The L Word

My sister Barb is in the hospital. A chronic cough led to a chest x-ray, which led to other tests, which led to hours of Googling on surgeons and oncologists, which led to rapidly scheduled surgery at a large medical center.

In a most amazing fashion, she had the top two lobes of her right lung removed through a tube. I could not attempt to accurately describe the procedure. I can only re-affirm my amazement and report that everything was done without her ribs being cracked to open her chest. The procedure appears to have been successful. Our family is waiting for more conclusive lab results from which a treatment plan will be devised, but so far, we are encouraged.

So many aspects of her treatment and diagnosis have been incredible. Cliché as it sounds, the expression “through the miracle of modern science” seems appropriate.

Barbara was wheeled into surgery at 11:45. She was taken to recovery just before 3:00. At 4:00. She was brought to a private room in ICU and at 5:00, her husband and I were allowed to see her. She was groggy, as would be expected, and coughed reflexively to clear her windpipe, but she was able to speak a few words to us.

“Did you call cousin Richard, Betty and John, the drapery guy?” she asked me as she tried to will herself to prevail over her postoperative stupor.

Ever the household manager, she started to bark out, or perhaps more aptly described, quietly cough out, follow-up instructions as if she wasn’t thoroughly and completely wired to her hospital bed and monitored by a thousand hair-trigger interfaces. After nodding our heads to show her that we had received her instructions, Jim and I turned to the door to go back to the family lounge and let her rest for a while. Not three feet from her bed, she called out to us, in a very uncharacteristic demonstration of affection.

“I love you.”

Jim looked at me and smiled. “Must be the morphine.”

We both chuckled at this in the moment. But as I thought about it, I wondered why. Why is it so hard to say I love you? Why is it so hard to hear, to believe?

Often, when John professes his affection to me, I’ll ponder the authenticity or timing of his remark. Oh yeah, I’ll think, it’s easy to say the L word in the throes of passion or when you’ve just received an unexpected gift. I am quick to discount the sentiment on the possibility that the expression is coming on cue.

So, whether opiates or a high degree of personal vulnerability stood behind my sister’s hospital bed exclamation, I had to admit it was wonderful to hear “I love you” anyway. Perhaps mouthing these words was easier for Barb because she could claim not being able to recall saying them later. Yet, I had to consider that the ease or challenge involved in owning an emotion makes that feeling no more or less true.

Under any circumstance, saying “I love you” is no small thing.