Susana Moreira Marques - Now and at the Hour of Our Death

my stepdad is like a father to me, his first wife died of the same thing I have and I think he’s hurting as if he was my own dad… when he was sick just now, when he was in a coma, they told me I could go see him and so I did and when I sat next to him, it was… because we’re real close it was disturbing to see him like that… the nurse asked if I was ok and I said, sure I am, except then I started crying, I said I am, but I won’t come see him again while he’s like this and she said, but you can hold his hand, you can talk to him, so I held his hand and I talked to him, but he didn’t react, he just lay there… when he woke up from his coma and came home he told me what I’d said: so, honey, I guess you didn’t want to see me, he said, and I said, what do you mean I didn’t want to see you? I did want to see you and I went and I saw you… then he said, the first time you visited you told the nurse, I won’t come see him again while he’s like this, and you started crying… and I asked, oh, who told you, and he said no one told me, I heard it, like I heard it when you were holding my hand and you said Claudino, Claudino don’t leave me, I’ve already lost one father, I can’t lose another

I lost my dad seventeen years ago, I’m forty now so I would’ve been twenty-three then, he died very suddenly — a heart attack — it was totally unexpected, he’d never been sick, he’d always been so healthy, but one day when he was getting out of bed, he just keeled over and that was it

I had the operation on July 23, 2008, I was thirty-seven years old… my son was turning four on July 28 and I was in the hospital, the poor boy… my kids, they wanted to come see me in the hospital, and I wanted to see them, too, but I was plugged into a serum drip and into all these machines and I asked them to take it all out, so that at least they wouldn’t have to see me like that, plugged in, and the nurses took it all out, and the kids came, and their mom was lying in bed and she couldn’t move, but at least they didn’t have to see all those machines plugged into me

they only found the tumor when I was on the operating table… I’d been admitted to the hospital for a minor appendix operation, I was in a lot of pain, but they thought it was my appendix, and the doctor said, it’s a minor operation — so minor I woke up in the middle of it and they had to give me more anesthetic and the whole thing lasted six hours… I had it done in Bragança, and the doctor who operated on me died two days later, something about a plane crash and the doctor just disappeared — they never found the body, it was all anyone talked about back then… they even said that the doctor had planned it himself ’cause he’d been having some personal problems and he’d wanted to disappear, and they never did find the body… he was the one who had started operating on me first, but then, when he found more than he’d bargained for he called in someone else ’cause he couldn’t do it all on his own, and when he was explaining what was going on to the other doctor, this Spanish doctor, that’s when I woke up, and I heard him telling him how it was supposed to be a minor appendix operation, but it was more complicated now, he said, she’s got a tumor, and the tumor’s been punctured, we’ve got a lot of work to do, but then maybe I moved, I’m not sure, I just know that he said, quick, quick the patient’s waking up, the anesthetic’s wearing off, we’ve got to give her more, but make it a stronger dose this time ’cause it’s more complicated now and I don’t know how long we’ll be operating for… and I heard everything… I think those must have been the worst days of my life… when I got out of surgery, my son’s godmother was there with one of my friends, they were both there and the doctor said he could only talk to family members, and they said, look, her husband is with the kids, but we’re here on his behalf, we’d like to know, and the doctor told them. He told them what was happening, but they didn’t tell me, instead my son’s godmother told me, everything’s ok, Paula, and I said, don’t tell me everything’s ok ’cause I know it’s not, I know what’s up, and she started crying, and I said, you don’t have to lie to me, I know what’s going on, and she just stood there with her mouth open, ’cause how could I know what was going on if I’d just got out of surgery? The day after the operation, the doctor came to talk to me and I said to him, tell me everything, don’t try hiding anything from me, ’cause I heard you, and he said, we still don’t know if the tumor’s malignant or if it’s benign… then they put me in the isolation ward, I was there for five days, and I wasn’t allowed any visitors, they only let me see my husband and the priest — the one who took us to Macau — and my brother, the firefighter, he came in his uniform, but apart from them I didn’t see anyone… when they let me out of isolation I was taken to a room and some nurses came with some paperwork from the oncology hospital, and they had a lot of questions for me and that’s when it really hit me, ’cause when you see the word oncology you picture it all, you imagine the worst-case scenario, all kinds of things go through your head… when they got the results, the doctor, the Spanish one, he came and told me that they had the test results, but that it was treatable, he tried to make things sound less bad: it’s treatable, he said, I got everything out, everything’s clean, I didn’t leave any of it in there, and… everything was clean in my intestines, but it’d already reached my liver by then… when you hear something like that, you think all kinds of things… why me? What did I do? You think… before this kind of thing happens, you think it’s something that happens to other people, but never to you — it’s something that happens to so-and-so, to someone else, but not to you, nothing’s ever supposed to happen to you

this kind of thing is just so terrible that maybe it’s better not to talk about it at all… I don’t mind if other people do, but I try not to… when people ask me if I’m doing better now I say I’m fine, I always say I’m doing just fine, even though sometimes I’m not feeling all that great… and people say you don’t even look sick, look at your complexion, you look really good, and I say, I’m not sick, I’m not sick at all, ’cause if you start saying you’re sick, I think it’s even worse then, you feel worse, and your friends, even your closest friends, they feel worse too — if there’s anything we can do to help, anything at all, they’ll say… and then it’s harder for whoever’s around, so it’s better to always say you’re ok, sometimes you might not be doing that great, but you still say you’re doing just fine

I’ve got used to the idea of having this illness and it’s just something I’ve got to deal with, it’s not like it’s going away… in the beginning, when it was only in my intestines, all I wanted was for it to go away, but then it reached my liver and that was it, the doctor told me the cancer had metastasized in my liver and it was there to stay… they explained that it was gonna keep growing, even if they cut it out, it would just keep growing… I was hoping they’d cut the root of it outta my liver and that that would be the end of it, but that’s not what happened, so I had to get used to living with it, for however long I had left… I’d have to live with it and that was that. I got used to it, I’ve gotta get used to it

we go to bed, I wait for my husband to fall asleep, and then I get up and I walk downstairs, especially when I have an appointment the next day, and all kinds of things go through my head, everything, absolutely everything… what if something happens, what are we gonna do about the kids? When I’m down here on my own, I think of them, of how they’ll manage if I’m not here