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If Wishes Were Horses

On the evening of May 12th, just after we finished dinner, Christina settled into her favorite reclining chair. This was her sanctuary—a place where she would meditate for hours, sometimes drifting off to sleep. I'd often go to her, gently caress her forehead, and she would respond with a quiet smile, her eyes fluttering open. But on this night, there was no response. She seemed to be in a very deep sleep. "Rest, Christina," I thought, and I went back to the kitchen to do the dishes.

The quiet was broken by our older daughter, Livia. "Dad, Mom's nose is bleeding."

"It's a side effect," I said, my hands still wet from the sink. "The Avastin can do that."

Livia's voice was filled with worry. "What if it's not? Should we call 911?"

I wanted to avoid the emergency room and the risk of COVID, so I decided to call the on-call oncologist first. "Let's see what the doctor says," I told her. "You can go ahead and wake her up and clean her nose."

The oncologist called back right away. They confirmed the nosebleed was expected, but I also told them that Christina was more lethargic than usual. I mentioned that she'd stopped taking dexamethasone two days earlier and wondered if she should start again. The doctor agreed, but gave us a warning: if the bleeding didn't stop or if she became unconscious, we should take her to the emergency room.

That conversation gave us a brief, fragile sense of hope. We wanted to believe she was going to be okay. But soon after, my wife fell completely silent and unresponsive. The paramedics came, and we rushed her to the hospital. The CAT scan showed no new bleeding, but it did show more growth. We had to make a difficult decision: increase her corticosteroids to the maximum dose and move her to the palliative care ward.

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