Exactly two years ago—on 18 September 2011—Linny was admitted to hospital. It was a Sunday morning, and a bitterly cold day, although perhaps it was just that I was cold on the inside. Linny was in such pain, and yet so desperate not to upset me.
Shortly before Kathleen was born, we had discussed how to deal with the pain of Linny’s impending first delivery. We agreed on a phrase which I would repeat to help her through. It was “strong and brave”. As Linny went through the unspeakable pain of childbirth, I helplessly held her hand for hours (it’s not nearly as heroic as it looks on TV) and kept whispering in her ear: “Be strong and brave. I love you.” Through all the pain, we were focused on the happy outcome.
This time, Linny needed to be “strong and brave” without the prospect of a happy outcome.
Having spent about two weeks being fobbed off by the medical profession with all sorts of implausible diagnoses, and my being made to feel like a very negative person because I said that I thought we were dealing with a brain tumour, we finally got a hearing. I took Linny to the casualty department of a hospital that dealt regularly with victims of motor vehicle accidents. I reckoned that they would have neurosurgeons on call. I was right. Having dealt with the red tape relating to admission, we finally got to meet with a young neurosurgical registrar who—wonder of wonders—did not treat me as if I were the Village Idiot.
After she had examined Linny, she turned to me and asked what I had observed. I told her that, firstly, Linny had complained of intense head-aches, something that was unusual for her; both the head-aches and the complaining.
Secondly, I told her that I had observed a disturbing deterioration in Linda’s peripheral vision, to the extent that she had walked into a very large column in a shopping mall the day before and had seemed to be unable to orient herself spatially.
Thirdly, my amazingly organised wife had become so confused that she seemed incapable of even brushing her teeth without supervision.
Once I had shared the subjective and objective information with her, she asked me what my assessment was. I replied that I thought that there were three possibilities: (1) encephalitis, which I doubted, since her signs were asymmetrical; (2) a CVA, which I doubted, because of the very slow onset of her symptoms, although I acknowledged that it might be a very slow bleed; or, (3) a tumour, either benign or malignant. She asked me which option I thought was most likely, and I replied: “a tumour”. She looked sad and said compassionately: “I’m afraid you might be correct”.
I don’t think that I have ever felt so conflicted in my life. On the one hand, I felt relieved that someone was—at last—taking us seriously, and not trying to tell us that Linny might have sinusitis (really, it happened!). On the other hand, there was the dawning horror of realising that my worst fear was being actualised. In truth, I had wanted the lovely neurosurgical registrar to tell me that I was being an idiot.
Linny was admitted to the short-stay ward, pending a CAT scan the following morning, and I went home to fetch some things for her. When I returned in the evening, she was comfortable (on pain medication). I stayed with her and we talked, until the security guards frog-marched me out to the parking area.
From then, everything went rapidly downhill. Thirty-one days later she was dead.
It still sometimes feels like a dream from which I should—hopefully—awake at any moment.
Apparently then, I am still asleep.