Bad Anniversary

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of my aunt's death. Teresa was more like a sister to me. We worked at the same company, shopped for clothes together, had our Sunday night Dexter watch party each week, swam in the summer, went to the gym together, and the list goes on and on.

When she got sick in November 2009, my husband and I lived in an efficiency apartment, and she lived in the unit above us. We were watching Dexter together on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, drinking rum and coke and eating the frozen vegetable samosas that used to be a staple of our Sunday night ritual. She abruptly left our apartment after Dexter ended, but I didn't think much of it. We all had to get up and go to work the next day, which was especially painful after the long weekend.

So when she called me about half an hour later to ask me to look at my insurance card for our emergency care provider, I was in shock. "I can't pee," she told me. Can't pee? I wasn't sure how that was possible. One of my other aunts took her to the ER but everything they ran that night was inconclusive. She was told to see a urologist and sent home. Which she did on Monday. They informed her that she had a mass on her ovaries and would have to see her ob/gyn for further testing. Ob/gyn referred her to a cancer clinic. Cancer? We all knew that couldn't be right. Teresa was 48, youngest of 5 siblings and no family history of cancer. But whatever. They were going to remove her ovaries, but not until December 23rd.

Fast forward to the week before Christmas. Teresa is puking and passing out. Stubborn as usual, she insisted that we couldn't call an ambulance. After hours of debating, we finally did. The doctors didn't know why she was so sick, but the surgeon couldn't move up the surgery. So she stayed in the hospital and we waited.

Two days before Christmas she almost died on the operating table. The surgeon knew as soon as he started that it was cancer, spread to all of her reproductive organs. The ovary removal turned into a full hysterectomy, and as the surgeon described it 'the anesthesiologist was pumping blood into her as quickly as it was hemorrhaging out.'

Surely it was a miracle. The surgeon had removed all of the cancer that he could see. Her other organs weren't affected. At first, they thought the grapefruit sized mass was because of ovarian cancer, but after tests and scans, they found it was actually GIST, a very rare gastrointestinal cancer. But there were treatments that didn't involve chemo. Teresa was elated. Just take a pill and it will keep the cancer from spreading. We could still go get our hair dyed together.

The first medicine didn't work. And neither did the next one. That one made her feet and hands burn, from the inside. If your'e wondering what that looks like, huge red blisters that make it hard to walk or use your hands. The last medicine, which had done well in clinical trials, was prescribed 'off label' to treat her cancer. That one didn't work, either. Fluid began accumulating in her abdomen, and about once, sometimes twice a week she would go to have it drained.

Of course we were all still in denial. She had an incredible will to live! She was a fighter! She'd kick this! And even though it was a terrible, horrible cancer, there were people who had lived with it for years, upwards of 10, still functioning normally.

But in August 2010, when the final medicine stopped working and she was too sick to enter a clinical trial, she went into the hospital - and didn't come out. We all rotated 'death watch' - she couldn't die alone. On the morning of August 15th, when I went to see her, she was comatose. Her hands were blue and felt stiff. Her face sunken. It's not like on TV, where the loved one whispers a sad goodbye then comfortably drifts away. No, death is ugly.

She died that night. I wasn't there. My aunt was, her oldest sister. I'm glad. I wouldn't want to see that. I don't think I could have handled it.

For the first year after (and sometimes now, but not as frequently) I'd have panic attacks at work. I couldn't walk on the side of the building where her cubicle used to be. I saw a grief counselor. He told me I should make myself go to her desk and embrace the feelings. He was probably right, but I never did it.

Not a day goes by that I don't think about Teresa. The difference now is that I can talk about her without crying. I no longer dream about her every night. And when I think about her, it gets easier to remember the good stuff, and not just the death part.

It took me almost two years to truly comprehend that I still needed to live, even though she had died. That it was okay to laugh. For some reason, I thought this anniversary would be a little bit easier than the last two. But it isn't. I find myself near tears, frustrated and angry, and there's no specific reason. I know tomorrow will be hard. We will go to the grave, put some flowers out and take a picture. For what reason, I can't tell you. I feel close to Teresa because of the memories we shared, not by going to look at a grave marker.

When she was in the middle of her battle and getting monthly scans for cancer cells, she was told not to go around pregnant women or children due to the radiation. My husband - who comes up with crazy, creative things - made her a radioactive meter. It had her picture on it with a dial you could spin. It would land on things like 'okay to hug' (the lowest point on the meter) to 'just call me dr. manhattan' (the highest point). She loved it so much she put it up at work. Cancer wasn't going to kill her humor, too.

I still have that meter. It's tucked in a drawer.

We moved out of the apartment less than a year after she died. It was too hard. I haven't been able to move on from work. I hated the fact that everyone knew about it. I wanted to grieve in private. I take August 15th off every year. I will never work that day again, if I can help it. I don't know why. I don't even know if Teresa knows it's my silent tribute to her, but I do it anyway.

There are several people who were close to her at work that kept the pamphlet from the funeral and have it tacked up in their cubes. It makes me sad and happy at the same time. I don't want her to be forgotten, but I have a really hard time seeing it. I didn't even keep one. A memorial from a funeral. It seemed absurd at the time.

When I was leaving work today, a colleague asked me if I had plans for my days off. I said no. Another colleague piped up that it was an anniversary for me. I don't know how he knew. I remember him at the funeral. It was actually sweet that he remembered, but it still made me want to cry.

I don't think it ever gets easier, it just becomes normal.