Chemo proves tough foe
By James Brooks
Press Outdoors Writer
jbrooks@johnsoncitypress.com
I managed to stay out of the hospital after my second treatment, but I was sicker this time. Being forewarned is forearmed.
The first wave was total exhaustion. With the exception of waking every hour to drink water and go to the bathroom I slept for something like 72 hours straight. Maybe more. There were the daily doctor’s visits for the white blood cell shots and by Friday they had me back in the chair for hydration and several other shots.
Sunday night I felt like I had been worked over by both the Crips and the Bloods in turn. Wherever this park is located that I’m walking in, you don’t want to go there. I alternated between emptying my stomach and everything else from both ends.
Monday, back to the chemo center in a wheelchair for more hydration through my port. The saddest part for me was that I would miss the visitation for my dear friend Carolyn Moore in Jonesborough.
I got used to seeing Carolyn around town with her oxygen cannula, and put it off as one more phase in an interesting life that included founding Jonesborough Days and acting as the town ombudsman whenever Jonesborough’s factions got at each other’s throats.
“Now see heyah,” she’d say in her South Carolina drawl, “No matter how you feel, this is a small town and we all live here. We simply have to respect each other and get along.”
I had a glimpse that her health must be declining. It was a couple of years since I’d called her at home and been treated to a new message on her answering machine, describing the beauties of Jonesborough at that particular season of year. Sometime she got so taken with describing the beauties of springtime, for instance, that she’d run out of tape before inviting the caller to leave a message.
I should have noticed that her periodical e-mails to me, Brad Jolly and some of the other old time reporters at the Press had also stopped. Unlike the answering machine tapes, her e-mails were usually brief, sometimes ripping, but with a logic all their own.
Carolyn was a good Presbyterian with a belief in heaven. I remember once she was in her son-in-law’s shop in town and a tourist stuck his head in the door. “Come in, and welcome to Jonesborough,” she said. “You must be a Presbyterian because you have a Presbyterian head.”
I think we all wish we could hear the interview between Carolyn and St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. I don’t know what path it would take, but I’m sure she’d have some questions for him as well.
The other sadness over the weekend was that our son Jason texted, asking me to call because he wanted to talk to his daddy. At the time I was too weak to even raise my head for a phone call. We’ll definitely make that call tonight. I wonder if he will say he needs a new bicycle, or he just needs the reassurance of hearing his daddy’s voice.
Both he and Joy are getting ready for the new school term with visits to the dentist. Four cavities for Jason and nine for Joy. I’ve warned them of the dangers of drinking carbonated drinks and gotten both to switch to Gatorade. I asked Joy to put a nail in some Coke and watch it for four days.
Her books are going to cost about $100. Luckily, she has a daddy who loves books as much as she does.
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