My best friend died this morning at 1:20: also my husband, my lover, my date and the warmth in my life.
At 1:15, I got a call from The Home, saying Mr. Burtner was "in distress." The doctor and the ambulance had been called. Five minutes later, he simply stopped breathing. As he was under do not resuscitate orders, they simply called me ten minutes later and let me know what had happened.
"Stopped breathing," was the way she put it on the phone. "You mean he's dead?" I asked, sitting on the toilet, getting ready to dress and leave. "Yes." She almost sounded hesitant.
This latest bout of illness began only a few days after the last blog entry: Steve started to have trouble hearing people on the phone, but soon it was people in the room, talking loudly. On Monday, Oct. 7, he had gotten to the point of hallucinating. I had had it in my mind to have him transferred down to the Long Beach VA Medical Center that day, since all his doctors are down there, but the severity of his condition required quick diagnosis of what was going on. So he was taken to Huntington Memorial Emergency Room, two blocks from The Home.
They took a chest X-rays in the room, and I could tell by the image on the portable cart's screen that the bone cancer had really spread to all parts of his rib cage, and the main tumor was half again as large as the last chest CT scan I had seen in Long Beach. It made sense, since it had been almost two months since his last round of chemo.
A CT scan of the head revealed no cancer, so the incoherence wasn't due to that illness. All the blood cultures and tests came back negative; only a urine sample, taken as a last resort, showed a urinary tract infection by a rather virulent strain of bacteria. He was put on IV antibiotics and sent back to The Home; transferring him to Long Beach was something that wouldn't happened until he stabilized.
The next five days, Steve was not really available. Visiting, I could get him to look at me, focus and recognize who I was, but there were other, fantastical things happening in his cranium, and they obviously took his attention. It all seemed rather pleasant for him, until Friday, when he didn't speak at all during my half-hour visit.
On Saturday, exhausted, I decided to take a day off. Our friends Steve and Roberto visited him in the afternoon, and as long as he saw friendly faces, he'd know, if he could, that he was not forgotten. So, when visiting time (usually around 6:00 or 6:30) rolled around, I stayed at home and watched "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," which was a favorite of his. I puttered some on the computer, researching fonts for my latest web project, and turned in about 12:30. Forty-five minutes later, the first call came.
In a fit of premonition, I had remembered yesterday to look for the box that contained Steve's box from the Neptune Society. Directly after he had been diagnosed, he had called them and made pre-arrangements for his cremation. For some reason, we have to supply the box for the cremains, and it can't be any old cardboard box anymore. As I recall, they take care of the paperwork and the death certificate and ship back the cremains. I have the information packet somewhere around here.
The box had arrived about a week after the check cleared, just another UPS package. We had never opened it. I put it away in a closet upstairs and didn't recall exactly where, so I found it and put it on a chair in the studio. Now, just before deployment, I cut the plastic tape and opened package. The box inside is quite stunning, and I have a feeling Steve will be sticking around for sometime to come. Box in box under arm, I headed over to The Home.
All the things that happened to him during this dearth of illnesses seemed to happen on a weekend, and this was no exception: the regular folks are off and not much can happen quickly. When I got there, I went to Steve's room. He was flat in the bed, head leaning to his right. There was a woman in the room, straightening the sheets, preparing him for viewing, but I had made my entrance too soon.
She gave us some privacy but hovered outside the door like a nervous bird. I touched Steve's forehead and he was still warm, but his hand was already cool to the touch. His eyes were open slightly, so I closed them. And there it was: that waxen mask of the face in lax repose, not even death, but the empty physical aftermath. To borrow from Gertrude Stein, there is no there there. Steve's gone, and he slipped out without a trace.
I talked to him quietly, just in case he was still in the room, and went to check that the nurse had called the Neptune Society, and to give them the information needed for "the transfer." While the nurse took care of that, the nurse's aide helped me pack his things, checking against their inventory list. I chucked the bags into the trunk of the car, where they still remain, and drove home.
I got here at 2:45, sent out a group e-mail at 3:10 and tried to get to sleep. After two hours of tossing and turning, I got up, made some coffee and watched the morning news. Slightly dazed, I wrote a short e-mail to all my active clients, letting them know I would not be attending to studio business until Thursday. I need some grief time and me time and time to re-orient myself.
Right now, I'm still numb. Oh, so numb. It's been a long, rough row from back in early March until now. It's 9:30, so I've been up 24 hours with only a 45-minute nap yesterday afternoon. At some point soon, I'm going to collapse. But no need to sleep with the phone next to my bed now. The machine can take any calls that come in.
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