Elliot still felt odd pains when we got home. Easy fixes didn’t work, so he went to a gastroenterologist. Elliot hinted darkly that maybe it was cancer—his father and several uncles and aunts had died of it—but I thought he was being melodramatic. A suspicious swelling on a CT scan suggested he might be right, but then an MRI seemed to rule that out. The specialist ordered some other tests to be sure. It would take a few days for the results to come back.
I was sitting at my messy desk one Thursday afternoon, deep in an assignment on the frenzied debate over early admissions policies at elite colleges, when my phone rang. It was Elliot, calling from the Bloomberg News room.
“There’s a tumor,” he said.
The concept of cancer didn’t sink in for me. Tumors can be benign, after all. His doctors still didn’t know the exact origin of the thing, so the possibility of something dire seemed too foggy, mysterious and unreal to take seriously.
“The doctor said you can call him if you have any questions,” Elliot added.
That caught my attention. Doctors don’t often volunteer for a sidebar with a patient’s wife. The receptionist got the doctor on the phone for me right away. I still didn’t utter the C-word. Neither did he.
“Elliot’s very upset,” I said. “Is he justified?”
“He’s justified in being upset but not despondent,” the doctor answered, similarly vague.
That was pretty much the entire conversation. My twenty-plus years as a reporter asking pointed questions evaporated right into the ether. I just didn’t want to know.
Elliot was sent for an endoscopy—a tiny camera on a tube pushed way down his throat—to confirm the suspected diagnosis. The test didn’t show any clear masses, but the GI guy referred us to an oncologist anyway while scheduling another type of endoscopy. It felt like we were on a sinister and perplexing treasure hunt, with no good reward at the end.
“What’s the matter with Elliot?” my kids kept asking.
“We’re not exactly sure,” I said. “The doctors are trying to figure it out.”
I found myself dressing a little sexier, cooking fancier I-love-you dinners as a distraction. I made grilled lamb chops with mushrooms sautéed in garlic and trout with ginger sauce, even though he wasn’t eating much and was barely drinking wine. He’d lost twelve pounds in six weeks and was looking even more alluring and fit than he had in years. Like most middle-aged men, he had wanted to drop a few.
On the first Sunday in August, we took one of our precious trips for two to Lambertville, a cheery village of cobblestones, bistros and antique shops on the Delaware River. It was a stunning sunny day and we sat outside to have crab cakes and Caesar salad. It felt wistfully sentimental. I couldn’t help wondering if this would be our last semi-carefree romantic lunch. Hell might break loose at the oncologist’s office the next day. I tried to savor my last moments of ignorance.
As always, we went to the Phoenix, a used bookstore. I hid in the back leafing through a book called 50 Essential Things to Do When the Doctor Says It’s Cancer. I didn’t want Elliot to see that, like him, I was giving in to the idea that this dreaded disease might really be the issue.
“The cancer journey can be a time of joyous discovery of inner strength and the beauty of life,” it said.
Yeah, right, we’ll see. We already knew we had a wonderful thing going and appreciated every minute of it. We didn’t need a wake-up call.
Elliot held my hand tight as we walked quietly along the river. For all the little things he’d griped about in the past, he wasn’t complaining about this medical detour at all. We’ll get through this, I thought, and we’ll come out so much stronger.
The next morning we sat down with an elderly oncologist in Englewood. A jazz player in his spare time, he wore a green tweed jacket with a lime green shirt. His cuff links were circles with little green pig faces, perhaps a gift from a grandchild. I couldn’t believe we were meeting on such a potentially momentous matter with a sax man in Porky cufflinks.
“It looks like pancreatic cancer,” he said matter-of-factly, as he looked at Elliot’s charts spread across his desk. “I know that’s not what you wanted to hear.”
I let out a whimper and tried to suck back the tears. I didn’t mind crying but didn’t want to fall apart. There was too much to try to understand. I leaned on Elliot’s shoulder and he rubbed my leg as the oncologist went over various treatment options.
“A lot of lymph nodes are enlarged so surgery won’t help for a cure,” he added.
Elliot asked the question I didn’t dare broach.
“So how much time are we talking about?”
“A year and a half, maybe two if you’re very lucky.”
Excuse me? Where did that come from? I hadn’t the slightest idea things could be so grave. I’d seen many friends recover from breast cancer, so I had the impression that cancer in general had been tamed somewhat—especially for someone as young, strong and determined as Elliot. He was only fifty-five. We had barely begun our life together. There was no way it could be ripped away so soon. My world just didn’t work that way—the naïf in me still believed that if you tried hard and did the right thing, life was supposed to be fair and decent and kind.
Elliot looked dazed. He took a big breath, let it out slowly and shook his head to clear the fog.
“Then again, I have one patient five years out,” the oncologist offered, trying to throw us a morsel of hope. “There are exceptions for all rules about risks and predictions. You have to be like those Roman gladiators. You’d watch them in the movies and think how could they win? But some did.”
He paused to let us absorb all this, and then repeated his advice.
“Be a gladiator.”
We wandered outside, numb, and drove to a Teaneck hospital for yet another test, an endoscopic ultrasound. Finding the site of the primary tumor could affect the choice of chemotherapies. It would take an hour, so while Elliot was sedated I went downstairs to a quiet outdoor courtyard, pulled out my cell phone and called my parents at their house a few hours away in Sag Harbor.
As soon as my mother picked up the phone I broke down. Out came a primal keening wail. I couldn’t stop. I hyperventilated. I could barely speak.
“I’m sorry,” she said, bewildered. “I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“They. Say. Elliot. Will. Be Lucky. To Live. Two years.”
“Oh Honey, I’m so sorry.” Her voice cracked. She paused. This news must have been a bolt out of nowhere. “Well, you’ll just have to have as much fun and as many happy times as you can in the time you have left.”
She passed the phone to my father.
“Poor Le,” he said, using my childhood nickname. “It’s just too tough. Too tough.”
I could picture his hand kneading his forehead. “If there’s anything we can do, we’re here.”
I felt so alone in that empty courtyard. I just stared dumbly at my phone. I could not stomach the notion I might have a longer relationship with my stupid 1994 Honda than with the love of my life.
After the procedure, the specialist announced he had finally found “the structure,” a small offender—maybe three centimeters—in a very bad neighborhood. He drew a picture with a blue ballpoint pen.
As meticulous as I was about saving mementos, I had zero desire to keep that sketch.