The same color from the hallway adorns the room’s walls, though it’s barely visible with all the mocha-colored bookshelves lining the room. His desk with beefy legs sits in the center of his office, cluttered with medical charts and paperwork, and behind it a large monitor displaying a CT scan of lungs.
Dr. Riedel stands from his chair dressed in a standard white coat, the cuffs rolled up to reveal weathered forearms with a tattoo—a faint outline of a mountain range. He offers me a handshake and gestures toward the two chairs across from him.
He’s in his late fifties with a trim yet wiry build. The kind of frame that suggests an active lifestyle of running miles and miles each week coupled with long hours in the hospital. His salt and pepper hair, which is mostly silver at the temples, is neatly combed back, though a few strands fall across his prominent forehead. With laugh lines around his mouth and crow’s feet marring his sun-kissed skin, the man looks like a mash-up of overly stressed and without a care in the world.
I pull out the chair for my mom and help her sit, then move her oxygen to her side, and Dr. Riedel follows my movement with his deep-set hazel eyes.
Voice steady, he asks, “How have you been feeling, Mrs. Sullivan? Any new discomfort or pain since we last met?”
“It’s been … fine,” my mother answers, voice hoarse.
I finally take a seat and look at her, annoyed. She’snot“fine.”
She sighs. “The nights are tougher—can’t lie flat without coughing, but it’s nothing.”
I shift in the cloth seat. Typically, I’m a fly on the wall in these appointments. My mom hates when I butt in, gives me a lecture each time I pick her up, but I can’t sit here when the bags under her eyes are so heavy, purple and blue and practically translucent.
“She doesn’t sleep. And”—I think about all the uneaten groceries I found earlier when I brought her more—“she’s been skipping meals. Says she’s not hungry, but … she’s lost more weight.”
My mom’s ire burns into the side of my head, but Dr. Riedel nods empathetically. “Weight loss and appetite changes are common at this stage, but we can look into adjusting the nausea medication. It might help.”
He turns behind him to the monitor, tapping at the image of lungs. My mother’s lungs.
I clench my jaw and look away.
“The latest scans show more progression. The tumors in the right lung have grown slightly, and there’s more fluid buildup. This explains the shortness of breath and increased coughing.”
“So …” my mom says softly. “Come on, Doc, don’t hold back. Am I dying today or tomorrow?”
“Mom!”
Dr. Riedel chuckles, holding up his hands.
The first time she made comments like this, at the beginning of her treatments, he was stunned into silence. Since then, he’s … gotten used to it. I however …
“It means we need to focus on your comfort. As we’ve talked about before, aggressive treatments wouldn’t provide much benefit at this stage. We’ll continue to focus on palliative care.”
Instinctively, I grab my mother’s hand. It’s cold. Frail. “We’ve tried the rotation of nurses. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t need help,” my mother grits out.
Dr. Riedel sighs, turning to sit at his desk. He shuffles his papers before steepling his hands to his lips. “I’m saying someone full time, not necessarily hospice care, but Mrs. Sullivan, you shouldn’t be alone. Our goal is to ensure that you’re as comfortable as possible.”
My mom forces a weak smile. “No more poking and prodding shit? I’m happy about that. A silver lining.”
I shake my head, wishing she wasn’t so stubborn and hardheaded. I want to ask about further immunotherapies that we haven’t ruled out yet, but I figure it will only irritate her.
“We’ll continue with the oxygen therapy to help with your breathing, and I’ll prescribe a stronger cough suppressant. If and when you’re ready for full-time hospice?—”
“I won’t be,” my mother snarls.
This time I don’t bother saying anything.
Dr. Riedel speaks with a measured cadence that could probably calm the most anxious patient. However, that doesn’t work on my mother, and though his word choice is deliberate, his mention of hospice to my mother never goes well.
The weight on my chest grows. I thought we made progress with the nurses helping every so often, but it seems to have made things worse. I need someone to live with her, to watch out for her. She won’t let me, won’t allow a nurse—so what do I do?
My knuckles ache as I fist my jeans. I don’t want her to go through this, but I don’t want to lose her.
