After the guests left Brice and Debbie’s, we called Lou, and I put him on speakerphone to give him the good news about the event.
But the instant I heard Lou’s voice, I knew he wasn’t well.
He tried to pretend he was excited, but his voice betrayed him. He sounded weak and far away. As I’ve said many times, Lou is always going to rally, and so he and Brice chatted for about ten minutes or so about the people who came in and the next steps they could take to keep building. But all I could hear was Lou’s voice fading.
I took the call off of speaker, and spoke to Lou directly. I asked him point blank to tell me the truth. Was he OK? No. He wasn’t. The clots were getting worse, and he was running a pretty bad fever. But the good news was, the urology department called, and Lou was going to be seeing a specialist from the Mayo Clinic the next day at 11:00.
All of the test results were in, and there was a lot to go over. Lou was forcing some optimism into his voice, but I knew he was scared to have an official diagnosis. The bleeding was so bad, and this new symptom of fever and chills wasn’t good.
We didn’t say it, but I think we were both pretty sure Lou was going to find out he had cancer.
As soon as I hung up with Lou, Judy called me. She had been sending me sweet and informative texts ever since I left her home, but this was the first time she called.
Judy had a serious edge to her voice when she told me she was really concerned about Lou. She said if this were happening to Dave, she would’ve checked him into the hospital hours ago. But Lou was stubborn, and he repeatedly refused both her and Dave’s advice to check back into the ER.
Judy said that Lou hadn’t been eating much, and he seemed to be avoiding fluids. She suspected that Lou was trying not to over-drink to keep his catheter bag from filling up too quickly. Judy said she felt horrible dumping all of this on me, but she thought I should know.
When I hung up from Judy, I tried to call Lou again, but his phone was off and went straight into voicemail. I remember I was sitting on some steps somewhere inside of Brice and Debbie’s home. I couldn’t help it, but I started to cry. I felt helpless and scattered inside, and I was just so tired. There was absolutely nothing I could do to change a single thing that was going wrong, and I couldn’t hide from any of it.
I tried to be rational, but Lou was the one who needed to give that perspective a try! Not me. His refusal to check into the ER made me angry… But, I also knew he was doing his best to cope with everything, too. Being in the ER all by himself wasn’t going to make him feel better. And I know I fully understood that my husband was already shutting down and trying to accept the worst-case scenarios in his own way.
I quietly slipped into the guest room, and I started repacking my suitcase. My hands felt shaky, but being idle was killing me, and there was no way I could sleep. I heard a knock at the door, and when I answered it, Debbie was standing there with a soft and gentle look on her face. She asked me to follow her to the kitchen; she said Brice needed to talk to me. So I tried to suck it up and look “normal” (whatever that looked like back then!)
When I entered the kitchen, Brice was sitting at the table, looking up flights on his laptop.
He said, “I’ve got you booked on a flight out at 6:30 tomorrow morning, and it says here you’ll arrive in Minneapolis at 10:25. I know Lou’s appointment is at 11:00, but you’ll at least get there within the hour.”
I didn’t know what to say.
My mind felt like scrambled eggs, but it sounded like he was flying me into Minneapolis to be with Lou? But how could I make that work? I had to get the rental car back to Tampa the next day! There was no way to make this work — even though the gesture was incredibly appreciated. I don’t remember how I processed all of these thoughts out loud with Brice, but I know I stammered and protested because I had to get the SUV back.
But I do remember how Brice set his jaw when he looked me in the eyes, and said, “I’ll take care of the car. You need to be with your husband. Leave your keys and the rental agreement with Debbie, and don’t worry about it. It’s done. The cab will pick you up at 4:55 in the morning to get you to the airport for your flight. Now. Go to sleep. We love you.”
And that was that.
Debbie was standing next to me, and she wrapped her arm around me and gave me a side hug. I vividly remember how she kissed the top of my head the way my mom would’ve. It was the most amazing relief to be loved this way — by two people I had only known for eight hours.
Before Debbie let go of me, Brice walked over to hand me the flight itinerary he had just printed. He squared my shoulders between his hands, and smiled at me.
“This is how we’re doing this. OK?” he said.
