A Singular Woman - Janny Scott [144]
On January 25, 1995, twenty-seven years after first arriving in Indonesia with Barry to join Lolo, Ann left for the last time. Madelyn Dunham met her in Honolulu and arranged for her to be taken to the Straub Clinic and Hospital. Several days later, she was seen by a gastroenterologist, who concluded within a week that her problem was not gastrointestinal. Next, she was referred to an oncologist, who, in the second week in February, diagnosed her illness as third-stage uterine and ovarian cancer. According to her correspondence with her insurance company, the disease appeared to have spread in her abdomen. She underwent a total hysterectomy and was sent home on Valentine’s Day to recuperate in Madelyn’s apartment, in her care. Once Ann had recovered from the immediate effects of the surgery, she embarked on a series of six monthly chemotherapy treatments intended to, as she described it, eradicate remaining traces of the cancer and prevent further spread.
Maya, who had graduated from the University of Hawai‘i with a bachelor’s degree, had spent the fall of 1994 traveling in the southwestern United States and in Mexico, largely out of contact. After injuring a knee while hiking, she had spent several days in a bar at the Grand Canyon, drinking coffee and reading novels by William Faulkner, Tony Hillerman, and Ernest J. Gaines. There, in the bar and using a pencil, she had filled out an application to the graduate school of education at New York University. Several months later, in Mexico City, she had telephoned her grandmother in Honolulu and discovered that she had been accepted into a master’s degree program. Moving to New York City in late December, she had found a job as a bartender to cover her rent while going to graduate school. After a week on the bartending job, she received a call from Madelyn. Ann had returned from Jakarta, Madelyn told her. The appendicitis had turned out not to be appendicitis. It was cancer.
Barack, meanwhile, was in Chicago, juggling multiple callings. At the time of his mother’s diagnosis, he was three years out of law school and an associate in a Chicago law firm that specialized in civil rights cases; he was teaching part-time as a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School; his memoir, Dreams from My Father, which a literary agent had encouraged him to write after the Harvard Law Review election, was scheduled for publication in August 1995; and he had begun maneuvering toward possibly running for public office for the first time. The indictment in August 1994 of the congressman from the Second District of Illinois, Mel Reynolds, had prompted the state senator from Obama’s district, Alice Palmer, to explore a bid for Reynolds’ seat. By the time Palmer announced her candidacy for Congress in June 1995, Obama had already laid the groundwork for his campaign to fill her seat. On September 19, 1995, he announced officially that he was embarking on his first political campaign—a run for election to the Illinois State Senate.
In Honolulu, Ann pressed on gamely. According to her correspondence, Barry helped her with insurance forms and letters in the immediate aftermath of her surgery. After a short time, she moved into an apartment in the same building as her mother and attempted to get back to her life. Her hair fell out, but otherwise she seemed to tolerate the treatment. She attended concerts and seminars at the university, having acquired