Inside Looking In: How My Wife and I Endured Her Battle with Pancreatic Cancer

ordeal.

Prologue

Patrice and Andy...we were the fun-loving couple who could always be counted on to attend parties and gatherings of family and friends. We were an All-American couple who enjoyed life to its fullest and had a future of living in which to delight. This is our story; how two people went from embracing life to confronting and then accepting death.

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Life was good in 2007. We were vibrant at age forty-seven, approaching a still youthful forty-eight. It would be an eventful year, as we started by enjoying ourselves as new members of the empty nesters set and then living through a yearlong battle with pancreatic cancer. The story recounts from this year forward, from our life as a couple enjoying every minute of our lives to then attempting to do everything we could to keep Patrice alive...and then my doing what I needed to do to help her die. Our story is one that weaves the events of our life from good, bad, and boring to the ups and downs of battling cancer.

It was in February 2009 that our lives changed and the focus of our life as a couple changed. To what extent at the time we had no idea. The best way to describe the change is we were on the inside looking in. What I mean by that is our primary focus was on doing everything we had to do to fight the cancer. As time went by, fighting the disease consumed more and more of our lives. And, yet, we chose to continue living a normal life. There were times when we were on the inside looking out. Events and activities required our attention and involvement; some of these diversions were more enjoyable than others. We were also very aware that our family and friends were on the outside looking in. Patrice and I tried to be as open and honest with everyone as we possibly could. We did not see the point in hiding information, but at the same time we would never burden others with our troubles and fears.

As time went by our friends and family would say, Andy, you need to remember to take care of yourself. My answer was always the same: I will take care of myself when I’m done taking care of Patrice. I realized they meant well. From the outside looking in, they had only glimpses into our life and couldn’t comprehend the full extent of the physical, mental, and emotional strain we endured. Hell, I know we couldn’t comprehend it at times and we were living it. The truth was I was doing what I could for myself when I had the chance.

And then it happened. It was a Saturday, nearly a year after Patrice was diagnosed, that the ordeal we endured came to a close; Patrice was at peace. Now alone, I continued with the hardship.

It seemed unfair to me that the person who endured the most intimate pain had to be the one directly involved in every closing detail after Patrice passed away. The truth is despite the burden it placed on me I wouldn’t have had it any other way. After spending nearly a year attending to every aspect of her life—of our life—I wasn’t about to step aside now. I did, however, accept the offers of others to take a larger part in some of the planning and preparation, especially with those details that were not actual arrangement decisions for Patrice.

I recall friends and family telling me again at the viewing for Patrice that I needed to take care of myself. I said I would after Thursday—the day Patrice would be buried—because in my heart I felt strongly that until that day passed, I wasn’t finished caring for the woman I loved.

I was expected to stand strongly as family and friends paid their last respects—there was still no time to take care of myself. In the days after Patrice passed, I also found there was little time to grieve or even reflect on positive memories from our life together. I learned this is the way it is with life...and with death.

Chapter 1

The year 2007 started most positively for Patrice and would end exhilaratingly for her. And, it was first-rate for me too. It was a transition period for us as a seasoned, married couple, a new stage in the evolution of our life together.

We had evolved as a couple from newlyweds to new parents to parents of teenagers to now empty nesters. Patrice and I had to learn how to live together again. We didn’t know what to expect—we just knew that if we could continue to put up with each other we would have a great time doing things we enjoyed. The top of our list was traveling more now that we had the time.

Our son, Matthew, and his girlfriend, Molly, were expecting a baby, and our daughter, Emily, was in her sophomore year at The Ohio State University. I took a new position at work that I would start the first week of February, but the best part was that I wouldn’t be there for my first week. Patrice and I were taking a Western Caribbean cruise to celebrate our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I used credit card points for a five-day cruise; we would have a suite with king-size bed, sitting area, and balcony.

The ship would leave from Tampa, so we flew in the day before and spent the night in a hotel overlooking the bay. The next morning we took a cab to the port to board our ship. Since this was our first cruise, we didn’t know what to expect. We followed the signs to check-in that pointed to an up escalator and, as we reached the top, we saw hundreds of people in line to register. At that point I saw a sign for VIP check-in and looked at our tickets—we had VIP status! There were maybe twenty people in the VIP room and four or five staff members working to check us in. We chatted with another couple as we waited, and then in less than fifteen minutes we were on board sipping our first tropical drink. We toasted to our silver anniversary and perhaps more importantly at that moment...to VIP status. Life was good!

The next day was Super Bowl Sunday—the Bears vs. the Colts. As Bears fans we planned to watch the game on the big screen in the main show lounge. Patrice wasn’t that much of a football fan, but she always enjoyed watching the Super Bowl, mostly for the commercials and the halftime show. We became Bears fans while living in the Chicago area in the early ’80s when they were building toward there championship in 1985. We arrived early, had our picture taken with the Super Bowl ice sculpture, and then got a table with a great view! We drank Coors Light and ate hot dogs and wings as we enjoyed Super Bowl XLI.

