7.11.06, It Could Be Worse. . .

Good morning. As most of you know today is IV chemo day. Not really like the joyess and stress-free capitalist celebration we call X-mas, nor like a birthday, but I wanted to write a few words of reminder about what it's like to allay some fears that I read, feel, and hear out there. Two of the comments for today — poasted to yesterday's short post on the blog — express this concern in a nutshell and then in a larger nutshell, a mellon rind-shell, or some much more appropriate metaphor, according to the proclivities of each author. Last week, too, a friend of mine went to the IV chemo session for me for the first time, and I hope no one will mind me saying so but the change this visit brought about has been rather stark.

There are two (I think?) long posts about what it's like for me to go into the hospital for the infusions once a week, and then of course the pill-taking chemo on all the rest of the days is mundane. Boring and unnoticeable unless you know what I'm doing, as harmless looking as taking multivitamins after breakfast or dinner. Sure, the symbolic import of taking the pills was unsettling for me the very first time I threw these peach colored, oval pills into my mouth. That's a minor thing though. If you go back and find those early posts on infusion, every detail is drawn out and the whole story is there, I can't remember the dates off hand; the whole thing is retold so as to settle fears, to say "Hey, this is not that bad," because I knew what I had imagined before seeing or experiencing this and I didn't want anyone's imagination to run away with them by not knowing what's happening.

Today, then, I wanted to post a little reminder: yeah, the drugs are toxic and there are side effects, but the whole process is like a long IV, just like you see at any hospital, just like many of you have had before. I get pricked with a needle, once, sort of, but even that is probably less serious than when any of you get a blood test because I have the fancy port-o-cath implanted in my upper right chest, making it childlike simple to get drugs into my aorta. It means they can't miss when they stick me, no vein finding, prick, done. Easy. I go, I lie down in a bed, I have a little private room (which I should for the cost!), they take my blood, then I wait for about 40 minutes. They go off to check that I'm still "otherwise healthy" enough to get the chemo drugs. After that, I keep lying there, and get an IV for 4 hours. Like I said before there is no pain during this process. Too, it's got to be understood for what it is. It must be accepted, known to be real, understood to have what power it does; otherwise we enter into the kind of denial that paralyzes rather than makes productive again.

Another question that came up: how long will you do this? What if the side effects are too serious, would you want to stop? Well, I do plan on asking the doctor again just to make sure the situation hasn't changed, but chemotherapy for me, for someone "in this stage (of cancer)" is palliative, it's for reducing other symptoms, it's for giving me more time. I stop chemo and poof. Who knows exactly how long till "poof" but that's what happens. You quit chemo and the cancer gets to have its way with you. So the answer to how long is, for what the term is worth, forever. "Forever" as that terms signifies for me; my own forever. The only other option is my mother's, that would be a miracle. There aren't any other options, none recorded and known about anyway.

My apologies for posting something so mundane, it just seemed necessary. I know the commentors can say "I know the infusion itself isn't so bad, it's the cancer I hate." Yeah, that's a valid point; but so is what I've written here. The chemo is all I have to keep me going, it is quite literally the Anti-Cancer. Just like they call chemotherapy drugs "anti-cancer" drugs. We're supposed to like chemo. Your grief and anger and other myriad forms of pain are not being touched here; they're all necessary and can be healthy feelings, I know this. They are different than mine, as we all grieve differently as one friend pointed out recently, and I respect yours. *Let me try and restate what she said to me, that basically that all of us in our individual complexity will grieve in and out of different stages, will feel depression or anger or sadness or loss of outporing love, whatever, at different times — the point is that when I look into your eyes, all I can truthfully is "I know you're in pain, I know it must hurt, but I can't really know what that pain is like." It's about a strong word-feeling: humility. As described to me. (Are you embarrassed yet?)* Me, I feel stuck, ill able to express my point here. . . I do thank you for all the concern and the support just before the infusions. Simultaneously, I don't want us to get out the black crepe, rent the hall, and tie gardenias to the hearse.

. . . I'll be honest, I'm reaching here, not sure from where nor to where. I feel a need to say something helpful, or comforting, or informative when I read those comments, like yesterday's, and when I see friends who no longer know how to act. I reach for the "How to Die of Cancer" handbook only to find and remember, "Right, there isn't one." For now, read generously, know that I'd like to help, and that often times all I can do is just stagger my fingers across the keys — which too can be a problem since neuropathy in the fingers is also a chemo side effect.