by Carolyn M. Crane | Apr 27, 2019 | Essays, Series, The Dog Days of Cancer |
Once Jack settled down and waited for his passport to come, he quickly lost consciousness. By the time the hospice nurse arrived, his death rattle song had begun. Brief periods of apnea laced in with the rattle. “He’s already deep in the death cycle,” she said softly....
by Carolyn M. Crane | Mar 2, 2019 | Essays, Series, The Dog Days of Cancer |
2016 It was a typical Friday in July in many ways. Jack had gone to walk the dogs along Bloody Run Creek, as he did almost every day. I was holed up at home, a month from my first hip replacement, getting around with a walker or in a wheelchair. We were waiting to...
by Carolyn M. Crane | Feb 21, 2019 | Essays, Series, The Dog Days of Cancer |
Jack and I had a few good weeks once he went on Hospice. He got his strength back. In fact, he grew stronger and stronger until the day he died. And for most of that time, thanks to a steady dose of steroids, he was lucid. But, as Dr. Fratkin had forewarned, the day...
by Carolyn M. Crane | Feb 12, 2019 | Essays, Series, The Dog Days of Cancer |
It was almost a year ago as I write this. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the last chapter of Jack’s cancer story. Early winter we got the good news that there was no detectable sarcoma in his last whole-body PET. “But,” the PA said,...
by Carolyn M. Crane | Jan 8, 2019 | Essays, Health Care Reform, Series, The Dog Days of Cancer |
We rolled up to the ER on September 7, Jack pumped with steroids and I holding it all in, getting through it. An orderly appeared with a wheelchair and wheeled us into the triage nurse, who looked exactly like Jeff Daniels. The ER was a zoo—I was immediately reminded...
by Carolyn M. Crane | Dec 14, 2018 | Essays, Health Care Reform, Series, The Dog Days of Cancer |
Jack and I were determined to have a beautiful summer. He’d recovered well from his brain surgery in early March when kind Dr. Girgis had removed an orange-sized tumor from his frontal lobe. Dr. Fragoso, his radiation oncologist, had confirmed that the tumor was a...