Our first port was Grand Cayman Islands. We signed up for a submarine ride excursion that took us sightseeing one hundred feet under water, and afterward we walked around town looking at Rolex watches in the island’s jewelry stores. Patrice would often tell me I should get a Rolex because every time we went to James Free Jewelers to buy jewelry for her, we looked at them. As we perused the watches from store to store in the Caymans, we saw the prices were no different than back home; however, the eager staff pointed out to us that the savings came with not having to pay sales tax. Patrice pushed for me to buy myself a watch, but I was not prepared to make that kind of decision on a Caribbean island and told her we would each get one for our fiftieth birthday.

After wistful and wishful island shopping, we set sail for two days on our way to Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Tuesday was our anniversary and Patrice decided that we should order room service instead of going to the dining room and sitting with the two young couples who never talked. We ordered our meals and a bottle of wine. Afterward Patrice decided she wanted dessert, so I called room service to find out what was available. After a couple of minutes of going back and forth with both the women from room service and Patrice, she settled on some sort of chocolate cake. A few minutes later dessert was delivered...but not what I had ordered. Instead they delivered one of every type of dessert! We sampled a few and put the rest in our fridge.

On most days and evenings, we hung out with the couple we had met in VIP check-in and went to the shows and nightclubs, gambled, and enjoyed other cruise activities.

We arrived in Mexico a day or so later. We watched from our balcony as the Mexican authorities boarded the ship—presumably to check paperwork—and then as the ship docked. For a while we thought the port was the other side of the ship because what we saw was not very inviting—it looked like a repurposed industrial dock—but that was where our cruise line eased in. We decided to just take the bus into Playa del Carmen, which included lunch at a restaurant on the beach and swimming in the Gulf (I was the only one who did). We then headed to the shopping district from there. The ride into town did not have the nicest scenery and Patrice was getting upset about seeing the dogs chained to trees or in small fenced areas.

When we got back to the ship, we walked past some local merchants selling their wares, everything from Cuban cigars to handmade jewelry, and of course we had to stop and look. Patrice saw a set of earrings and a necklace she liked but decided to pass until we were a few steps from the ship’s walkway. She was hesitant to buy jewelry from a local street vendor. What would the quality be like? After concluding that it really didn’t matter because the whole set was under $20, we hurried back to the merchants and she bought the set with 10 minutes to spare before we would leave port.

From Mexico we sailed back to Tampa to bring our wonderful vacation together to an end. As we flew home I looked over at Patrice and asked was that fun?

She leaned toward me and kissed me on the cheek and replied Yes, it was great!

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Patrice and I met in college when we were juniors at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Patrice had dated a friend of mine, yet I was interested in her as soon as I met her.

After they broke up and I waited what I felt was a reasonable time, I asked Patrice out on a date. Actually, the breakup happened at the end of our junior year, and since I went home to New Jersey for the summer I didn’t ask her out until the beginning of our senior year, when I came back to campus.

That first date was the start of a long and loving relationship. Both Patrice and I had to take an extra semester before graduating in November 1981. I had a job offer to start work in January 1982, with Commonwealth Edison in Chicago as a human factors engineer.

As our college life was coming to an end, we both realized we had a decision to make about our lives together. It was an easy decision—we would get married—but when? Since I would be moving to Chicago around the first of the year, we planned an early February wedding. On February 6, 1982, we became husband and wife, starting a new life while living in Lisle, Illinois, a far-west suburb of Chicago.

After three years in Chicago, which included the birth of our son Matthew, we moved to New Jersey, where I got a job working for AT&T. After four years living in New Jersey, which included the birth of our daughter Emily, we moved to Centerville, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. Patrice was a native of the area and it was where her mother and sisters lived.

In September 1988 I started my new job working for Lexis-Nexis, an online legal, news, and company research service. We decided to settle in Centerville, a middle-class suburban city, to be close to work. We bought a two-story, four-bedroom home in a quiet neighborhood about five miles from the office. This was the house we had both dreamed of to raise our children, and it was the house we lived in until Patrice passed away. There were so many memories in that home after twenty-one years....

Now at age forty-nine we were both showing our age to some degree. Patrice was not showing it nearly as much as I was. Patrice was a slender five-foot-four, weighing less than she did in college. She had long, deep red hair; at least that was the color for the past several years. Patrice was in excellent shape and exercised regularly by running and taking aerobics classes.

I, on the other hand, had aged more, or at least looked like I did. My hair was turning gray and thinning some, and my goatee was partially white. I had a goatee for one reason—my disdain for shaving—so it didn’t matter to me that it made me look older. I was five-foot-nine and about fifty pounds heavier than I was in college, similar to many men of my age. My exercise routine was limited to walking our dog Baxter, a five-year-old chocolate lab, three to four times a week, and playing golf.

