Cancer Extinguished A Bright Star
The Spectre of Death Won’t Leave Me Alone
For the last year, I’ve been on hiatus from Medium. I had, along with so many others, taken up arms against the filthiest opponent on earth. That piece of sh*t called cancer had come to tear our son apart.
When melanoma first attacked Alex’s healthy and athletic body, he was 38 years old. Single, starting a new career with a company he loved, and getting closer to owning that hobby farm he dreamed of. He would have to go out and buy a new pair of shades for that bright future!
Our family had been pacified into believing surgery and treatment had won the battle. Future check-ups proved that cancer had been stopped in its tracks, and we could stop holding our breath and get back to leading our lives. Cancer did not run in our family; therefore, it was merely a blip on Alex’s timeline.
But this turned out to be false. At the time, we didn’t know melanoma was incurable — it can only be lulled into behaving itself. Instead, it seemed cancer had merely been toying with Alex and had quietly been regrouping in a twisted game of death by inches. It wanted another go at him.
The other shoe dropped in the late summer of 2022. We received the news that the supposedly cured melanoma had metastasized only to reappear as Stage 4 lung cancer. How the heck do you go from cured to Stage 4 in less than a year? Why did regular screening not catch this?
Once again, my husband and I rallied and rushed to our son’s aid in preparation for another battle — determined to finish off this insidious disease no matter how many times it came at our son.
Facing his new reality, Alex somehow found humour in the fact he had become one of “those” people — the ones with a coffee table covered in bottles upon bottles of medications. We began to wonder whether the drugs or the cancer would end up doing the most harm.
But if cancer thinks there is a chance it could lose, it cheats. Clawing its way through his body, it metastasized once again and set its sights on brain cancer. If it couldn’t beat Alex, it would turn his brain against itself and create a labyrinth that he would not be able to navigate. Bouts of forgetfulness, loss of speech, muscles that no longer functioned, headaches, and eventually the inability to connect the dots between behaviour and results. Our lives became daily treks to the hospital to visit someone who could not understand why he couldn’t just go home.
As your heart breaks, you eventually adjust your thinking from the hope of recovery to, “how long doctor?” In no time at all, a prognosis of a few years was reduced to a few days, and we couldn’t wrap our minds around the injustice! I watched as my husband (a man who keeps his emotions in check) was reduced to sobbing tears!
We thought we’d done all the right things. We had thrown everything modern medicine had at this assassin: teams of neurosurgeons, oncologists, radiologists, and emergency doctors; immunotherapy, radiation, and chemotherapy treatments; and lastly, our positive thoughts, prayers and unwavering determination.
Alex lost the war just before Christmas 2022. I have never hated anything in my life, but I hate cancer! It stole something very precious. I am not talking about the agony of losing our son but the loss of all his plans and dreams for his future — and a splendid one it was to be. He wasn’t ready to die.
Diabolical cancer is a cheat, a thief, a cruel inquisitor, and the very definition of evil. It laughs and savours the pain the more it twists the knife. It will do anything to win.
The unrelenting pain of losing a child doesn’t hide in the dark; rather, it waits in the silence. You buy things to make yourself feel better and laugh with friends over coffee or lunch, but at some point, you have to return home. Turning the key in the lock and opening the door, the spectre of death is sitting cross-legged on the floor, just waiting to greet you. It looks up with its hollow black eyes, and you once again experience the pain, the longing for your son and the horror of despair. The weight of loss is unbearable and utterly exhausting. You turn on some music or reach for the television remote hoping to diminish the thoughts in your head before you go mad. Anything to tell your brain to shut up! You can’t do this anymore!
I am still waging my own battle with anger. Someone at the end of our street owns a little Mini Cooper with a “F*ck cancer” displayed on its rear window, and I share the sentiment. I guess I’m not the only one battling demons. We are the remains of the day.
I’m not ready to write this story. Maybe in a few years — maybe never. Many heroes in my son’s journey need to be thanked and recognized for their actions. People and resources came out of nowhere — just waiting to help people like us. Never doubt the existence of the kindness of strangers in this world.
As it turned out, my son wore his shades anyway under the bright hospital lights. He’ll need them for his place in the sun.
