Dreamer of Dune (56 page)

This treatment would be administered in conjunction with a type of chemotherapy that didn't result in hair loss or other undesirable side effects. “I'd rather not get sick to get well,” he said.

The out-of-state procedure was extremely expensive, and he said his Group Health medical insurance would not cover it, due to its experimental nature. He was investigating his Medicare coverage, since he had just turned sixty-five, but didn't think that would apply either. He said the hyperthermic treatment was “frontier medicine,” but that results for his type of cancer in other people had been encouraging. He emphasized that his cancer had been discovered early, and his tone was upbeat. “When we come into this world we're given a death sentence anyway,” he added, with an impish wink.

Considering his suffering in recent months I was concerned that the disease had not been discovered all that early, but I said nothing. At least he seemed optimistic, and I thought this would carry him through the difficult times ahead. He had a strong will to fight, to survive.

He also had a sweetness about him in this difficult time, and a quieter, more pensive way. Most of the time he wasn't his old blustery, exuberant self, but occasional flashes of it gave us hope.

The day after Dad arrived in Wisconsin, he told me by telephone that doctors in Seattle had only given him a 25 percent chance of survival, but his doctor at the University of Wisconsin said, “Oh, you have a much better chance than that.”

The University of Wisconsin had only treated twenty-five or thirty patients under the experimental program, and only one with similar pancreatic and liver conditions. That particular patient responded well and survived the treatment, but did suffer a side effect—a nervous system problem. They felt they could avoid such side effects with Dad through a once-weekly treatment for four successive weeks and other modifications. Indications from the medical team were that Dad appeared to be strong enough for the rigors of the program, but he would be in the hospital for a couple of days undergoing a battery of tests.

On Friday, December 13, 1985, an editorial assistant telephoned from G. P. Putnam's Sons, saying she was mailing the
Man of Two Worlds
galleys out for authors' corrections and that she needed them back by the first week of January. She said she would mail Dad's copy to him in Wisconsin, and that publication was scheduled for April 1986.

When I spoke with Dad the next day, he said he was starting hyperthermia on Monday, with chemotherapy beginning two days after that. There would be four weeks of treatment through January 4, 1986 (four hyperthermias and four chemotherapies). Then, from January 19 through February 2, they had three more of each scheduled.

My father went into his first hyperthermia session on December 16, and did extremely well, with his heart rate only accelerating to one hundred and twenty beats per minute—better than a thirty-one-year-old jogger who underwent the same procedure. Frank Herbert surprised the doctors with a number of quips, causing them to laugh. One, while his head was sticking out of a heating chamber, was, “What you see is what you get!”

I often sent him humorous messages, including cartoons, jokes, and funny or cute things the children said, items that simultaneously went up on our bulletin board. As with my mother, I hoped humor would be therapeutic, knowing that Norman Cousins credited laughter with curing him from cancer. We also sent Christmas poinsettias.

In subsequent telephone conversations, Dad said Theresa was very supportive and always at his side. She'd only known my father a short while, and already their life together had taken an unfortunate turn with the onset of his illness.

He sounded tired, wrung out from the treatments. The processes were draining his strength, and he had difficulty sleeping well, even with medication. And I heard more than fatigue in his voice. No matter how he tried to get around it, depression was weighing him down. It tugged at my heart to hear this terrible, debilitating emotion in his voice, and I knew it was from more than the physical rigors of hyperthermia and chemotherapy. For some time he had not been able to write, and this was a man whose psychological well-being depended upon his ability to create.

But I heard something else in his voice as well, and this gave me pause for hope. No matter how tired my father sounded, no matter how slowly his words came, he was always struggling to be upbeat, fighting to sound cheerful. A constant air of excitement surrounded him. There were new directions Frank Herbert wanted to explore, new worlds to conquer and write about. I sensed that he was reaching for something deep inside, this man who was no stranger to working long hours—reaching for something to keep alive the book that was his own remarkable life.

