Outta here!

They’re finally GONE.
My wife’s cancer-drugs, that is.
My beloved wife of over 44 years died of cancer April 17th of this year. Like me, she was 68. I miss her dearly.
My siblings and I tried to drop-off her cancer-drugs shortly after she died.
They had come up here to pick out and plant a butterfly-bush in her honor. We had always wanted one, but never got around to it.
We went to nearby Baker Park in Canandaigua to walk my dog, and forgot about the drop-off — a police-organized prescription-drug drop-off, better than flushing down your toilet, which contaminates the ground-water.
We showed up at the drop-off a half-hour late. They almost took the drugs anyway when we pointed out there was morphine.
But it was too late, so they sat in a bag on a desk in my house.
Since April 17th.
I had a hard enough time getting rid of the hospital-bed we received.
At least a month passed.
Included was morphine pain-killer, which we tried to not use, not because of its evil reputation (although that was part of it), but because it caused constipation.
My wife’s final days were an ongoing battle with constipation.
The morphine was little-used, but sometimes it had to be used.
Its effect was sudden, but didn’t last very long. She tried to get by with acetaminophen (Tylenol®), which lasted longer, didn’t constipate, but wasn’t as strong.
By then we were on the downward slide. Next was hospice. We tried in-home hospice, but drug administration became messy.
So we took her to Hospeace House down in nearby Naples, NY. She lasted there a little over a day.
By then all that remained was her brain, and that was losing function. Her appetite was already gone. She wasn’t in as bad shape as Spring of 2011, when she was hospitalized with extreme edema, but she was dying.
I expected her to last there longer than a day, and when I last visited her eyes were closed as if she was asleep.
I had been told she might awake.
I don’t know if she knew I was in the room, but she probably did.
I said “so long” through tears as I left; my dog was in the car.
Hospeace called about 9:30 that night and said she had died.
OOMPH! What a let-down.
The diagnosis was not terminal; she “could” die, but not “would.”
So here I am alone.
Devastated and heartbroken.
More than I expected.
Also very scared.
And a big bag if cancer-drugs was in my house.
Including morphine.
Also there was a hyper-expensive chemo-pill we had to give up because it decimated her white-blood cells.
Giving up on that was the death-knell.
It was our final treatment option.
Only one chemo, out of about five, worked. It was C-H-O-P (Cyclophosphamide, Hydroxydaunorubicin (also called doxorubicin or Adriamycin), Oncovin (vincristine), and Prednisone or prednisolone), which you can only have eight times. It damages the heart.
It was the only chemo that killed the cancer. It would leave her with a clean cancer-scan. —It also left her hairless, since it killed all the fast-growing cells, and hair is fast-growing.
But she’d had it eight times, so she could no longer take it. The hyper-expensive chemo was different and our last resort.
Fortunately it wasn’t at our expense, although I was prepared to pay for it — on the order of $8,000-plus for the prescription. Some charity paid for it, and she managed only two of those pills (of 30).
(There was difficulty with her medical insurance because it was a prescription instead of intravenous.)
So here we were left wither a hyper-expensive prescription she couldn’t use, nor could anyone else.
It had to be tossed. Thousands of dollars incinerated.
That first drop-off was Ontario County, the county I live in.
Another Ontario-County drop-off was scheduled, but it was 30 miles away, and in October.
I happened to take along the drugs to a pharmacy in nearby Victor holding a Shingles vaccination clinic. They wouldn’t take them, but they suggested drop-offs in adjacent Monroe County (where Rochester is).
They were much closer.
Fairport, about 20 miles away, and another in East Rochester. East Rochester is closer, but Fairport was yesterday (Wednesday, September 5, 2012), earlier.
After my long 45-minute journey, I parked in the tiny Fairport Police parking-lot.
A lady was crossing the parking-lot with a bag of prescription drugs.
“Looks like I got the right place,” I said.
Inside a clerk took my drugs.
“There’s morphine in there,” I said.
Me and the other lady walked out.
“Finally rid of them,” I said to her.
“They pile up so fast,” she said.
“Those were my wife’s cancer-drugs,” I said. “She’s gone.”
“Oh how awful,” the lady said. “I’m sorry.”
Fairport was in the same direction as Pittsford, so on the way home I stopped at the Pittsford Ben & Jerry’s.
I walked out with six pints of the finest chocolate ice-cream in the entire known universe.
“This should last clear into November,” I told the proprietor.
“There’s only one of us now, and I only eat a half-pint per week.”
“Sorry for your loss,” he said, pocketing my money.

• “Canandaigua” (“cannan-DAY-gwuh”) is a small city nearby where I live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” It’s about 14 miles away. —I live in the small rural town of West Bloomfield, southeast of Rochester.
• My current dog is “Scarlett” (as in “Scarlett O’Hara”) a rescue Irish-Setter. She’s seven, and is our sixth Irish-Setter, a high-energy dog. (A “rescue Irish Setter” is an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill [Scarlett was from a failed backyard breeder]. By getting a rescue-dog, I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Scarlett isn't bad.)
•”Fairport” and “Pittsford” are suburbs to the east of Rochester (NY); Pittsford more monied, although Fairport is almost as rich as Pittsford. “East Rochester” is also an eastern suburb, but not monied, more proletarian. —Both Pittsford and Fairport are on the Erie Canal. Victor is a more rural suburb of Rochester to the southeast (not on the canal). At one time it had three railroads serving it; although one was a trolley-line.