Mile 7
The approval for Stephen’s emergency leave to return home and join Sarah and Hailey for her immediate chemotherapy treatments had been more than greatly appreciated by the Lantz family. Stephen’s commanding officer had coordinated with a 3-star general in order to prioritize the family crisis at home. It took an extra time to sort out the chaos from the convoy bombing but once approved, Stephen found himself unceremoniously returning stateside. He was able to be there to hold Sarah’s hand when they talked with the doctors about the plan for three years of treatments and the details of how each phase would fight their daughter’s cancer. He was also there to comfort Hailey through the pains and fears of her new hospital surroundings. But he was both thankful and horrified two days after arriving when he sat next to Sarah while Hailey underwent a bone marrow biopsy.
Scared and embracing both hands, they watched their helpless child’s resting face as Hailey lay lethargic in the hospital bed while doctors drained fluid from her rear hipbone. The normally quick procedure had taken longer with Hailey’s lack of cooperation. In the end, the doctor decided on a local anesthetic to calm the overly anxious three year old.
She seemed to finally relax and even fall asleep when the doctor began his work. A few minutes into the procedure and without warning, Hailey’s eyes thrust open and revealed a fully conscience and terrified stare at Stephen and Sarah.
Stephen froze; his mind locked between what to do and what to say. He abruptly announced to the entire room, “She’s awake!”
When the doctor leaned over and saw Hailey’s open eyes, he unconsciously revealed his own surprise. His eyes widened behind the thick-rimmed glasses which drove anxiety into the already nervous parents.
“Daddy?” Hailey’s body lay still but her cries pierced Stephen.
Unaware of the increasing pressure his grasp applied to Sarah’s hand he tried to respond. “Hailey, sweetheart, I’m right here. Daddy’s right here.”
Sarah leaned forward to make sure her daughter could see her, “Honey, we’re right here next to you. It’s going to be just fine,” though her voice trembled and the look on Sarah’s face said just the opposite.
The doctor said something to the nurse and then spoke from the opposite side of Hailey’s body with a voice muffled by the surgical mask. “Mom and Dad, it’s okay. She’s not feeling anything right now.”
Behind her own thin white facial mask, the nurse spoke back in a calm and controlled voice, “Doctor, I’ll need more time to prep her if we’re going to give her something more than a local.”
Fighting off the anesthetic, sensory nerves slowly began to wake throughout Hailey’s body. Chills tingled her skin in random places and her heart rate accelerated from a complicated mixture of mild anesthesia and terror-induced adrenaline. With the exception of the increasing rhythmic expansion of her lungs, her body lay entirely still. Without blinking, small tears began to swell in her eyes. “Daddy, I’m scared. I’m scared.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Mommy and Daddy are right here. The doctor said it’s going to be okay.” Stephen’s own heart raced while his inability to take Hailey and hold her in his arms left him crushed as if he were watching his daughter drown and could not even extend a hand to her.
Sarah covered her mouth to hide her panicking face as Hailey started moving her eyes far to the side as if trying to see what was happening behind her.
The doctor’s voice rose with purpose from behind Hailey’s body. “I’m already drawing. We’re too far in the procedure to stop. I’m going to press on and finish. I just need a couple more minutes. Dad, keep her calm and make sure she stays absolutely still.”
Flushed, Stephen responded to the doctor’s instruction. With quivering lips he called out to the child he had once tenderly held by nothing more than his two palms, “Hailey, sweetie, its okay. Just look here at Daddy. I’m right here. Look at me sweetheart. Please, look at me.”
The nurse reached past the crouching doctor and held Hailey’s legs and hip in place as a preventative measure against the child’s possible wiggling. She extended her other hand out and with extended fingers to gently touch the top of Hailey’s head in a sweet moment of tenderness combined with carefulness not to wake any more of the toddler’s slumbering nerves.
The Lantz home was not the homecoming Stephen had hoped for. While deployed, he took periodic journeys through a mental list of casual pleasures and relaxing activities he intended to do once he returned stateside. But the process of coming home two months before his unit and walking into a family crisis, proved harder than any return he had considered. Challenging enough were the logistical messes his departure had caused. Stephen learned quickly that being outside of the Army’s standard operating procedures invites delays, back-tracking and mistakes which only serve to annoy the already short-fused logistical officers who already had their hands full managing the massive deployment rotations. Technically, he was still activated for duty and as such he had a full-time job with the Army. Unfortunately, his unit was still in the desert. But an understanding staff officer made it possible for Stephen to work out of another somewhat nearby National Guard unit. Generously, the work he was assigned to was spending time supporting the family crisis while only periodically going by his assigned commander’s office to be accounted for. The difficulty was that it absurdly meant having to drive two hours each way just to check in with the unit every third day. It took some extra patience but he eventually learned to appreciate the runaround as a worthwhile trade-off for being by Hailey’s side.
But at home, things seemed less manageable than the war zone he had just left. Her doctors took the approach of treating Hailey’s body with a 30-day bombardment which included blood transfusions and a weekly routine of chemotherapy through a port. Every procedure terrorized Stephen and Sarah with the constant threat of side effects. There was always the risk in each procedure as nearly all the waivers they had to sign listed “potential for heart attack or stroke” written beside it. But even when an all-clear would eventually be sounded, they would still have the dread of living with the risks of long term impacts like learning disabilities or infertility could be waiting in the wind.
Anxiety reigned among them and stress levels never came off peak levels. Because civilian reintegration back to normal everyday life had been practically non-existent for Stephen, his patience level still bore the conditioning of a combat zone. There was a constant power struggle between he and Sarah as each subconsciously grasped opportunities to control situations. Stephen’s warrior mentality mixed together with the take-charge behavior Sarah had been forced to adopt during his absence constantly placed them on a collision path. It started with each grabbing for car keys on the way out the door but after a couple of weeks they hardly made any attempt to stop talking over each other. When Hailey’s hair began to fall out during the second month of treatment, Sarah’s emotional tank ran dry. By the third month of treatment, the last reserves of Sarah’s patience fell to the floor alongside their daughter’s dying blonde locks of hair.