"Why would a distinguished cancer doctor choose to conceal her own cancer? Her husband ponders this conundrum in a book that is by turns loving and angry, as well as disturbing, fascinating, and blisteringly honest. Its readers will think twice before keeping a secret."
Dr. Barrett Rollins is an oncologist who was married to another brilliant world-renowned oncologist, Jane Weeks. But when Weeks was diagnosed with breast cancer, she hid it from him, and everyone else she loved. In this excerpt from his incredibly moving book In Sickness, Dr. Barrett Rollins looks back at why his wife kept this bleak secret—and why he then helped her keep it under wraps.
2022-09-06
A wife conceals her cancer from her husband until, after 10 years, it becomes impossible.
At the beginning of this painfully moving memoir, Rollins, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, notes that he and his wife, Jane, “worked at the same place—we were doctors at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard’s cancer hospital.” As they walked to lunch one day, Jane collapsed, the result of a blood clot in her lungs—a consequence, the author learned to his dismay, of massive, metastatic breast cancer. When the ER doctor asked about her history with cancer, Rollins admitted that he “knew nothing about the hideous cancer that was threatening her life.” After several days, Jane was well enough to return home. With cure out of the question, Rollins compellingly describes the remaining year of her life, mixing a detailed account of the complex nursing and medical care she received with the poignant story of their marriage and his attempts to cope with the circumstances. Readers will learn that his wife, although brilliant, charismatic, and popular at work and clearly in love with her husband, had her share of “quirky” personality traits. At home, she preferred to watch TV and play computer games, leaving housework, meals, shopping, and even driving to her husband. Although they had a few close friends from work, she did not enjoy socializing with other family members, including his daughter from a previous marriage, with whom he was extremely close. Rollins had long been aware that Jane “never had a primary care doctor and never went to a routine medical appointment,” and he learned—after discovering a hidden trove of self-prescribed medication—that she had been treating herself for her cancer. The author also looks back on his own life, attempting to explain why he yielded such unwavering control to his wife.
Other peoples’ marriages are often beyond comprehension, but this is an eloquent, compulsively readable account.
Barrett Rollins's life unspools when his wife, Jane, collapses at work from a blood clot caused by advanced breast cancer. More shocking than the medical emergency itself is that Jane has been hiding her diagnosis for years even though both husband and wife are oncologists. Rollins has perfect narrative timing, and his performance is reflective and expressive. He evokes the confusion, and even shame, he feels at having been kept in the dark and then at having to lie to Jane's family and friends at her request. Rollins revisits their courtship and long marriage with an eye and voice that are unflinching yet sympathetic. But the juxtaposition of Jane's unnervingly abnormal desire for privacy and the dynamics of their unusual marriage laid out for all to hear makes for an uncomfortable listen. A.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