I
SPOKE
with my father in the morning and again in the afternoon on December 28, 1985. He said he was under 140 pounds and feeling weak. After reading the galleys on
Man of Two Worlds
, I wanted to insert more material into a war scene on Venus, and we discussed what I would include.

He returned to Seattle from Wisconsin on January 5, 1986, having completed four hyperthermia treatments and the same number of chemotherapy treatments. On the flight back, he and his young wife happened to be on the same plane with science fiction author and editor Frederik Pohl. I met Mr. Pohl at the airport for a brief time, before he hurried off in one direction and I went with my father and Theresa in another.

The doctors reported that he was doing well, but he looked very thin, down to 132 pounds. He had his coat off for a while, and I noticed around the short sleeves of his navy blue pullover shirt that his arms were still muscular, though much less bulky than before. Able to carry heavy luggage without difficulty, he stood erectly and walked briskly, with astonishing energy. His eyes were the familiar eyes, but older and sadder. His smile, like my mother's when she was so sick, was wan and distant.

Dad said he would be checking into Swedish Hospital in Seattle for two weeks, where they would monitor his condition and build up his weight and strength for the next round of treatments in Wisconsin, scheduled to begin January 19.

He spoke of his aversion to hospital food, as my mother had done before him. It saddened me to think of my father, the gourmet and raconteur who had so captivated dinner table audiences over the years, unable to truly enjoy his meals. I thought of his deep, rolling laugh that used to fill every corner of a room, and wished I could hear it again. But now his laughter returned only intermittently, in bursts that were caught short by the grim reality of his struggle for survival.

He no longer had his heart in the writing process. His life was too cluttered with bleak hospital corridors and little rooms and infernal machines, and men and women in white smocks with clipboard-charts. These were, as well, constant and painful reminders of Beverly and her monumental suffering.

I visited Dad regularly at Swedish Hospital, where I found him sitting up or lying in bed, with a catheter attached to his chest and tubes at his arms. He wore a pale green gown that emphasized how thin he had become. He had a birdlike appearance now, and this made me think of character descriptions in his stories, particularly in
Dune
, where the features were compared with those of hawks. I saw little of the hawk in him, however. This was a less aggressive bird, with a sweetness and gentleness of disposition.

Of course there was the one time I appeared in the doorway of his hospital room with Kim. She had brought him a gift, but Dad went into an alarmed microphobia posture, dispatching her without even looking at what she had brought for him. Children carried too many germs, he said, and he couldn't risk having her near him. Kim, only thirteen, went to the waiting room, her feelings hurt. She got over it when Jan, Theresa and I explained to her that her grandfather loved her very much, and that he may even have been correct from a medical standpoint.

Now he was as thoughtful as anyone could be, asking about us and about his grandchildren, inquiring how they were doing in school, what their special interests were. I wanted the laughter to return to his heart and voice, wanted him back to his normal self, driving everybody crazy around him. I hated seeing him so subdued and devoid of his former spirit.

In what had become a family tradition, albeit one I wished had never been necessary, I took him jokes and humor bits from my “funny files.” There were also handmade cards from Jan and Julie, short stories from Kim and drawings from Margaux to her “Pop-Pop.”

At Swedish Hospital, Dad was at first quite pale, but as days passed and he received care the color returned to his features and he put on a few pounds. Like his old self, he monitored his vital signs constantly, and the medical personnel were quite open with him about everything. The signs were good, especially considering his age and what he had been through. Dad spoke of how well the first round of treatments had gone in Wisconsin, and of how much he looked forward to returning to work on “
Dune
7.” The new book was barely under way when he had to leave it. He said we might work on a
Dune
book together one day—perhaps a
Dune
“prequel” idea I had suggested to him, set in the mythical time of the Butlerian Jihad. He said my writing had come a long way.

He had his up and down days, and seemed to want me to stay longer when he was feeling good. Perhaps this was the opposite of the way it should have been, for I might have lifted his spirits on down days given enough time. Overall he was upbeat, far more cheerful than the rest of us. Theresa was almost always there, either in the room or in a nearby waiting room, and I knew it was difficult for her. She and my father had made many plans, and had only been married for a few months.

