It feels near impossible to process all that happened over the last 12 months, not to mention the 6 that preceded them. These were the hardest months of my life, my heart breaking over and over again. As a form of acknowledging and chronicling the end of this singularly horrible (yet transformative) year, and to offer closure to the chronicle, I feel compelled to share some of the story of what happened after I stopped posting updates.
I chronicled the early days of Lisa’s cancer journey pretty thoroughly, starting around August of 2023, but sometime in early Spring ’24 I stopped. There were a number of reasons for this but primarily we needed the privacy. Early on I was all about crowd-sourcing support and healing energies, but treatment wasn’t producing results and there were narrowing options for her. Sharing ongoing bad and worse news wasn’t something I was about to do, and I’d maintained an optimistic voice through those early months of treatment but couldn’t candy-coat what was happening at that point. So I stopped. Here’s some of what happened:
In April I was hired by a company in Portsmouth, NH, a great opportunity allowing me to support Lisa and I on one salary. We’d been wanting to get closer to nature and this met many of our criteria. Lisa was feeling pretty good in April, walking daily and eating ok. She was decimated from treatment but had started to build body mass and muscle again. I spent several weeks in Portsmouth onboarding and getting to know the area and Lisa accompanied me on one of those trips to apartment hunt. We found our place and on May 10 we moved to Dover, NH.
We had some nice early days exploring the town of Dover together. Lisa was doing ok still but hadn’t been in treatment by then for several months. She was overdue and wouldn’t see a doctor for another few weeks I remember. We took a super nice hike around Odeon Point over Memorial Day weekend. That was our last hike together in nature. Lisa got into treatment later in May and she liked her new doctor. She wasn’t eligible to keep taking the drug cocktail that was her previous treatment, so a new category of drugs were started. They would ultimately have no positive impact.
June was also a pretty good month for Lisa. Treatments continued but unfortunately the ascites started to return toward the end of the month and would require draining. This became an ongoing issue throughout July. We had several trips to the emergency room and several ascites drains. They eventually gave Lisa an abdominal catheter which allowed draining at home as needed. I was going to be tasked with this after some training by the home-care nurses. This was also short-term as it turned out.
I watched Lisa fade away over this last year+. The loving, energetic, positive, magical woman I was so incredibly lucky to love, and be loved by, was there, right through to the end, but her body withered and failed, her outer beauty gave way to the hair loss, weight loss, muscle loss, and general decay that are hallmarks of the illness. All of Lisa’s hard fought work and dedication to clean eating, clean living, fitness and more were nothing when pitted against the deadly consumption of these rogue cells. It was a waiting game as it turned out, but we didn’t wait, we lived instead. We made plans for a future. We made big changes moving to New Hampshire for a job I could support us both on. New city, new job, new car, new apartment, new everything. It was a play at a new start for us and an act of outright defiance against the deadly cellephant in the room.
I thought about the potential of being left behind everyday from the moment Lisa was diagnosed. I’m highly intuitive and sadly knew almost immediately that Lisa would not survive. I never told her that, or anyone until near the end, and Lisa and I never discussed the possibility that we’d move to NH and she’d perish there. We focused on loving each other, said all the things two people would want to say to one another, but we didn’t discuss her imminent passing until she was ready to say enough was enough. That day came on Friday, August 2, 10 days before she’d make the return trip to the stars.
That Friday was harrowing in terms of caring for her. Lisa was able to get up with assistance and get to the bathroom up until then. Friday marked the time that she no longer could manage the pain associated with the short trip from the couch to the commode. I couldn’t manage our final walk to the potty, so I used a cart with wheels that one of my guitar amplifiers sits on to scoot her in there. It was chaotic and difficult, but we got through that. Once Lisa was settled again I rubbed her legs with oil, something I did several times a day due to the edema in her lower extremities being so severe, and I had to tell her that I couldn’t do it on my own anymore. We’d started in-home care for the management of her abdominal catheter so I simply needed to indicate it was time for hospice. I told Lisa I’d have to get Depends for her going forward. Hospice couldn’t start until Monday. She was done and reluctantly (due to pride) agreed this was the next step.
