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Prologue
A nurse pushes the gurney toward the elevator and I follow. While we wait in silence for the door to open, I adjust the blanket that covers my teenage daughter, Leslie. She lies there motionless; her eyes are closed. I scan for the slightest movement beneath the blanket or any change in her expression that might indicate distress. Nothing. The elevator carries us down seven floors to Basement-3, the lowest level of New York University Hospital. We exit onto a damp, gray tile floor that smells of disinfectant. A long corridor leads to a reception room where a dozen or more patients in wheelchairs or on gurneys are lined up against the wall. As we take our place in line, the nurse locks the wheels in place, hands me the authorization forms and tells me she is needed back upstairs.
One by one, I study the assortment of people waiting there, young and old of every skin color. No discrimination here. Several have lost their hair and some are connected by tubes to intravenous bags on poles. Except for a few soft murmurings, there is silence. Leslie manifests no awareness of the battle-weary souls being maneuvered in and out of the wide double doors marked Radiology.
It has been two weeks since the cancerous tumor was removed from Leslie's brain. The radiation treatments are about to begin. The oncologist has assured me that care will be taken to minimize damage to healthy brain cells, but the implication is that the powerful rays do destroy normal tissue. I cling to a thread of composure that threatens to break if I dwell on my fear too long.
Leslie has been heavily sedated to ensure that she will remain still for the sensitive radiation therapy. This morning a doctormade red marks on the shaved area around the incision at the back of her head. He said this was to target the precise area. I worry that the sedative will wear off before or during the treatment and that she will move. Leslie has been unpredictable since the surgery. Sometimes she rests quietly, but other times she thrashes wildly, so we've padded the rails of her bed with foam rubber.
A fire alarm on the wall just above my head goes off with a deafening, reverberating clang. I jerk out of my thoughts and my heart races with panic that Leslie will be startled from her sleep, but she shows no sign of agitation. What is happening and why is there no flurry of activity on the floor? Nurses at the desk do not look up. Technicians shuffle patients in and out of the double doors. Doctors come out, consult a chart, and disappear. No one explains. The terrifying alarm goes off repeatedly during our agonizing wait, yet we endure without question or protest.
I want to connect with someone, so I smile and say hello to the young Hispanic mother in front of me. She returns my smile and speaks softly to her little boy in a wheelchair. He fondles a toy monkey that is hand-made from a sock, while she explains that he has a tumor on his leg. A nurse pushes an elderly man in a wheelchair into line behind us. He asks about my daughter in a thick accent. His face falls in sorrow when I tell him she is only nineteen. I want to tell him more. I explain that our family is from Arizona, but that Leslie was going to school at Hunter College. Then I ask about him. He tells me the cancer in his pancreas is advanced, but he is grateful for the treatment that relieves his pain. I sense that he wants to shield me from the hopelessness of his condition.
It is finally Leslie's turn. A radiology technician comes to take her through the double doors into a small waiting area. I follow him and sit down in a hard-backed chair. He pushes Leslie toward another space behind a wide curtain where I am not allowed to follow. I take out a spiral notebook and begin to write.
Over the days and weeks that follow, I use this notebook to bring order to my thoughts and names to my feelings. Sometimes I search for some superior wisdom that will be large enough, encompassing enough, to shield me from the violence of my fears. When I do not find it, I look inward to explore unfamiliar ground. Of one thing I am sure: I must look deeper than I have ever looked before.
At other times I write to crystallize a memory of Leslie in times past. I see her darting from one life experience to another like a hungry hummingbird. I see myself chasing after her, never quite able to keep up, and in awe of her clarity of purpose. What will this illness mean to Leslie? What will it mean to me? How will it affect our family?