On January 10, 1986, a Friday, I parked my car near Swedish Hospital and walked a couple of blocks, leaning into a cold, wind-driven drizzle. Moments later, in the warmth of my father's private hospital room, he was sitting up and alert. He recounted a number of Zen parables, some of which I recalled hearing before, emanating from his conversations in the 1960s with Zen master Alan Watts.

One was the tale of a Zen priest and a young proselyte in his tutelage, both celibate. Walking alongside a river in India they encountered a beautiful young woman in a white gown, moaning that she couldn't get across the water to her wedding without spoiling her dress. Upon hearing this, the priest carried her across, while she lifted her skirts above the water. Then the holy man and his young associate continued on their way.

Soon it became clear to the priest that something was troubling his companion, so he asked what it might be.

“We've taken vows of celibacy,” the youth answered, “but that beautiful woman, I must confess…she tempted me sorely.”

“Oh, you're still carrying that young woman? I left her back at the river.”

As if to sum up the folly of existence, including his own, Dad told another Zen parable: “Before I achieved satori (sudden enlightenment) a mountain was a mountain, a river was a river, and a tree was a tree. After I achieved satori, a mountain was still a mountain, a river was still a river, and a tree was still a tree.”

He seemed at ease with himself this day, full of smiles and good cheer, and I left with a powerful thought:
Dad's going to beat this!

His laughter was returning. He was upbeat, felt he was winning the battle. Dad knew that the power of the mind could defeat the ills of the body. In his domain, the mind ruled supreme.

On January 15, 1986, I wrote in my journal that I had been experiencing excruciating pain, radiating from my neck to my shoulders. I couldn't turn my head to the side, and when working on
Prisoners of Arionn
I had to set up a music stand behind my typewriter for the material I was retyping, so that I could look straight ahead. It was difficult jogging as well, but I ran in pain. A physical therapist wasn't of much help to me at all.

On January 17, one of Dad's last days at Swedish Hospital before leaving for Wisconsin, I visited him and showed him the cover art for my soon-to-be-released Berkley paperback,
Sudanna, Sudanna
. It depicted a Picasso-like man on an alien world, with a powerful wind blowing his cape. My father showed great enthusiasm for it, said it was very striking and different from most science fiction covers.

He returned to Madison on the nineteenth, ready to strike a final blow against the illness. Theresa accompanied him. I spoke with my father by telephone that day, and two days later. In the second conversation he filled me in on his medical condition and treatments. He spoke of cancer in his pancreas, colon and liver, and his words were a blur to me. It was hard for me to discuss this, and he detected my depressed mood. “I don't want people around me to prepare for the worst, Brian,” he said. “It's under control, really it is.”

I said I knew he was strong and that I was fine—that it was only the long-distance telephone wires making me sound that way.

Just before midnight on Friday, January 24, Penny telephoned, crying. She said Dad had taken a sudden turn for the worse. During surgery the doctors had found extensive cancer, much more than expected. She was catching the first plane to Wisconsin to be with him. I telephoned Madison, but couldn't get any more information. I didn't know why my father had suddenly gone into surgery, but it sounded very bad.

My mind went numb. I decided to get there the only way I could, by driving. How many miles was it? Around two thousand, I thought. It was the middle of the night in the dead of winter, during one of the worst cold snaps on record, with snow, ice and record-low temperatures across the heart of the country. Wisconsin, my destination, had sub-freezing temperatures and icy roads. I packed hurriedly, throwing things into a small travel bag, and, of all things, a cardboard box. I couldn't find any other luggage, didn't have time to look for it.

