it was clear Don was in trouble. I moved closer to him, heard his labored, rattling breathing, and saw that his nail beds were blue. “Honey, you’re in respiratory distress; I have to call someone.” The trained nurse in me went into action as I fought to keep back my fear. I turned the oxygen up to its maximum (five liters), held Don’s head against my body, and rubbed his back in an effort to calm him. If he panics, he might die, I thought.
“Don’t call 911. They’ll take me to that crappy-ass hospital,” he said, his normally booming voice gravelly and shaky, his whole body trembling. I helped him lie back on the pillows. His breathing slowed as he began to calm down. After I checked his blood pressure and pulse, I called his pulmonologist and got the number of a private ambulance service to take him to Cedars-Sinai where his doctors and all of his medical records were.
He looked up at me with his blue, blue eyes and quipped, “I guess I’ll be spending all day in bed.”
That’s Donnie.
***
On January 22, 2008, seven months before that horrible morning, I walked into my kitchen to find my invincible husband leaning against the counter with news that would shake the foundation of our lives. In twenty years of marriage, I had never seen Don show fear. This man would have torn apart a bear with his bare hands for me and our daughters Christine, Skye, and Liisi, then bellowed, “Come on, what else ya’ got?” But on his face that afternoon was the same look I’d seen when he learned his best friend, Steve Susskind, had been killed in a car accident: shock and disbelief.
“Where are the girls?” he asked.
“Upstairs. Why?”
Then Don said the word that had been lurking within both of us for the past two months. Through the bouts of shortness of breath; the fatigue and coughing; the questionable spot on his colon found in a routine colonoscopy; the collapsed lung that threatened his rich, booming baritone; the bronchoscopy about which the physician had said, “We don’t see any cancer,”; and the PET scans. Now, just back from a second consultation with an oncologist, Don said, “They found lung cancer.”
I went to him and held him, furious that the doctor had given my boy this bad diagnosis while he was alone. “Whatever it is, we’re gonna get through it,” I said. The nurse in me knew this was a condition without a cure, but with so many new drugs, his sheer will to fight, and our faith, I knew that we were going to try to beat the odds. This is my husband, after all—the strongest, kindest man I’ve ever known, I thought.
Don had faced other health and life challenges, and he’d looked them in the eye and conquered them. We had a saying when challenges arose: “Well at least it’s not cancer. Everything else we can handle!” Now cancer was in the living room of our lives, and we were forced to reckon with the awful fear that comes with just saying the word. Still, I knew Don to be a bull of a man—a tenacious spirit who could rise above anything—and that was what we were going to call upon.
We held onto each other in the middle of our kitchen, and I felt him lean into me. I was the one who usually leaned on him. For a few quiet moments we comforted each other without saying a word. And then we prayed, asking for strength to bear whatever this was. I knew God would see us through.
Don went to his computer to escape. (He loved emailing and watching Rachel Maddow and Keith Olberman. He loved their intelligence.) Though it’s my nature to try and fix everything and everybody, I understood. This was one that needed some space.
I called my sister Kathy, my prayer partner, and told her what we had just learned. Calling out to her, I used my voice to gain support and to rally those who would eventually become my prayer warriors throughout our entire ordeal. She was first on my list. Then I broke down and cried.
Kathy fortified me with her faith, conviction, and a word of prayer. She and Don were very close. The fear the word “cancer” brought up in me was over- whelming, and I had to release it so my husband would see only safety in my eyes.
After I spoke with Kathy, I called my two dearest friends, Deb and Adam. They both prayed with me for our family right there, and as they prayed I cried and found my strength and resolve to jump in the ring with this thing called cancer and fight like hell. When I got it together, I did what every woman with a family does: I began to make dinner.
“We will tell people when we are on the other side of this,” Don said later. He didn’t want anything to get out that could stop his career, so we chose to be careful about who we shared this information with. Don was very old-school Hollywood in this way: it was very important to him that he continue working.
Then we had to decide how to broach this with each of the girls. We called Christine in Florida, Don’s beloved daughter—who I call my bonus daughter. She had just had her first child, Riley; a little boy who filled Don’s heart with joy. Christine broke down and cried when we told her. Don reassured her he would be fine—that he was going to kick this thing.
Earlier that afternoon, Don had called home from the doctor’s office and blurted out his diagnosis as soon as (he thought) I answered the phone.
“Oh. Do you know Heath Ledger died today, Dad?” eighteen-year-old Skye responded. It was only then that Don realized he was not talking to me and apologized profusely.
When I asked Skye that night how she felt having heard her father had cancer, she didn’t seem upset. “Well, Dad’s gonna get over it. He’s very strong, Mom. We’ve just gotta fight it.”
This is her way, I thought. But Liisi could not have been more different. She is highly sensitive, her emotions often overwhelm her, and at that time she was experiencing enormous fears of death. We made a decision based on what she could handle. We didn’t give her the word “cancer”, we told her Dad had an abnormality in his lung and he needed radiation and chemical treatment. She accepted our words.
We’d known Johnnie Stewart—a spiritual mentor—for several years, and I had called on her to pray with me many times. I consulted her again in January when there was still so much uncertainty, yet we finally knew what we were fighting. During our conversation she encouraged me to speak positive words with Don. After we talked, she emailed me an affirmation to say with Don. An affirmation is a group of words said repeatedly to facilitate bringing to reality what you speak. It’s a vehicle to help you use your voice to bring about change. I wasn’t sure how Don would take it, but when I read it to him he liked the idea right away. “Let’s do it,” he said.
There is a scripture in the Bible that reads: “Whatsoever things are righteous, good and beautiful. Think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8) The affirmation Johnnie gave us was very simple and in keeping with this teaching of focusing on all that is good. We focused on the best—on seeing Don healed—not the worst. “I see me well,” Don would say to me. “I see you well,” I’d reply. Then we’d touch hands to complete our intention.
The girls saw us saying this to each other frequently, but since Don and I had so many little idioms between us they would just shake their heads and smile at each other. Still, on what we started calling “dip days,” when Don’s energy flagged after chemo, Skye would go into our room if Don was resting, fluff his pillows, and bring him a cup of tea.
***
Two days after Don’s diagnosis, he began chemotherapy. The plan was for Don to receive four cycles spaced three weeks apart, and thirty-five radiation treatments with weekends off. He experienced few side effects.
I located a physician who specialized in a newer area of treatment called integrative oncology.
