The Marcia Wallace Interview
by Gary Barg
You may know her as Carol
Kester Bondurant from The Newhart Show, or Edna Krabappel from The Simpson’s, or even Maggie Hawley
from That’s My Bush, but Marcia Wallace is also a breast
cancer survivor, friend, caregiver, mother and now, author of a very
funny and poignant book “don’t look back, we’re not going that
way!” In the newly released book, Marcia details her life before,
during and after caring for her husband, Dennis Hawley, who passed
away six months after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Marcia recently sat down with Editor-in-Chief Gary Barg to talk
about her life as a cancer advocate and as a caregiver.
Gary Barg:
You became a caregiver when your husband Dennis was diagnosed with
pancreatic cancer, but throughout the whole experience, you gave
yourself the right to deal with it humorously. How were you able to
get to that point?
 Marcia Wallace
It’s just who I am. A lot of it depends on the patient, too, I
think. Dennis was such a classy guy, and was always aware of what
was going on, and was willing to talk about it. There should be more
of a rule book. Being a caregiver is the most thankless role in the
world. Everybody gives the patient some slack, as they should, but
the caregiver has the stress of life and then you put a catastrophic
illness on top of it and the stress goes through the roof.
GB:
Why do you think humor is so important to caregivers?
MW:
Humor is great for the immune system. You know, Norman Cousins
always said that laughter is the only wall between us and the dark.
Everybody laughs when things are going well, but when things aren’t
going well, people think that if they laugh when everything is
falling apart, it somehow trivializes a very stressful time. If
anything, you need laughter more than ever during a time like this.
People around you tend to get very quiet, and they tend to treat you
in different ways, and they get very afraid to lighten things up.
It’s like the elephant in the middle of the room, with no one
willing to acknowledge what is going on.
GB:
Were you a breast cancer survivor when Dennis became ill?
MW:
Yes, I was already a breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with
breast cancer three days after he asked me to marry him. He got
cancer six years later. I was already a breast cancer survivor, and
he, of course, was there for me. Dennis made it very clear that he
would love me with or without a breast. We had a partnership. I
think illness is a family journey, no matter what the outcome,
everybody has to be allowed to process it and mourn and deal with it
in their own way.
GB:
Communicating with the doctors can be very difficult. You go into
the doctor’s office with 50 questions, you can’t remember any of
them, and then they give you eight minutes.
MW:
They start looking at their watch. You have to go in and think
“they’re working for me, and my time is just as valuable as theirs.”
At the same time, it’s very hard because the doctors are not seeing
people at their best. They’re seeing frightened people, confused
people, and overwhelmed people. If there’s ever a time you need to
have someone with you when you are being assaulted by the language
of your disease and all the feelings that go with it, it’s in the
doctors office. You need to take that person who cares deeply about
you and can help think of questions that need to be asked, and who
can be an advocate – an advocate who isn’t worried about being a
good sport or pissing someone off. Not that you should behave badly,
but I think you really, desperately need someone in your corner to
be an advocate, and be a squeaky wheel if necessary.
GB:
How did you deal with that?
MW: I tell the story about how the doctor said, “You have breast cancer
and I recommend a mastectomy” and then Dennis was the one who
thought to ask, “Well, is there a difference in the survival rate
between a lumpectomy and a mastectomy?” and the doctor said, “No,
but if it were my wife…” and that’s when I said, “Well, what if it
were your testicles?” but that’s another story. The thing to
remember is there is no such thing as an unreasonable question, or a
silly question, or a frivolous question, or a waste-of-time
question. It’s your life and you’ve got to get these answers.
GB:
It makes you feel that some doctors need to learn from their nurses.
MW:
That’s true. Those nurses are my heroes. Dennis was rarely
hospitalized, and he was able to die at home. We dealt with a lot of
oncology nurses because of this. They are unsung and underpaid, I’m
sure. The doctors that I did meet who care about the patient, like
my personal oncologist during my breast cancer and Dennis’s
radiologist, are people I will remember forever. But they were few
and far between, but I can’t really judge, because I’m sure it
really is hard to be an oncologist, and actually, more and more
people are surviving cancer.
GB:
Were you able to discuss Dennis’ illness with your son?
MW:
My son was five, and people told us that he was too young to
know the truth, and again, we felt it was a family journey, that it
was up to us to involve him. His preschool teacher said, “When I was
10, my mother died. When she was sick, everyone thought
they were doing me a favor by
not talking about it, that they didn’t want to scare me, but it
shaped my whole life. You have to involve your son.” When Dennis
died, he asked, “Is daddy dead?” and I said, “Yes,” and he said,
“Let’s call the firemen and they’ll throw water on him and he’ll
grow again.” But we talked to him and we involved him. It’s a family
journey.
GB:
How did you deal with the realization that
Dennis’ time was growing shorter?
MW:
I came into this as a person who is comfortable talking personally,
and as an in-your-face type of gal, so I didn’t have to learn to be
somebody different, but with some people, it’s just not their style,
and that’s when it gets to be doubly hard, especially where doctors
are concerned. I think when people get sick, others feel they have
to say something profound, but if there was ever a time when you
don’t need to say anything, the value of silence and the value of
listening, this is the time for those things.
