My husband waited until the home nurse left before shoving my head over the trash can because I couldn’t keep dinner down.
Then, while I was still trying to catch my breath, he pressed his finger directly into the tender area around my surgical incision.
Pain shot through me.
I gasped, and almost immediately, I saw a faint stain beginning to spread across the dressing.
“Tell the nurse cancer did it,” he said.
I stared at him.
Then I looked at the clock.
The nurse had forgotten her bag.
And her car was still sitting in our driveway.
The front doorknob turned before I had time to respond.
My husband heard it too.
His finger immediately lifted from my dressing, and the hard expression on his face disappeared so quickly that the change frightened me almost as much as the pain.
The nurse stepped back inside.
“Sorry,” she said. “I forgot my bag.”
Then she saw me.
I was still bent beside the trash can, one hand gripping the arm of my chair, the other instinctively protecting my abdomen.
Her eyes went straight to the fresh stain spreading through the dressing she had inspected only minutes earlier.
“What happened?” she asked.
“She got sick again,” my husband answered immediately. “It’s the cancer.”
The nurse didn’t look at him.
She kept her eyes on me.
“I asked her.”
My husband remained close enough that I could feel his leg against the side of my chair.
The adhesive around my incision pulled against my skin every time I breathed. The sour taste of dinner still coated my mouth, and my entire body felt weak.
