Читать книгу Hannah’s Gift: Lessons from a Life Fully Lived - Maria Housden - Страница 20

CLAUDE AND I WERE SITTING ON FADED PLASTIC CHAIRS IN an old supply closet that was posing as a conference room. Dr. Kamalaker and his partner, Dr. Bekele, shuffled through folders and papers that were strewn on the table in front of them. They were pediatric oncologists who worked for the children’s clinic attached to the hospital and were now officially in charge of Hannah’s case. A nurse sat to one side with Jill, the clinic’s social worker, trying desperately but unsuccessfully to appear relaxed. Claude and I held hands and sat so close together that the legs of our chairs overlapped.

Dr. Kamalaker lifted a long printed sheet from the pile in front of him.

“We got the report from the lab in California,” he said softly, raising his head to look first at Claude and then at me.

I felt very, very quiet; I knew the truth was coming in a way I had never known it before.

Claude squeezed my hand tighter and leaned in to me until he was almost sitting on the edge of my chair. The nurse looked away. Jill crossed her legs.

Something was happening. I could feel the weight of my body pressing my tailbone into the seat of the chair. I felt breath pouring in and out of my lungs, and my heart pounding in my chest, but my awareness had expanded beyond my body and thoughts. Although my eyes never left Dr. Kamalaker’s, I had a sense of being able to see the whole room, then Hannah in her room down the hall, and then the whole hospital block. Eventually I saw everyone I loved and everything else, until the whole universe was contained in one place.

“The news is not as good as we had hoped. The tumor is cancerous; it’s called a Rhabdoid tumor of the kidney. It’s malignant, aggressive, and rare, but there’s still about a twenty-percent chance of remission. We’ve been in touch with a hospital in Washington State that has been treating a little girl who was diagnosed fifteen months ago. That’s good news, since most patients die within a year.”

He paused. The room was still. Someone’s chair scraped across the floor. A throat cleared. Four pairs of eyes watched us. As the silence grew, the nurse turned her gaze politely, painfully away. Claude stared straight ahead and said nothing.

As quiet as the room was, there was a deeper silence in me; my heart had jumped beyond the diagnosis, beyond the prognosis, beyond the treatment. I knew that Hannah was going to die, and I was not afraid.

I do not know where my fear went. I simply knew that if Hannah was going to die, I needed to face the truth and make the most of the time we had left. I also knew that when it was time, I wanted her home, to let her go as gently as she could go.

I opened my mouth and let the question fall out of my heart.

“Dr. Kamalaker, when it’s clear that Hannah has had enough, when she’s ready to die, will you help her go?”

Claude turned to look at me. Everyone else did, too. Dr. Kamalaker studied me thoughtfully without answering.

Dr. Bekele spoke. “You realize, don’t you, that we are not giving up hope that Hannah’s cancer can go into remission. We intend to do everything we can to help her.” Jill and the nurse nodded emphatically in agreement.

I knew they were probably horrified by my question; part of me was stunned by it, too. Even if I knew in my heart that Hannah was going to die, wouldn’t saying it out loud clinch the deal? I didn’t think so. I wasn’t giving up on the possibility that Hannah could be cured. I was simply acknowledging something that is already true for everyone: Death comes to all of us, ready or not. To know that Hannah was going to die couldn’t cause her death any more than denying it could prevent her death. The truth was going to be what it was, either way. The only choice I had was to decide what I was going to do with it.

Dr. Kamalaker and I were still looking at each other. His eyes were soft and sympathetic. I felt as if he was seeing into my heart.

“I am not willing to give up in the face of this disease,” he said finally. “I am going to do everything I can to beat this cancer, but if we are not successful, I am also willing to help you with what you asked.”

Waves of relief surged through me; not only had I been able to give a voice to my deepest fear, but I had found someone else willing to face the truth with me. If Hannah was going to die, I now knew that I wasn’t going to be alone in it.