When you’re going through all
of this, the last thing you’re thinking of as a patient, and
especially as a caregiver, is to give yourself something that
nurtures you and something that helps you not to get overwhelmed and
burned out. Poetry, silence, walks, back rubs, or swimming,
whatever, it’s the thing you need most, and it’s the thing you have
to give yourself. Then, you also feel you have to be on your best
behavior; I never did feel that. My husband had to tell me to let
go. All the things he loved about me when he was well … my
persistence, my tenacity … were all the things that got on his
nerves when he was dying. He said, “Look, I’m dying. I can’t play
with my son; I can’t cook a meal for my friends. I’m dying and
please don’t make me feel like a failure. You’ve got to let go.” I
said okay.
He waited to say this. He would
have already been gone, because he had pancreatic cancer. A few days
before he told me this, I had taken him to a doctor, and looking
back, I know that I was a very good wife and partner, but he once
told me, “Everyone wants me to be comfortable, and you want me to
live.” When we were at the doctor’s, I said something, and the
doctor started to point his finger and say, “You should…” and I
grabbed his finger and said, “I am so tired of people telling me
what I should and shouldn’t do. When your wife is dying, come talk
to me.” Obviously, I didn’t hold back. He called me later to
apologize and to tell me that I was right.
GB:
I think part of the challenge is that we think we have to hang on to
this pain and angst because if we let go, we’ll crumble.
MW: You’re right. At the time, I thought I was really in control, but
looking back on it, I realize I wasn’t. There’s a story in the book
about how Dennis had been out of work, I had to dissolve my
retirement fund, we were close to losing our house, and we actually
had to put it on the market. People would come by to see the house,
and when Dennis was better, we’d put him in the backyard or in the
living room, and people would see this guy sitting there hooked-up
to all these IV’s and this demented woman from the Bob Newhart Show
showing them around. Towards the end, Dennis was in so much pain
that he wore very little clothing, so people came and saw an almost
naked man sitting there. And we wondered why we never were able to
sell the house. I’m so glad now that I was able to keep my son here,
and that Dennis was able to die in the house he loved so much.
GB:
We talk about a Reverse Gift List, which helps you learn to ask
friends and family members for the help you need and we find that no
one ever says no.
MW: No they don’t. But what if they do? That
was always one of my fears, but no one ever said no to me, and if
they did, it would have been for a damn, good reason. I had a
tremendous network of friends and I asked for help, which is the
hardest thing in the world. I told people that they could bring me
food, or they could take Denny to his appointment. The first few
calls were murder, because I felt that I should be able to do it all
myself. I always showed a tremendous amount of appreciation, and
people would tell me that I was their hero and I would think, yeah
right. It was the little things that people would do, like walking
the dog or bringing food by. It’s especially great when you don’t
have to ask people for things, and they just do it. Most people want
to be told what to do though, and you have to be willing to do that.
GB:
What got you through all of this?
MW:
Well, I’m a Buddhist, so I did a lot of chanting. Neither one of us
ever said, “Why me?” or “It’s not fair” which is kind of a dead end
road. Dennis would say, “Why not me? It sucks, but why not
me?” I was also driven by the fact that I should be able to
single-handedly make him live. I was driven by denial for a while. I
carried it to excess, but that should be your goal. If one guy
survives this malignancy, then why shouldn’t you be that one? I
don’t know what religious people do. I kind of wished I’d been a
Christian with the blind faith that God is doing the right thing. As
a Buddhist, you feel like you have more control over the situation,
and that you can change your karma. I ended up walking away from
this thing feeling like it was much more of a crapshoot than I had
been lead to believe it to be. It shakes your very foundation.
GB:
What advice do you have for
other caregivers?
MW:
Be good to yourself.
Listen to your body, to your
heart. We’re very hard on ourselves, and we’re always feeling like
we’re not doing enough. It’s a terribly hard job. Remember, the
things you never think of doing for yourself as a caregiver are the
things you should make sure you are doing for yourself. Whatever
gives you some respite and a little time. Don’t be afraid to
express things that you think might be negative. I went to some
support groups, but Denny had pancreatic cancer, and people go so
quickly with this type of cancer, so I really didn’t have a chance
or the time. He lasted six months, which was actually a long time
for this type of cancer. I’m in awe of people out there who deal
with Alzheimer’s because they have to deal with death ten times
over, year after year. I certainly dealt with that, but it was
condensed. That’s the thing about medical people. Not only do they
not see people at their best, but a lot of the people they see are
really almost gone at the end. He was so charming, and he made
people feel so good to be around him, my Denny. They can still be
alive, but the essence of who they are can leave first. A few times
when he was at the doctors or in the hospital and was still so
charming and kind of flirting with the nurses, and then you jump
forward a few months later, when he’s staring at the floor and not
brushing his teeth anymore, these people don’t know who he was, and
it’s another story. He lived, he died, and he mattered. What matters
is who he was. You, the caregiver, are the reminder of who he was.
don’t look back we’re not going that
way!, (subtitled “How I overcame a rocky childhood,
a nervous breakdown, breast cancer, widowhood, fat, fire and
menopausal motherhood and still manage to count my lucky chickens”)
is Marcia’s funny, poignant, motivating and empowering book in which
she opens her heart to share a life story filled with laughter and
sorrow. Marcia does not sidestep any of the more painful parts of
her life including her own breast cancer diagnosis and the loss of
her beloved husband Denny from pancreatic cancer.
don’t look back we’re not
going that way!, can be ordered
here or by calling
1-800-829-2734
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