IN THE BEGINNING.......

It began with a light pinch, as light as one would hold a butterfly by its delicate wing. It ended with a grasp so strong that it took some of the strongest pain-killing drugs known to humankind, to stop it.

In November, 2007, Gerry noted that he had a tiny ache right below his breastbone. When it persisted for a week, he went to his doctor to inquire about it. Did he need his heartburn medication increased? Yes, that would be worth a try. He had once had the stomach bacteria h. pylori. Would that cause this? Hummm...could be. He was sent for blood work. He was more tired than usual but had just finished working 14 hour days and was fatigued.
A few more weeks passed with no change in the pinch in his chest. He seemed to becoming more wan so when he returned to the doctor, his blood work revealed a drop in his hemoglobin level. A stool sample test divulged that there was blood in all six samples. Since there had been colon cancer in his family, this is a test to which Gerry faithfully submitted, every year. His family doctor and the surgeon to whom he was referred, both mentioned a bleeding ulcer as the possible cause of the blood loss. Stomach problems were nothing new to Gerry. He always suffered from severe heartburn and had been taking some type of heartburn medication for the thirty-two years I had known him.
We made the first of many trips to the hospital on February 8, 2008. Gerry was scheduled to have a gastroscope to see the extent of the ulcer. The endoscopy room was full of patients, in various states of consciousness, laid out or sitting up sipping on juice through straws. The attending nurse gave her memorized instructions to Gerry and told me to return in an hour. They wheeled the gurney on which Gerry laid, into that sterile place where anything can happen.
I think I got a coffee, went to Walmart and gassed up. I arrived back to the endoscopy unit in forty-five minutes to see Gerry's work-socked feet sticking out from under the bottom of the flannelette sheet. The room was now empty except for him and me. I bounced in and said, "Hi Sweetie. Were you talking to the doctor yet?" Our eyes met; his glazed, mine hopeful.
Gerry whispered, "It's cancer."
I waited for him to jump up and say, "KIDDING!!" but he didn't. He just laid there. We just stared at each other in shock. Our lives had changed in one second with a six letter word, C-A-N-C-E-R.
I now had a pain in MY stomach; a pain that did not signal physical pain like Gerry's but a pain that clenched my soul and would not let go for a long, long time.