How can they say we’ve failed?
We went to so many doctor appointments (Between 10 and 15), 3 hospitalizations, 6 chemo sessions (which lasted 6-8 hours each), 10 radiation sessions, so many different scans, 2 surgeries… we saw SO MANY DOCTORS during her last hospitalization – ER doctors, internal medicine doctors, neurologists, oncologists, and other specialists whose specialties I cannot pull out of my brain right now.
We did everything that we could. We tried to surround ourselves with love and hope and prayers. Love… there was so much love in our lives, between us and from other people aimed at us.
Sara died, but there was no failure. I refuse to play the game of “what-ifs” because that doesn’t serve any good purpose. We did the best we could, she did the best she could, her doctors did the best they could – sometimes our best just isn’t going to be good enough. Usually it doesn’t have quite so dire consequences – someone doesn’t get a job they really worked hard to get, or loses a competition they entered. Sara was undergoing treatment for aggressive, advanced cancer and it was too much for everything we had to throw at it.
I have to admit, it’s difficult right now to hear stories of other people’s successful cancer treatment. I’m happy that treatment has come so far from where it used to be, and that so many people are able to survive, but it still stings. Why couldn’t Sara have survived? Why couldn’t we have found it sooner?
But when those questions pop up, I work hard to remember that we did everything we could, because that is the truth. We did not fail. I won’t even say that medicine failed, because it did make a difference – it gave us the little bit of time that we did have together after her diagnosis, 6 months. Had she not gotten the treatment that she did, with as aggressive as her cancer was, she would have had even less time that she did.
I hate that Sara’s not here. I miss her so much – but we had a beautiful life, and there is no failure in any of it… not our life together or in her death.
Note: No one has said that Sara or I failed – this is a response to a writing prompt that was provided to me, and I went with it.