2016.02.06

Yet another from the files of "...an HD thing; you wouldn't understand."
It takes MW fifteen minutes to brush her teeth. What it is, you see, is an abiding fear of sugar. And chemicals. And chemicals that effect sugar. Anyway, she can't use toothpaste because of the sweetener, so she buys an organic mouthwash; pours a dash in a cap, dips in her toothbrush and goes to town. However, even though it is organic, it is still somewhat sweet to taste, so after every brush she crams a fistful of toilette paper in her mouth and rubs it around to absorb the "sweet". And she rinses and spits a lot as well. A time consuming endeavor.
Yesterday morning she spat and - lo! - mixed in with the mucus and saliva was a tinge of red. Blood? BLOOD! MW fell into an absolute panic.
"I'm going to die. That's it," she kept saying. "I'm going to die."
Let's take a break in this narration and travel back in time; twenty years ago when MW's mother was first diagnosed with HD. One of my mother-in-law's constant complaints was a fear of cancer. She wouldn't go five minutes without slurring out the word "Cancer! Cancer, mully. Cancer!"
You can only reassure someone so often before patience departs and you're left with hostility. As an example, MW used to tell her mother - after spending the better part of a day explaining to the lady that she did NOT have cancer - that she would, in fact, be "lucky" to have cancer. That cancer would be a lot better than what she has.
Cruel, yes. But it was a cruel household into which I married. Although one suffers to stand by and be silently complacent in such base inhumanity, tales told of the abuse and neglect under MW's father's roof kept my tongue still. I may have told MW to calm down - I recall I was frequently trying to calm her down in those days - but I never forbade her from telling her mother how much better off she'd be with the big C.
Fast forward a couple decades and here we are again. MW has cancer. She has cancer. Cancer! Cancer, mully. Cancer! Over and over again.
And, God help me, in my mind.... In my mind. In my mind I say, "Yeah, you should be so lucky."
Of course I don't. No, I use my usual trick - Oh, I always cough up blood. Happens to me all the time. Look, if you want, I could cough up blood right now. See, what happens is, when the weather changes your nasal passages dry out and, well, there can be blood in your mucus. Did you want me to cough blood now? I can, you know. I cough blood all the time.
Had she asked me to, I'd've bit my inner cheek and spat blood. Easy.
Eh, not so easy. You remember that show Homicide? Where they would get a suspect in the box and trip up his testimony with an endless barrage of contradictory questions? Well Andre Brougher's got nothing on MW. I get a phone call from her while I'm at work and for thirty minutes I'm sweating under the hot lights:
When was the last time you spat blood?
Pretty much every day when I sneeze there's some blood there.
But that's when you sneeze.
Right.
What about when you spit?
Well, it's all connected.
When was the last time you spat blood?
Oh, I don't know.
Five years ago? Last year?
I can't.... I can't. I don't normally spit. I normally sneeze.
So how can you say you always spit blood?
I.... It's all connected, you see. The nasal cavity....
So you don't always spit blood?

It's an HD thing.