back I see now that by mocking the incident, instead of letting it shatter me, I avoided its impact and missed a rare opportunity to examine my life – its meaning, its direction, its purpose, its demands.
But this book is not about me. It’s about Matt, whom death snatched at twenty-two – though he still cheated it, as you’ll see – and about the lessons his last six months on earth could have for you, if you are open to them.
No matter how, where, and when we live, each of us will one day have to pass through the doorway of death – and through suffering as well. Through Matt’s illness and death, those of us who knew him felt as if we were allowed a glimpse through that door and given insights from “across the border” – insights that may yet determine the course of our lives, even if we cannot articulate them. It is as if that door, long shut, has suddenly been opened, and we are no longer afraid to enter the rooms beyond it. Perhaps this book can open the same door for you.
Daniel Hallock
The Blow
Summer 1999 was a whirlwind for Randy and Linda Gauger. In June they flew to Littleton, Colorado, to house-sit for a couple whose daughter had been killed in the recent Columbine massacre; in July they returned home to the Bruderhof community in Farmington, Pennsylvania, where their oldest son, Matt, lived. In August they were in the air once again, this time heading for Danthonia, the community’s new branch in Australia.
Expecting to be away for a minimum of several months – Randy was to oversee the legal affairs of the new venture – they asked Jonathan, a community member and family physician, if he would mind looking out for Matt while they were away. (Nick, their second child, had left Farmington after high school and was starting his third year of college in Pittsburgh.)
After his parents left, Matt began eating breakfasts with Jonathan and his wife, and he was soon stopping by to read bedtime stories to their children as well. During the day he worked in the IT (information technology) department at Community Playthings, the community’s business. Life was unremarkable – until a memorable Saturday in late November. As Jonathan later recounted:
We were finishing up the breakfast dishes on the 20th when Matt told me that he had noticed lumps in his groin two days earlier. He wondered whether they could ever indicate a serious problem. I said no, because they are almost always associated with infections, and infections can be taken care of with antibiotics. But I told him that if he was having pain, he should keep me in touch. The same evening the phone rang at six o’clock; it was Matt, and he asked me to bring a hefty dose of Motrin for him when I came to the community dining room that night. He met me at the door and snatched the Motrin from my hands. He was very uncomfortable. At ten o’clock he came by our apartment and begged to be examined, so I took him to my office and did so. He said he had a great deal of pain in his left groin and was sure it was a hernia. On examination I found several tender, marble-sized lymph nodes in the left groin. I recommended a high dose of Motrin, but did not start an antibiotic as there was no sign of infection on the left leg or foot.
On Sunday Matt felt fairly well. On Monday, however, while driving home alone from Pittsburgh, where he had dropped off a friend at the airport, he was in such pain that he debated calling home and asking for someone to come pick him up. At home, he went straight to the doctor’s office. A second exam showed nothing new, but Jonathan started him on an antibiotic anyway. That night Jonathan noticed that Matt kept sitting in different positions, slouching to keep his groin comfortable.
Tuesday afternoon Matt’s pain worsened, and he complained of a backache. At nine in the evening, Jonathan found him lying on the living room couch. Matt begged to be re-examined. Once again they went to the office, and once again no significant problem was found. Jonathan offered Ultram, a stronger painkiller, but Matt still called him after midnight, asking if it was okay to up the frequency of his dosage.
On Wednesday Matt was seen by a specialist at the local hospital. Nothing new was found, but the doctor felt he should continue the antibiotic. Matt was reassured and spoke of canceling the follow-up appointment.
At story time that night, Jonathan’s four-year-old Alan was hurt when Matt wouldn’t read to him. At bedtime, however, he prayed that Matt would soon feel better. It was then that it first crossed Jonathan’s mind that Matt’s problem might be something serious.
On Thursday night Matt was so uncomfortable that Jonathan had to give him sleeping pills at one a.m.; by breakfast on Friday, he was complaining of severe back pain. By Friday evening he was in such agony that Jonathan stopped the Ultram and put him on a mild narcotic, but when he asked Matt if he’d called his parents about the last four days, Matt shot back, “Why should I tell them anything? They’ll only worry about me.” Jonathan worried, though. Twelve years earlier, while treating a cancer patient in New York, he’d written: “She began her week on Tylenol, and ended it on morphine.” Matt, too, had started the week the same way, and he was ending it on narcotics.
Back in Matt’s room, a handful of friends was trying to cheer Matt up with a little good-natured ribbing. “Matt,” Tim intoned, “I’ve been asked to break the news to you. You have . . . cancer.” Everyone laughed, but Matt winged a book and pair of socks at Tim and told everyone to get out of his room.
By mid-morning the next day, Matt was in the local hospital for a CT scan of his abdomen and pelvis. To Jonathan’s shock, the scan revealed enlarged lymph nodes deep in the abdomen. Infection was still a possibility, the radiologist assured him, but there were two other possibilities as well: metastatic testicular carcinoma or a lymphoma. Jonathan broke the news to Matt, and on the way home they discussed a plan of action: continue the painkillers and antibiotics, but if there’s no improvement in a day or two, biopsy a node from the left groin. The hours that followed are burned into Jonathan’s memory:
Matt moped around our house, lying on the couch or on my son’s bed, crouching in funny positions, pacing the floor, trying to get comfortable. I offered to do something more – to take him back to the hospital, to do something – but he was adamant that we had to “give it some time” before proceeding further.
Matt joined our family for dinner. Around eleven I went to his room to check on him and found that he had a fever. This worried me, because nocturnal fevers are sometimes associated with malignancy, so I decided then and there that Matt needed to be under closer observation. I brought him to our apartment and settled him in an extra room.
Around midnight he called through our bedroom door to say that he wanted to take his narcotic again. I reminded him that the usual prescription was “every four hours,” and that he had just had a tablet one hour ago, but I let him take another. An hour later he was banging on the door again. This time I gave him a shot of Demerol. It did nothing to relieve his condition. By three a.m. – after another dose of Demerol – he was inconsolable, alternately pacing the living room and curling up on the floor, weeping. I called the hospital, and we were soon in the car, heading down the highway to the emergency room . . .
Halfway around the globe, Randy and Linda were on the phone, trying to get through to their son in Pennsylvania. Someone had relayed a message that Matt was sick, but Linda was sure it was a mistake. “Matt never got sick,” she recalled. “Nick was the one who was always coming down with something strange. I almost wanted it to be Nick, because I had been with him when he had pain, or when he was nervous and scared. I know how he reacts and handles things. But how would Matt deal with it? He had no experience with pain.” Little did she know what he was going through that very moment – one wave of pain after another, so brutal and searing that before long his morphine injections were abandoned in favor of a continuous intravenous drip.
On Sunday Tim visited Matt with Brian, another friend, and they decided to stay at the hospital overnight. The experience was pure hell, but Tim felt he was doing penance for his joke