waited for Mary to finish in the other room. Finally, what seemed like forever concluded as Mary rounded the corner with her usual angelic expression beaming from her face. My heart sank as the expression changed to surprise. She attempted a cordial greeting, but instead the doorbell rang and shudder of despair and embarrassment painfully trickled down my back. “She was expecting someone else,” I realized, as the roommate blasted an almost vengeful glance between Mary and me before she opened the door.

July 9, 2010
We had an appointment with Dr. Rich today. He is the oncologist for UVRMC. Our appointment was scheduled for 3:15. Nurse Nancy finally met with us at about 4:30 and conducted the basic interview. Before she left the room she asked Mary to strip to the waist, and of course, I did the humming striptease ensemble that I usually tease her with when I get to watch her undress, all in the hope of breaking the thick tension we both felt sitting in a place neither one of us ever thought we’d be. As I watched her today I realized she’s more beautiful to me today than she was that first day she took my breath away. She is however still black and blue from the biopsy.
Mary had lots of questions, and because she is a fellow nurse, Nurse Nancy gave her more information than would typically be given to most patients. It was at least another hour before Dr. Rich was able to see us. We were his last patient of the day and somehow they had worked us in. The preferential treatment was suspicious.
When he finally entered the room I was a bit surprised with his young age—probably in his mid thirties with premature graying hair. He towered over Mary as he offered his welcoming paw to shake her hand. He greeted me second. He immediately began to connect with Mary in a jolly sort of way as he talked about his wife’s semi recent childbirth experience at a rival hospital. Mary of course is a Nurse on the mother baby unit, just upstairs from Dr. Rich’s office. I recognized his joviality as a bonding method and grew a little impatient wanting to get on with the business, but it wasn’t about me. It was about Mary. The stories of birth, labor, and ill contempt of the quality of care at the “other hospital” went on at least fifteen minutes before we got to the reason we were there.
It quickly became apparent that Nurse Nancy had been holding back as Dr. Rich laid out the situation. Mary’s cancer is a Grade Three Ductile Carcinoma which has migrated outside the mammary duct. Grade three signifies the deviation the cells have transformed from the original cell structure. It is also the most aggressive kind of cancer. Because it is located so closely to the lymph nodes it has the propensity to travel quickly to other places in the body. He quickly passed over the fact that if the cancer had spread to very many other places in her body there would be little he could do. If it was confined to the breast, the outlook for recovery would be very good. He pulled up a computer program that ran algorithms based on data from thousands of other breast cancer cases.
Dr. Rich reviewed the outlook for a ten-year survival rate under the best case scenario, up to ninety percent. He ran a not so good scenario, less than fifty percent survival for a ten-year outlook. As we neared the end of our conversation the query was poised “do you any more questions?
Mary breathed a heavy sigh and said. “Can we just make it all go away? I don’t want to do this.”
With a bit of reassurance in his voice he said, “It is what it is, and now we just need to deal with it.
It took hours to sink in. We went to dinner, and yogurt after. I found myself sighing as my body felt shy of air. I heard Mary sigh on several occasions as our brains silently processed the data so abruptly thrust upon us. Neither needed to explain how we felt, it was quite clear. Nothing will ever be the same.