We were most definitely animal lovers. I was partial to dogs but Patrice loved all kinds of animals. Over the years we had an array of dogs, cats, gerbils, fish, snails, parakeets, and a rabbit. Along with Baxter, we had a calico cat named Chloe that Emily got from a shelter in Columbus, and Annabelle, a furry black cat that Patrice acquired from someone at work. After her family, the pets were most important to Patrice.

Patrice was the nurturer of our family and the one person our children relied on for emotional support and for that sense of knowing she was always there. I was the one the kids came to when they needed something more tangible or if they needed help solving a problem.

Our children were almost spitting images of us, especially when they were very young. When they were born, Matt looked just like me and Emily like Patrice. As an infant and toddler, Matt was like a mini version of me right down to the cleft in his chin. We displayed pictures of Patrice and Emily when they were about the same page and it was difficult to tell them apart if you didn’t know they were two different people.

As they got older, both kids took on characteristics of both our personalities. Matt was more compassionate and emotional, a trait he got from his mother, but also had the laid-back attitude I had. Emily was a bit more high-strung, a trait she got from Patrice along with her dedication to fitness. She also had acquired my dry wit and desire to limit emotional feelings. They were definitely our children. Matt still resembled me to a degree but was a bit shorter, and Emily was a slightly taller version of Patrice.

Matt developed into a very good soccer player over the years and played central midfield on his club team and in high school. Even though Matt did not play his senior year due to an injury, he did get a scholarship to Northern Kentucky University, a small Division II school just south of Cincinnati. He played one year and decided college was not a good fit. After a few different jobs, he eventually worked his way to become assistant general manager of a local barbeque restaurant.

Emily tried several team sports including soccer, basketball, and softball, but found none of them particularly interesting. We enrolled Emily in a tumbling class, which she enjoyed greatly, and then eventually she got involved in gymnastics and competed on the high school team. Emily was also very studious, graduating ninth in her class, and attended The Ohio State University, where she enrolled in the honors program majoring in zoology with a minor in German.

The one thing both Matt and Emily have in common is that they called just to check in and talk to Patrice nearly every day. This routine started when the kids were in middle school and they were required to call Patrice at work to let her know they were home safely.

All in all we were just an ordinary suburban family.

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Patrice’s mother, Alma Lou, passed away on April 17, 2007. This was the one truly sad experience in a year that was one of the better ones we ever had as a couple. As with most families, we had experienced the loss of loved ones over the years—grandparents, aunts, and uncles—but this was the first time a member of our immediate family passed away. It was also the first time we watched from the outside as a loved one struggled for several years with the effects of a serious illness. Alma Lou died due to complications from Type 1 diabetes.

We watched as the disease took its toll on her body, from the neuropathy to the kidney failure, but not on Alma Lou’s spirit. In her final years Alma Lou showed us how to live and eventually how to die with dignity.

I don’t remember much about my mother-in-law’s passing other than getting the call late at night and Patrice going to be with her family. Patrice was very close to her mother. It was one of those relationships where they talked nearly every day even if there wasn’t anything to talk about. The one thing they did talk about before Alma Lou’s death was the excitement of our coming grandson and how much Patrice wanted her mom to be there when her great-grandson was born. Alma Lou loved the babies.

Patrice would visit Alma Lou at least once a week. As her condition worsened from the diabetes, Patrice would be there with her brothers and sisters to help their dad care for Alma Lou. After she passed away, there was a memorial service and I recall her dad showing up about a half hour after it started. His lateness may have been due to issues related to his poor health or the distress of losing his devoted wife of fifty-six years.

There was a lot going on at the memorial service. It was held at Emmanuel Roman Catholic Church, the mother of Catholic churches in Dayton, having been established in 1836. There was a traditional Mass attended by a large crowd of relatives and friends. Immediately afterward, the family greeted everyone in the rustic basement of the church, built in 1871. My sister-in-law, Mary Beth, had made arrangements with a cousin on her mom’s side of the family to cater the reception; the family owned a popular sports bar and grill called Bunkers in Vandalia, Ohio. There was plenty of good food, drink, and stories of Alma Lou. The flowers were lovely and plentiful; it was a bittersweet day. Patrice would miss her mother terribly and wanted badly to be with her, but she also knew this was how life, and death, was. Little did we realize at the time that this day foreshadowed their impending reunion.

Over the years as Patrice worked at the Washington Township Recreation Center, she developed a special friendship with her boss, Joyce Fronzaglia, the office manager. Patrice would lean on Joyce during her mother’s illness and began to rely on Joyce to fill the void being left as Alma Lou came closer to passing away.

I would refer to Joyce as a classic Italian mother. She and her husband, Stan, were maybe eight years older than us but still very active. Joyce was around five feet tall and very feisty, and it did not take much to get her riled up. She was a caring person and was always interested in how everyone was doing, and of course was also willing to offer her advice. Stan was