Saving Graces - Elizabeth Edwards [156]
Most of what happened during those months of chemotherapy happened at home. I would have my chemotherapy session on Tuesday, and then I would have a couple of good days when I could do just about anything I wanted. I would shop for fresh groceries. I had lunch with friends. After those days, for the next week or longer, I would really try to minimize what I did. The steroids I took made me hungry and achy, but the worst was the Neupogen injections I did daily for a week each cycle to keep my white blood cell count up. They had warned me about Neupogen’s side effects, but I was cavalier. The shots weren’t hard—I had done this when I was trying to get pregnant. But with each round it got worse. With each round my bones and my joints hurt more, my knees were stiffer, my fingers ached more. And there was no respite in being still: when I would lie down in bed, it was constant pain from head to toe. Walking was difficult—I would plan my trips up or down stairs—and writing was almost impossible. I was trying to answer letters I had received, but after three or four notes, my hands would be in a painful cramp. I had tried so not to be a victim, to be the master in this, but it was hard not to feel the strain of it when the drugs were so debilitating. I didn’t like it, but it was undeniable: I was a victim. I suppose we might have learned when Wade died that all control is illusory, but we cling to that, even after all the lessons. And despite the lessons, I cling to it still.
It helped to have Emma Claire and Jack. I could sit and read to them—and they understood that was about all I could handle then and they never complained. It helped to have Randy Galvin and then Heather North, who helped with the children, who would cheerfully run with them when I could not. It helped to have Lexi and Matthew, who managed the schedule of appointments, who made sure I had the medicines I needed and rides when it was difficult to drive. And most of all, it helped to have John. I thought all the time as I was dealing with this, feeling the aches, marking off days of my life in which the only thing I did was fight cancer, that there are women who were doing exactly what I was doing except they were hauling the groceries, taking care of the kids without help, and going to work. I had lots of help, the luxury of no job, and I had John.
On one snowy day that closed the area schools, I passed a woman—her obviously bald head covered by a knit cap—in the halls at Georgetown Hospital. She had two young children and she was carrying snacks for them, taking care of them, while John was carrying everything I might need during my chemotherapy session. It was impossible not to feel lucky…and guilty. My empathy increased as we started getting correspondence from the insurance company. It was unintelligible. John was a senator, a presidential candidate, and a vice presidential candidate; we were both lawyers—for decades—and we still had no idea of what most of the insurance company notices meant. Were they rejecting claims for the most basic services? Was only part of an MRI charge covered? Did they not have the right documentation from the doctor or was this procedure never going to be covered? We could not imagine what it would be like for someone like the knit-capped mother of two who depended on her insurance. Where would she even get the time to figure out what these letters say and what she needs to do to satisfy the insurance company? And if nothing is going to satisfy them, where’s she going to get the money to pay for what she thought was covered by insurance? I thought about all the meetings on health care policy that had taken place