By 1:30
A.M
. I was driving north on Mercer Island, heading for the interstate. As I reached Interstate 90 and headed east I fought back tears, vowing I would be with my father in his time of need—that there would be no repetition of what had happened with my mother. I cursed myself for not being able to fly. A full moon was out, casting a cold glow on snowy mountain peaks ahead of me in the rugged Cascades. The mountain where my parents had honeymooned as forest service lookouts was in that range, to the south. The highway was slick, and I had to keep my speed under fifty miles per hour.

I made several stops along the way to telephone Jan and check on Dad's condition, but didn't obtain any new information. At 11:00
A.M
. the next day, without sleep, I reached Missoula, Montana, nearly five hundred miles from home. Now I learned from a phone call to Jan that Dad was fine, that he had undergone surgery and was in satisfactory condition. Apparently the earlier reports from his doctor had been incorrect. He was sitting up in bed in good spirits, wondering what all the fuss was about. Penny and Theresa were with him, and Dad wanted me to turn around and go home.

Jan said Bruce was on a trip, and she could not reach him. Bill Ransom, however, had been in touch with her, and he was offering to fly ahead and meet me in Billings, Montana, to help with the driving. Our earlier plan had been for Jan to do this.

I felt somewhat foolish, with fifteen hundred miles still to drive in some really treacherous weather and terrible road conditions. I was developing a cough and checked into a motel to sleep the rest of the day and await further developments. By the following morning, I received confirmation that Dad was doing extremely well. Through Jan I passed word to Penny and Bill Ransom that I was heading home. It was eleven degrees in Montana that morning, with a pale blue sky and sunlight sparkling on ice alongside the roadway. It was so cold that the ice didn't melt from the hood of my car for a hundred miles.

By Monday the twenty-seventh, I was back on Mercer Island, still behind on my sleep, with a hacking cough. Penny telephoned from Madison to say that Dad was up and walking around. Doctors were shaking their heads in disbelief, saying no one else recovering from that surgery had ever walked before five days. He was up in three.

When I spoke with my father that evening, he sounded chipper. In all the confusion I didn't understand what his surgery had been all about, but assumed it must have been exploratory in nature, or perhaps to cut away some of the cancer cells, as an additional treatment. In the process of this surgery, Dad said he had received a vertical incision from his chest to his midsection. He said it rather matter-of-factly, leaving me impressed by his courage.

I was doubly impressed when I learned that before going into surgery, Dad asked his doctors and nurses how long it took other patients to recover. He wanted to know what the record was, and earlier he had asked similar questions with respect to the chemotherapy and hyperthermia treatments. With each answer he received, he tried to beat what other patients had done. He insisted on having his morphine dosage cut in half, was out of bed in half the time it took other patients. He was using his competitive nature in a new way.

The following morning, January 28, 1986, Dad was watching the launch of the space shuttle
Challenger
on television, broadcast from Cape Canaveral, Florida. When the shuttle exploded in the sky, killing all aboard, Dad was terribly upset and started shaking. His doctor made him turn the TV off.

Still, as days passed, Dad sounded better each time I talked with him. He was sweet and appreciative of my calls. He assured me that the cancer was in remission, that he was completing the round of treatments that had already been scheduled in order to play it safe.

When she was sure Dad was all right, Penny flew back to Port Townsend. This provided the rest of us with additional reassurance, and we looked forward to seeing him in February.

In my household and in telephone conversations with my brother and sister, we commented that his recovery was absolutely amazing. He needed to complete his treatments, but the indications were clear. He had the cancer on the run.

At 7:00 in the evening on Friday, February 7, 1986, I telephoned Dad and asked how he was doing. He said great, that he had a new laptop computer and tape recorder in his room, and he was writing a short story about his dream experiences while under anesthesia. It was, I would learn later from Bill Ransom, the beginnings of the “
Soul Catcher
-like story” that my father had been seeking for several years. His dreaming mind had come up with something the conscious mind could not produce. He also composed an essay for
Writers of the Future
, an anthology of short stories by talented new writers. He was always willing to share his knowledge with others, even when he was fighting for his life. In that essay, he wrote, “Remember how you learned, and when your turn comes, teach.”