A moment

“Breathe with me,” I chanted as I held her hand in both of mine..

Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell.

And then it stopped.

I could have done nothing–perhaps should have done nothing. I could have just held her hand and let her slip away. The nurse was in the hall listening to rounds on the patient in the next room. The doctors were all focussed on that.

A decision

We’d talked about this moment–the moment she stopped breathing. But I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t ready.

I opened my mouth and called for the doctors and nurses. “Something’s not right here,” I said in a voice I knew would carry but not convey panic.

They came into the room. They put an oxygen mask on her face and put me behind a screen while they bought a few minutes to figure out what was going on and if her life was over.

Another moment

The hospitalist came onto my side of the curtain. “We think we know what is going on. We think we know how to fix this–how to give her a fighting chance. But we’ll have to intubate her. What do you want to do?”

And there it was–the thing we hadn’t planned for, hadn’t known to talk about–the vast area of gray where we had expected black and white–a simple decision that was no longer simple. But it was a decision I had to make quickly–one way or the other.

And so I chose to let her fight–to put off letting her die for another time–and hopefully another place somewhere in the distant future.

Consequences

Nine years later, I still don’t know if what I did was the right thing or the wrong thing in that moment. I only know I made the choice.

I know the good that came out of that choice. I know there are people who have had that same heart surgery who lived unexpected years because I made that choice. I know we became a beacon that had nothing to do with cancer for some other lives. I know Walking with Jane does not exist without that decision.

I suspect there’s a lot of money beyond what I’ve contributed directly that found its way into NET cancer research that might not have otherwise. I suspect some of the bright lights in the NET cancer community aren’t doing what they are doing if I make a different decision in that moment. I suspect there are dozens of positive outcomes for others because of what the following 18 days created.

Things are different

But I also know those 18 days are 18 days of suffering that Jane did not have to endure. I know how Orpheus felt at the top of those stairs one step away from joy–how it feels to have that joy thrown into endless night by a single turn–by a single moment.

I don’t know how one balances the one against the other–the human costs against the human outcomes. I can’t see how my life is different if I make a different call. I only know it is. I can’t say how the lives of others are different–for better or for worse–if I make a different call. I only know there are lives that are different.

A moment…

“Breathe with me,” I chanted as I held her hand in both of mine.

Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell, rose and fell.

And then it stopped…

And what followed changed things. That’s all I know

Jane went into her first coma on this date in 2010. The coma was caused by what doctors call a carcinoid crisis, which is when the NET cancer tumors suddenly begin producing hormones in even larger quantities than normal. In Jane’s case, the excess serotonin they produced crashed her respiration and blood pressure. Her doctors addressed this with fairly massive doses of octreotide. She would remain in a coma for about 35 hours. She would endure two more such attacks and comas–the last one resulting in her death on December 10.