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| Photo courtesy of Carol C. |
A Story From the Life of: Carol C.
Ghostwritten by: Kate C.
Nobody is Promised a Tomorrow
I am 71 years old and I Was born in Rochester, New York. I was the youngest of three children with an older brother and an older sister. I was especially close with my brother, Don. We were only four years apart. We did the typical things young kids do, playing hide and go seek, board games, and our favorite thing to do was swim in Lake Ontario. We spent hours riding the waves, finding the logs on the shore that had been washed up and pushing them out into the water to ride. In the winter we went sledding and ice-skating on a neighborhood pond. Don did his sharing of teasing me and my older sister, but he was the best brother anyone could have asked for.
Years past, and Don and I went our separate ways. Don stayed in the New York area, and I went to college in Ohio, married my husband and moved to Columbus to raise our family. Don enlisted in the army in 1961. He was sent to Vietnam before the war broke out to gather information. Don had to be dropped out of helicopters in the jungle and picked up later. It was very dangerous and stressful, and he became a smoker, smoking at least two packs a day.
My brother and I stayed in touch by phone, letters, and later by emails and texts. In 2003 Don was diagnosed with throat cancer. He had lost 50 pounds, he was unable to eat and talk. My brother was so sick before his surgery we weren't sure if they would be able to. Thankfully, they agreed to do it. A thoracic surgeon and a plastic surgeon did a tag team surgery. The throat doctor had to take out his vocal cords and the tumor that surrounded them. The plastic surgeon had to carefully remove skin from his left arm to cover the wounds on his chest.
The surgery started at 7:00 AM. Annette and I and two of Don’s best friends gathered in the waiting room. I felt uneasy because I didn’t know his friends very well and it was hard to make conversation at first. Joey had brought donuts for everyone although the nerves got the best of our appetite. My brother knew Joey from the marina where they both docked their boats. They had donuts and coffee every morning in the summer, so it was a normal thing to do, trying to make things seem normal in an abnormal situation.
“How long have you known my brother?” I asked Joey and Phil, trying to make conversation.
“Don and I used to go boating every Saturday morning before he got sick” Phil said. Joey chimed in and said “Don would always include me in his boating trips, most of the time I had work, but when I could go Don would always want to take my boat and drive it to.”
The conversation limped along. We are talking around the elephant in the room, my brother was down the hall undergoing a surgery that could save his life, or causing him to lose it to cancer.
“Would you like anything from the gift cart?”
A candy striper, pushed the cart around the halls to ease the monotony of the wait. I was wishing I could be her, young again, only having to worry about selling candy and flowers, not worrying about losing my brother. An hour in a hospital seems like a day. Constant pages blare above the PA system.
“Code blue, code blue, code blue, floor 4E.”
It was unnerving knowing someone was facing a life or death situation. Was it Don, was something happening in surgery? Time goes by so slowly. There is far too much time to think. People scurry by, but no one stops by our area in the waiting room. I wondered where everyone was going? There are magazines scattered everywhere, old People magazines and Better Homes and Gardens with coupons ripped out. The TV is on in the corner of the room. We have watched all the news shows, the quiz shows and reruns of the old TV shows. We have eaten powdered donuts and had far too much coffee. We take turns going to the restroom, running to the cafeteria and looking out the window to see what the weather’s doing outside where life is going on normally.
We go back to our conversation with each other. We feel a little more familiar now with each other, we are united in our desire to have Don survive his surgery. It is funny how a common cause can draw people together.
I wasn’t prepared for how Don would look and act after he returned from the 12 hours in the operating room. He couldn’t talk because he no longer had vocal cords, and he couldn’t write what he wanted to say because they had wrapped up his arm. It was painful and frustrating for everyone. He was in a great deal of pain and couldn’t tell us what was hurting or what he needed. He must have been wondering if everything was even worth it.
It was so hard to see him so helpless. I kept thinking he had survived his time in Vietnam, and now he was faced with a long recovery and uncertainty of what life would be like without a voice. He had always been a talker and a storyteller, and now he couldn’t even make a sound. This was the brother who had always been so sure of himself and never at a loss for words. I thought I would have my brother forever, as I had always known him, someone who shared my past, looked out for me when I was little, looked out for my children, all 6 of them, as they came along. He took care of my parents as they aged.
When you are young you think nothing can happen to you or the ones you love. As you get older, you realize just how precious life is and how you have to value each day and make the most of what you have. Nobody is promised a tomorrow.
