Rules Get Broken by John Herbert Page B

replied, “what choice do we have now? We can’t go back to Huntington Hospital, can we? So we’re committed to New York Hospital and to Dr. Werner. And yes, I’m okay with him if he can make it possible for me to come home to you and my children. If he can do that, he could be Attila the Hun for all I care.”
    I looked at Peg for several seconds, wondering what to say. And as I did, I realized her eyes were telling me everything she was feeling at that moment—sadness, fear, resignation. But perhaps most importantly, resolve. The look in her eyes told me she was getting ready to fight. As far as she was concerned, Dr. Werner’s brief visit had been akin to a referee’s instructions before a bout. And for her, the bell for round one was going to ring sometime early that afternoon.

Twenty-Four
    It is said that one can get used to anything. There was a time when I would have taken exception to that maxim, but Peg’s ordeal at New York Hospital proved the adage to be true as we quickly settled into a routine that, if not comfortable, was at least workable.
    My first step was to move into one of my parents’ guest rooms so I could spend at least a few minutes each day with Jennie and John. I stopped all overnight business travel and started leaving work every afternoon at three so I could be at the hospital by four-thirty. I stayed with Peg every night until seven-thirty and then drove back to Long Island. Occasionally I arrived home in time to see Jennie before she went to bed, but I saw John only in the mornings at breakfast.
    My mother always had a hot dinner ready for me no matter what time I came home, and she and my father would sit with me while I ate and gave them the latest report on Peg’s condition. After I had eaten, the three of us would watch the ten o’clock news on Channel 5 and go to bed. Every day the routine was the same.
    The shortened workday took a toll immediately, so I brought my office paperwork with me when I visited Peg. This worked rather well for the first few days and enabled me to keep up with most of my work. But by Thursday, August 7th, as the chemotherapy progressed, I found myself spending more time tending to Peg than to the paperwork. On Tuesday, August 12th, I opened the first of two briefcases only after she had fallen asleep and shortly before I left for home. And on Wednesday, August 13th, I realized I was kidding myself. When I left for the hospital at three o’clock that afternoon, I left my desk piled high with unseen reports, unanswered memos and unread mail. The briefcases stayed in my office closet.
    The chemotherapy was brutal. Day after day the IV tube dripped poison into Peg’s body; poison intended to kill her cancerous bone marrow—hopefully at a faster rate than the poison was killing her. It penetrated every cell in her body and killed not only cancer cells, but also good, healthy cells, including white blood cells, the cells that defend us from attacks by bacteria, mold spores, fungus spores and all sorts of other invaders. With fewer and fewer white cells in her blood to ward off these attacks, Peg became increasingly vulnerable to the infectious agents that surround each of us every day.
    As a result, Peg developed fungal infections, which in less than two hours progressed from a single black spot on her tongue or roof of her mouth to a growth large enough to cause her difficulty speaking or swallowing. She developed bacterial urinary tract infections so painful she was barely able to urinate without crying out in pain, and vaginal fungal infections—each in turn or simultaneously appearing as if from nowhere and rapidly blossoming into full-scale attacks.
    The bacterial infections brought fevers. In less than thirty minutes, Peg’s temperature would soar from normal to over one hundred two and a half as the bacterial attack of the moment progressed, unchallenged by defending white blood cells. As soon as her temperature began to rise, an antibiotic drip