My Sweetheart, Margaret Ann Myers
by Al,
Her Loving Husband

Margaret Ann Myers. I always called her Sweetheart. It seemed so natural. She didn't object when a close family friend called her Margie, since she'd done so from the day she was born in 1937. But she definitely didn't want to be called Marge. But she was a woman of great tact and discretion. She was never one to express her objections strongly. She would just fall silent and tell me later in t he evening, "I just wish she hadn't called me Marge".

A true child of the fifties she was slim and stylish. A petite figure with bones like a bird. Size 4. Long, tapered nails with red or beige enamel. Her fingers were always slim. I had a hard time finding rings for her, since her size was 4.5. Margaret had slim feet with a taste for Ferragamo. It was always hard to find a sufficiently narrow size. And her voice, Smokey and low. A bedroom voice. It reminded me of Bacall or Garbo. She adored Gregory Peck.

But I'm afraid I've become too self-indulgent, wallowing in sweet memories. I'll spare you the manifold medical indignities that led up to her ultimate diagnosis. The problems began around the first of the year with a persistent pain in the middle of her back, which occasionally radiated to her left side. After two fruitless operations and useless diagnostic procedures she finally encountered a vascular surgeon who saw a shadow on one of her old X-rays, which seemed suspicious. The oncology team at the University of Michigan did a CAT scan and broncoscopy, which verified Small Cell Lung Cancer. This was toward the end of April.

The diagnosis hit us hard. Margaret and I are both fairly well informed and aware, and we knew that the diagnosis meant her condition was terminal, that she didn't have long to live. She'd seen many close friends die of cancer of one kind or another, and she didn't want to end up the same way. We'd spoken before of simply taking the Final Exit.

But although the cancer had pleural involvement there was no metastasis. The oncologist advised chemotherapy. Upon direct questioning he told her that without it the survival rate is about two months, but that with treatment she could have ten to twelve good months. He also told her that U of M does not stage small cell, it's either limited or extensive, and that he didn't advise radiation because of the size of the area which would have to be irradiated.

Upon her family's urging Margaret agreed to chemotherapy. She was receiving the standard Carboplatin / VP-16 (etoposide) combination, three days on three weeks off. She was tolerating it so well. Her hair thinned out after two weeks, and she occasionally had dry heaves during the first weekend after a treatment, but otherwise she insisted she was doing fine. Her back pain was totally under control with a Duragesic patch. She was taking Prozac and Valium for depression and anxiety. She also took dilaudid for breakthrough pain. I was able to encourage her to stagger these medications, since the effects could be frightening when taken together. The valium-dilaudid-duragesic combination could induce severe hypoventilation, and there were times at night I thought she's stopped breathing. We always slept together; in the same bed we'd shared all our years together. Forgive me. I'm sobbing.

After the fourth series she complained of shortness of breath. I took her to U of M emergency. The oncologist gravely told us that the chemotherapy had stopped working, and the cancer had collapsed part of her left lung by closing off an airway. She also had a lot of phlegm in her lungs she couldn't bring up.

He prescribed antibiotics to ward off pneumonia. Like throwing nerf balls at a charging bull elephant. Margaret signed an agreement with Hospice of Michigan, and on July 25 I drove her home from the hospital to die.

Everybody will tell you how wonderful hospice is. Margaret and I didn't need convincing. She'd been a volunteer for hospice for many years, and we fully agreed with their approach to the final time. But let me tell you this. When you are holding the hand of your loved one while they're panting out their last breaths, and they turn their eyes to you and ask, "Why are you crying? Is there anything wrong?” hospice can't do a damn thing to soften that pain.

Anyway, the two weeks following Margaret's death have been hard, hard times. I find myself sobbing at anytime. I went next door to thank the neighbors for coming to her service and broke down. I'm not really an emotional man. Never have been. But this loss gutted me. Margaret and I were each others' universe. I feel that everything good has been ripped from my life, and that nothing more remains. The words of sympathy have been said, the flowers have been tossed out, and the cards have been put away. Now I just sit here, alone and with my grief. Oh, sweet God, I love her so. I think it's the only decent thing I have done with my life.

I know this will not go on. I'm not depressive by nature. I'm very much the optimist. Even though I have MS, and some would regard me as an aging cripple that doesn't bother me in the least. I still enjoy soft summer mornings and the quiet of a winter snowfall. The world can be a wonderful place.

But I love Margaret deeply, and will hold my memory of her close to me. And I can only hope that when my final moments come I will see her standing there, smiling at me. I will wrap her small frame in my arms, and kiss her on her neck and eyelids. "Oh, Sweetheart. I've missed you so." That will be paradise.