52 Weeks

A year ago today, Sami and I left Las Cruces a few minutes before 7 a.m., headed for Reserve, New Mexico (for a lunch meeting) and ultimately for Flagstaff, Arizona (our halfway point on our drive home from visiting Lara). The desert sunrise was notable; I still have a photo on my phone, taken from Lara’s front steps. Sami slept off and on as we made our way through Silver City and along the Gila River, which she often did during long trips. While we ate lunch, snow started falling, making the drive into Arizona slippery. Driving a road I’d never driven before, through the snow, required all of my concentration; I finally relaxed a bit when conditions improved north of Alpine, Arizona.

As I relaxed, I began to notice that Sami was having difficulty finishing sentences. She’d start to say something and then trail off before she could finish her thought. As the afternoon wore on, I grew frustrated with her - she seemed so distracted. When we arrived in Flagstaff after dark, we checked into our hotel and walked next door to grab dinner. I asked her what was going on - what was wrong. “Nothing,” she insisted, “I’m just tired.”

We pulled out of Flagstaff early the next morning. Interstate 40 was icy, so I drove first. We switched seats in Kingman, and Sami drove us into California. The weather cleared, but the wind was blowing - we joked that the wind was pushing the truck around, making it hard for Sami to stay in her lane. Somewhere between Needles and Barstow, I got behind the wheel again, taking us through Bakersfield. By the time Sami started driving again near Tulare, it was late afternoon. She was still having trouble finishing a thought, and trouble staying in her lane of traffic on Highway 99. We called Emma in Idaho, putting her on speaker phone - Sami didn’t say much.

We reached Merced and a confusing stretch of roadwork after dark. Sami exited the freeway and asked me to drive. We had trouble figuring out how to get back on the freeway; Sami was confused by what Google Maps was telling us to do. I, of course, grew frustrated again.

Sometime after 8 p.m., we pulled into our driveway. Since we’d been gone more than a week, the house was cold. Sami said she’d unload the truck if I’d work on getting a fire going in the wood stove and feed the animals. She stopped unpacking about halfway through, telling me she was tired. I grumbled my way through unloading the rest of the truck. We went to bed.

The next day (Wednesday), I went back to work. Sami stayed home to put things away and return phone calls. She still had difficulty finding words (a condition we would soon learn was called aphasia). On Thursday morning, we both arose around 5 a.m. Sami said she felt nauseous. I left to move sheep. When I returned home around 8:30, Sami was sitting in front of the wood stove. She said, “I just passed out. I thought I was going to be sick, so I went into the bathroom. I came to on the floor. I don’t know what happened.”

I insisted that she try calling her doctor. When she couldn’t get through, we decided to go to the emergency room. After running a series of tests, the doctor thought she had some type of aortic aneurysm, and since she’d fainted, the doctor suspended her driver’s license.

That evening, Sami had a fair board meeting she didn’t want to miss. I took her to her meeting, picking her up when it was over. We talked about the meeting, and Sami noted that she’d had difficulty writing (she was right-handed). We both thought that was odd.

Friday morning, I had to leave for work early. By this time, all of us were very worried. Lara and I talked while I was driving to work, and we made Sami agree that we would check in on her every half hour or so while I was gone. When I got home that afternoon, we finally heard from Sami’s doctor, who found the neurological symptoms (aphasia and writing difficulties) concerning. She told us to go back to the ER, and she called ahead to talk to the doctor. As we walked from the parking lot, I remarked that Sami seemed to be dragging her right foot. Later that night, the doctor told us a CT scan had revealed a mass on Sami’s left frontal lobe. He had referred her to a larger hospital for an MRI as soon as possible. By 10:30 the next morning, Sami was being prepped for what was to be the first of two brain surgeries. Just 202 days after we started home from New Mexico, Sami passed away from glioblastoma.

Even a year later, this six day stretch of time seems so clear - and so surreal. When we got into the truck on that January morning, I was excited to see new country, and nervous about the snow in the forecast. When we arrived in Flagstaff, I was relieved to be off the icy roads and annoyed with Sami for being so distracted. Annoyance gave way to anxiety and uncertainty, as we began to realize that something was seriously wrong. And then my memory grows a bit fuzzier; the two weeks between her first surgery and her second are far less clear, as is the rest of 2023.

Sami recovered from her first craniotomy and returned home. Lara and Emma returned to their homes, too. And then Sami felt worse - just 16 days after her first surgery, she was back in the hospital. And just 18 days later, she underwent a second craniotomy. My next clear memories are of the second surgeon telling us she had glioblastoma, and of sitting next to her in the neuro ICU after she’d come out of surgery on February 15. She held my left hand all night, rubbing the knuckles raw with her thumb. We were both so scared.

Looking back at all of this a year later makes me think how naive I was. On that Monday morning, we both expected that life would simply go on as it had been going. We were in our mid fifties and (we thought) in decent health. Sami was training for a half marathon in March. I was looking forward to lambing season in mid February. We were both figuring we’d settle back into our work routines upon returning from a wonderful trip.

Today, 52 weeks later, I find myself searching for lessons. Cliches like, “take life a day at a time,” and “live every day like it’s your last,” resonate to some degree, but they fail to acknowledge the magnitude of what our family experienced. I also find myself thinking about how Sami experienced those weeks after we returned from our trip. As much as I try to put myself in her shoes, I know I’ll never truly understand what she was feeling. And I find myself wondering who and where I’ll be 52 weeks from today. I guess that might be one of the lessons of this past year - none of us really know.