I think it is interesting that my first post has nothing to do with growing or preparing food, but here we are. We are babysitting my brother’s dog, Washburn, this weekend while he is in Chicago. This is a very ordinary thing to happen, so why is it inspiring a very first blog post? Likely because less than a year ago, my brother was diagnosed with lymphoma and he is now celebrating six months with no detectable cancer. This dog came into his life when it seemed there would be much more life to live after he survived a brutal chemotherapy regimen.
It is hard to describe how much my brother’s journey has impacted me. Being the only physician in our family (unless you count my husband, which I certainly do!), I was the initial contact when Andy was first hospitalized, before a diagnosis shook us all to our cores. When his doctor was worried about how he would handle the news, being isolated in a visitor-free hospital thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, I was the one to receive updates. I downplayed the seriousness of the situation for four days during his work up, reassuring my family that everything would be fine and that lymphoma is so treatable, even curable sometimes. We would all continue with life and Andy would be fine. Until he wasn’t fine and I received the call that he had had a pulseless arrest just after surgery to procure tissue for a thorough diagnosis.
I collapsed in the office at my hospital unable to comprehend that my baby brother might not survive the day. My colleagues called my husband and took over care of my patients and I went home, numb, to await news. It wasn’t long before the critical care doctor called me and told me to come to the hospital, don’t worry about the visitor policy (sometimes being in the business affords extra consideration). A frog was in my throat as I asked, “are you telling me that my brother is dying?” The affirmative answer was like a sucker punch. How do I tell our parents? Our sister? Why am I the only one allowed to go? As it turns out, they let me, my husband and Andy’s long time partner, Hannah, come to the bedside. The image of my brother’s body hooked up to life supporting machines is forever burned in my memory. There was nothing I could do. No medicine I knew that could fix him. One of the nephrologists, who we now refer to as Dumbledore for the wizardry he performed, had cast off naysayers and started dialysis on my brother despite him having a blood pressure nearly too low to measure even with a three drug cocktail to sustain it. I knew this was not likely to work. And then it did. For five days, he was kept sedated on a breathing machine while his blood was constantly circulated through a dialysis machine. He stabilized and started chemo before he even regained consciousness. The relief of survival was soon extinguished when he was extubated and allowed to wake up. This man, who had just had a minor surgery, had no idea what we had been through in the last 5 days. He didn’t know about the thousands of prayers sent by anyone a Facebook post could reach. Hannah and I made eyes at each other over his bed wondering when and how we could tell him. It obviously came as a major shock when we did.
The coming weeks were filled with frequent hospital stays and multiple complications. He was able to tolerate (and I say tolerate, because I can’t imagine anyone thriving in this situation) the full course of chemo and despite a scare around Christmastime he has not had any detectable cancer in six months. This experience has taught me a lot about family, resilience, how to practice medicine (and how not to, at times). Admittedly, I panicked a bit when he called ten days ago and wanted to talk “without the kids around”. I braced myself for bad news. A million scenarios ran through my head while I tucked the kids in bed anxiously awaiting the call. To my surprise, the call was to see if he could hire the kids to watch Washburn while he and Hannah headed off to Chicago for the weekend. I was almost gleeful with relief for the ordinariness of the request. I know my heart will continue to skip beats as we sit on the edge of our seats for future scans, but for now, I am happy with mundane dog sitting.