Chemo Sabes
I may be crashing soon. Chemo’s last stand is willfully pumping its final, fatal fluid into my bones and even though I’m still walking my mile laps around the ward, my feet have gotten sloggly — as if for lack of another place to go — the liquid has opted to kill my stride as […]
I may be crashing soon. Chemo’s last stand is willfully pumping its final, fatal fluid into my bones and even though I’m still walking my mile laps around the ward, my feet have gotten sloggly — as if for lack of another place to go — the liquid has opted to kill my stride as well.
Cancer survivors as well as a whole group of you who have experienced similar situations tell me to not feel obligated to anything or anyone but me. I hear over and over again that once this first round drags every muscle fragment and creative impulse into a deep, dark abyss I won’t want to be jolly blogging about Spongebob or jokes I played on my brother. I understand that in my head.
But the other side of that scenario is my extreme need for connection and my almost psychotic need to interact and share. I looked up Sociopath to see if it has an opposite and there really isn’t one. Might as well insert my picture there, then.
I was just told that in the old building where I used to work — in the lobby between the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News — there’s a dry erase idea board that says to send good vibes my way. I thought I’d used up all my happy tears days ago.
Another part of this connection equation is my Aunt Roberta with whom I shared the bone marrow report. Suddenly I was a young teen boy again looking up to my amazing, powerful aunt as I wrote,
“I was gladdened by the results, hopefully not blindly. Everything is good so far, Does that sound hopeful? Please say yes.”
With a large exclamation point she wrote back “Yes!”
She was just jumping on a plane and will have more information for me later but it shows how we thrive on the people bouncing through our lives for a day or a decade. It had been a year since I had any long-term, sit down conversation with Roberta and yet with a few simple words I am carried to a place that’s impossible to go alone.
And while we’re at it, that dry erase board in the newspaper lobby marks, I’m certain, one the last sites I saw as I was gently exited a year ago due to layoff. Now people are using it to send me positive energy. That is an absolutely astounding mandate on the power of connectivity. How in God’s name can I look back at that place with anything but healing?
Here’s just as a little parable to end this; think of what can happen when you believe you’re connected to something but really and truly aren’t. I wish I knew ahead of time that I was on a part cancer/part hospice ward. I think it would’ve explained all the deaths going on around me in a more natural way and I wouldn’t have been so freaked out by the low success rates here if I knew success was being measured in how comfortable the patient’s final stay was and how incredible the nurses were.
Maybe they told me earlier. Maybe I was in no place to listen. I’m not going anywhere for a long time but it was beginning to get me down until I just simply asked.
So take it from the cancer boy in Room 2603. This journey is about the people you collect along the way. I’ll see what more I can write and when I can write it. Heck, this sunrise was beautiful for the first time all week and since it just happens to signify the end of round one, I’ll tip my ice-water glass to all of you. Thank you for wandering with me during this initial round of chemotherapy. I couldn’t have done it without you.
These boots are made of cancer, and I’m just gonna slog through.
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Chapter 1: The L-Word
Chapter 2: Having Fun With Cancer
Chapter 4: Departure Terminal
Chapter 5: No News Is Good News
Chapter 6: A Better Medicine
Chapter 7: (today) Chemo Sabes
