Peggy's Outlook Becomes More Grim

 

We are besieged by nutria, which I have been dutifully chasing away. Last week, one growled and feinted toward me before running away. I’ve since been carrying a square-pointed shovel with which to better intimidate nutria. The next time one growled and moved in my direction, I threw the shovel, the point of which hit him in the hip. As he limped away, I picked the shovel up to finish him off, but I couldn’t go through with it. Peggy’s struggle to live has so sensitized me to how beautiful life is and how fragile our bodies are that I’ve become a different person. I felt such remorse for injuring the nutria that I briefly contemplated getting a live-trap and taking him to the vet, but Oregon law requires that nutria be euthanized as a destructive species.

Peggy’s last CA-19-9 test was higher despite being back on chemo. If next week’s results are even higher, she will stop chemo. Various people have asked whether she has access to the new treatment for pancreatic cancer. No, she does not. The drug will almost certainly be FDA approved in late 2026, but Marc (her oncologist) says she will be dead by then. He’s trying to get her early access to the new drug on the basis of “compassionate use” whereby an unapproved medication can be given to someone who will die without it. The application process will take the better part of two months, and we’re three weeks into it.

Peggy’s pain is increasing along with her anger at the delay in getting the new drug, and her hopelessness over the fact that the cancer has spread to her liver. She has also lost weight. Soon after she was diagnosed, she saw an emaciated woman at the cancer center and expressed horror that she too might look like that someday. The prospect of death hangs heavy between us, and we want her to die at home. If she so deteriorates that I cannot care for her at home, we want her to be brought here if she decides to end her life. All our hopes are pinned on this new drug; we don’t know if she can get it; and we’re both concerned that her death could kill me too.

We are badly in need of the help of my church, but I’m sad to say that the church shows little interest in helping. After I stopped attending in January in order to protect Peggy from infection as she awaited two surgeries, I missed the loving community that I had experienced. To regain some of what I had lost, I emailed the thirty members of the church’s men’s group to tell them of Peggy’s illness and of my reason for missing church. Not a single man responded. I also emailed ten or more other people who had been particularly friendly to me, but only one of them responded. Because some people at church receive an outpouring of love during hard times, I can but conclude that Peggy and I are unimportant because I only started attending a year ago, and have had to stay home for the past six months in order to protect her from infection as she prepared for two surgeries. However, the two active priests and the retired priest have been very loving, and Bob and Tom, two of the men whom I met at church, have also promised to be there for us.

All our hopes are pinned on this new drug, yet we already know of two people who died while waiting.