It was a few days before Christmas, Bruce had been complaining of elbow pain for weeks now and I was concerned enough to ask him to please go to the emergency room and have it checked so that he could get some relief before Christmas Day. Our two year old was happy playing with the toys we brought to the emergency room and Bruce was taken fairly quickly—a quiet day by emergency standards.
A doctor emerged from the double doors and said that they had taken a routine chest X-ray and he was fairly certain there was a mass in his lung and that could be the reason he had elbow pain—it was hitting some sort of nerve. The doctor wanted me to take Bruce home with some pain medication and have a great Christmas, no need to worry my husband just yet, get more tests done after Christmas and have a good holiday!
And we did—I was concerned but would not let the “what if’s” get to me. That all changed after the first of the year. It was confirmed that Bruce had lung cancer—we dug our heels in and looked at our options. Bruce chose radiation, surgery, and chemo in that order. He was given three months to live and advised to get his life in order—we were devastated—three months turned into four and so on. We got busy and remodeled the kitchen. Bruce said it was crazy to be doing things like this but the projects kept our minds off of the illness. We were reality based and continued to get our affairs in order. One of my fondest memories was going to make his funeral arrangements, with oxygen in tow, we arrived at the funeral home and much to the director’s horror, asked what colors of coffins we could choose from that would not clash with the suit Bruce wanted to be dressed in! Dickie, the director could not believe the snickers and laughter as we joked about the colors, etc. Bruce was the kind of guy you remembered! We finished the day with a wonderful gourmet lunch in a small French restaurant.
PREVIOUS PAGE