The next day, Saturday, we Zoomed with Jane and Glenn, Lisa’s siblings, and she broke the news to them that she was done fighting. It was a brutal call for us all but expected and all any of us wanted was for Lisa to be free of pain and suffering. Later I called Glenn and told him how fast things were progressing. He came to help us on Monday and was instrumental in helping me lift Lisa and carry her gently to the bedroom where she remained until her time was complete.
Hospice was helpful, they were really quite wonderful, warm and understanding, but I did everything for Lisa. That was my choice and my cross to bear as caring for her became more intense, difficult and emotionally devastating. It was my choice though and I know it was what she wanted too. Possibly the deepest form of love is this end of life care we can provide. Near the end, and before she lost her speech, Lisa professed how deeply she felt my love and commented that I’d never once looked at her different though all of it, regardless she changed so much. It was profoundly meaningful to us both to have the limits of our love tested this way and to learn it went all the way, as far as can be imagined, infinite and unconditional.
Glenn left to go play a gig and that same day Jane, Michele and Dante arrived. They were in time to share the last few days of Lisa’s life while supporting me in her care. Lisa’s verbal abilities had faded and she was mostly only semi-conscious. The pain she was experiencing was clearly escalating and she was verbalizing her discomfort quite a bit which was just devastating for us. Hospice came with all the meds for her pain and we hoped that would ease her suffering but she was refusing to allow us to administer the meds to her. It was so weird that she really couldn’t communicate anymore, but she could very clearly and decisively refuse the meds. This went on for a couple days, me up most all night with her, trying get some morphine into her, crying at her side. I was finally able to “just do it” and get some in her mouth. I felt terrible forcing it on her but I recognized that her refusal wasn’t even necessarily “her” talking. There’s no way to know what was going on for her at that point, and she was literally screaming so I did it. As expected, the morphine helped and we were able to keep her comfortable through the remainder of her life.
On Sunday, August 11, Dante took Jane and Michele out for some time to give Lisa and I some space. I spent the day in the bed next to her, talking, reminiscing, cuddling. I played some of our Luck & Senses hits for her. I know she loved that. I removed her wedding rings. I held her. I said the 5 things. Later, Dante returned, we ate and it was soon time for meds and bed. When we went in to see Lisa her eyes were open and she was breathing differently. She was gasping for air kind of like a fish out of water. I knew immediately that it was time. I stroked her head, a sweet layer of soft baby-like hair had returned, grey and curly. I spoke to her, reassuring her it was ok to let go, professing my never ending love. Dante was at her feet, rubbing them, speaking soft encouragement. We loved her as her breathing slowed and the life passed through her eye out into the universe. Lisa’s passing was as natural and loving as we could make it.
Jane and Michele returned shortly after she passed. They were able to say final goodbyes. Hospice came to confirm death. Funeral parlor came and took her remains.
Taking care of Lisa through this all, through every appointment, every treatment, every hope, every lab result, every minute of every day, was one of the two greatest honors of my life (fathering Dante being the other). I learned I am stronger than I ever knew. I learned I love harder and deeper than I ever knew. I’ve managed pain I never thought I’d have to endure. I’ve lost more than I ever thought I could survive. The spiritual growth from this has been profound, extreme, very fast moving and quite painful. I continue to be uncomfortable and live in a constant state of sadness, but I’m happy at the same time. I’m grateful for this most difficult lesson. I know how much my spirit has expanded and I have absolute certainty that this was required of me this lifetime to keep evolving as a soul entity. I’ve know true love. Forever love. I’ve been truly loved for who I am.
Lisa has been in touch with me since she joined the angels. I’ll share more about that in my next post.