The blessed hellride

Back to the future - it's the end of January 2010...

My sweeties dad had come down from St. Cloud with his trailer. The plan was to trailer my sweeties motorcycle and take him down south and southwest where it was still warm and the roads dry so he could go for a ride, clear his head and decide on a course of action. I was surprised that there was anything that needed deciding, but I guess there was... My sweetie was of the opinion that it was too late for treatment to be of any use, I believe the phrase he used was 'making beds in a burning building'. My take on it was 'Really? ...Really?! So you're just planning to go down without a fight? Dude, that's so not like you at all.'

Even more surprising to me was how his family was taking the news. Both his dad and his sister invited him to come live with them at their houses so they could take care of him. He politely declined their offers and said he didn't want to leave his sweetie. They said I could come too, but he turned them down saying he liked our house and planned to stay here as long as he could. His mom didn't want him to fight it at all. Of all the different reactions people had, hers shocked me shitless. She said chemo would just make him feel sick and his pretty hair would fall out, she didn't want him to die bald and why go through all that when there's no hope of a cure? I was angry at her for that. I spent a lot of time those early months feeling pretty pissed off at a lot of different people for things they did or said in the name of 'comforting' us. Yeah...go comfort someone else you *&^%$##@.

Before the fellas had left on their road trip, I paid a visit to one of my girlfriends and spent some time crying on her shoulder about our current state of affairs. As luck would have it, her neighbor across street stopped over and from him I received some hope and encouragement. He had been diagnosed with cancer 4 years ago and like my sweetie was given the 2 month to 2 year life expectancy. He recommended going for the chemo and any other treatment they were willing to try - he said it could help a lot in the way of pain management and slowing the tumor growth. For a guy who'd been given the same bleak diagnosis as my sweetie, he looked like he was feeling pretty good.

Armed with this information, I went home feeling a little better and had a chat with my sweetie. I told him I was in this for the long haul and that if he decided to try and fight I'd have his back and do everything I could to help him. I told him about my girlfriends neighbor and what he'd said, and asked him to please think about it.

So off they went - destination south and southwest. The plan was to head down through Texas and then over to the painted desert. Once they got to a place where the weather was nice and the roads were dry, my sweetie would ride his bike while his dad followed in the truck. My sweetie was already in pretty rough shape though and the weather just wasn't cooperating. They had to go much further south than they'd planned in Texas because of it, and the trip west was scrapped because the area was having heavy rains and flooding.

My sweetie called me in the evenings when they'd stopped for the night and gave me the days progress. The weather wasn't good, the trip was physically hard on him and he missed sleeping in his own bed. He sent me photos he took with his cell phone on the way... The next day he told me they'd finally taken the bike off the trailer in southern and he went for a ride. It only took an hour or so before his shoulder started bothering him. He decided an hour was going to have to be good enough, there was more stormy weather in the forecast and he was tired of being rattled around in the truck. Time to head back home then.

I remember feeling so happy to see him when he got back. I wanted to squeeze him for all he was worth but not wanting to hurt him I settled for a gentle hug and kiss. He'd been on the road with his dad for just under a week but it felt like an eternity to me.

He and his dad had done a great deal of talking on the trip, and it seemed the plan of action was going to be fight, but know when to quit. No life support, do not resuscitate, do not intubate. He also made plans to move to a hospice facility when he was near the end. He didn't want me to have to be his nurse, he thought it would be too hard on me.

For my part, I was thoroughly put off by his mom's defeatist attitude and I decided to start going to his doctors appointments with him.