The Cancer Chronicles, Pt. 43: Breaking 100
Saturday, August 26th, 200699 and counting….
Archive for August, 2006
The Cancer Chronicles, Pt. 42: Just A Few Stitches….
Saturday, August 19th, 2006Back in 2001, when I had my heart attack, a number of friends came to me, faces white with fear, their big bellies quivering.
“That scared the shit outta me,” most of them said.
“Uh…yeah…me, too,” I answered.
“I’m gonna get in shape,” they said. “You know, eating better, getting some exercise, taking better care of myself.”
Believe it or not, some of them did. One writer friend of mine, known for his incredible short stories, did lose some weight, did take better care of himself.
So I felt like I had helped, like maybe I had done something good for my friends.
A few days ago, a Princeton Police sergeant (not Officer Friendly), stopped me in the street.
“I want to thank you for saving my life,” he said.
“Uh…yeah…sure.”
He showed me his forearm. A neat pink scar stared back at me. Seems he noticed a new spot some days before. He went to the doctor, they cut it off, stitched up the hole, and tested the lump.
It came back pre-cancerous.
He had the spot looked at, he said, because of what I’ve gone through.
Yeah? Well, good then.
It is the same sentiment I had after the heart attack, after so many people let me know it was damned lucky for them the heart attack was mine. My suffering, they all implied, really saved them some grief.
And I don’t mean to be shitty or selfish. I mean it sincerely. I look at it this way: I would have suffered the heart attack and the cancer regardless, so if my friends can get something good out of it all, that might be the best of all possible newses (or the best of all possible worlds…and I’ll send some cool free gift to whoever can name that reference.)
I won’t go so far as to say I saved any lives, but I will take credit for raising some awareness.
I am at about three and a half months left of chemo now. Getting closer and closer and that’s a good thing, but the closer I get, the worse it gets for me mentally. It’s short-timers disease. Like the last few days of a job or, as the inmates at my jail constantly tell me, the last few hours of a jail sentence. I get more and more ancy as the days pass.
Otherwise, I’m doing well enough right now; just about the same number of bad days as good…and that’s a pretty good step forward.
You can tell I generally feel decent because I haven’t written in a few days. I seem to write more when I’m pissy and tired and hurting. Maybe when I feel better, I want to do things I haven’t been able to do much this year.
I have been incredibly tired the last few weeks. I’ve worked overnights at the jail and it’s tough to coordinate that with the shots. So I spend more of my shift tired than when I work day shift.
Anyway, I took the week off from chemo a couple weeks ago and it was great. Then I got back on at a slightly lower dosage. One good thing: I can eat better than before. One bad thing: my depth perception is strangely off.
Can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into a wall or door or desk or something.
I’m not worried about it. Rather, I find myself doing strange little eye experiments, just kind of exploring this twist in my vision. I’ve always had perfect vision and hearing (in spite of twenty plus years of drums and guitars and Drum Corps and whatnot) so it’s interesting to see what things are like for people with eyes less than perfect.
So something good came out of the cancer. Given everything I’ve been through — what a pain the balls this whole thing has been — I’ll take the Sergeant’s good news.
And when he gets around to buying me a Corona or two, I’ll take that, too.
The Cancer Chronicles, Pt. 41: Something Different
Tuesday, August 1st, 2006There is a writer whose work I’ve always loved. He has the ability to put me so deeply inside a crackling good story that hours fly by uncounted.
Since my battle with cancer started, he has been amazingly supportive. Because he, too, has cancer.
When I talked with him recently, I asked if he’d be interested in writing a piece for the Cancer Chronicles. His experience with C is vastly different — and will continue to be vastly different — than mine. I thought it would be interesting to get a taste of what he goes through.
So here it is.
Two weeks ago I lost my innocence…
by Ed Gorman
For the past five years I’ve had multiple myeloma, an incurable but treatable cancer that works like termites in wood. MM eats the marrow of your bones until your bones collapse.
In some cases, people with MM die soon after diagnosis. Others live, on average, around 5-7 years. In my case I wasn’t even treated for the disease until I’d had it for five years. This is called “smoldering” mm. In other words, there’s smoke but no fire. Yes, I had symptoms, sometimes so painful that I had to use a cane to walk across the room. But I was never given any cancer drugs.
We all have appreciation for things in the abtract. I can imagine what it’s like to be black, handsome, rich. I have enough of an imagination that I can even flesh these other-lives out to some degree.
So it was with cancer drugs. When you have cancer you generally get to know a whole lot of other cancer victims. Makes sense. You see each other at the oncologist’s if nowhere else.
And of course you TALK about cancer and the treaments attendant on such. You even see the results of the treatments on your fellow sufferers–the pale flesh, the weight loss, the hair loss, the sadness, the fear.
I saw all these things in my friends and tried to prepare myself for the inevitable day when I’d become full-blown mm and would require the drugs that were taking such a toll on those around me. I even IMAGINED myself taking them, dealing with them.
Take my word for it, imagination has severe limitations. Two weeks ago I was put on four cancer drugs and my life changed instantly and profoundly. Among the worst symptoms have been memory loss, confusion, dizziness that has knocked me to my knees, nausea, savage heart rate, color-blips in my peripheral vision and depression added to the depression I’ve suffered all my life.
And I’m not even taking the dreaded chemo, chemo not working for mm.
Right now I’ve got two friends who are battling for their lives, trying to survive chemo regimens that just might (and I’m serious here) make me roll over and die rather than try to get through it. I pray for them several times a day. There’s not much else I can do.
This is just FYI for all you innocent of cancer in your lives. That old cliche about the cure sometimes being worse than the disease? We all want to live and thanks to modern medicine most of will live longer than we would have even ten years ago. But there’s a price to be paid for survival. So next time a friend of yours says he or she has cancer, lavish them with hearty good wishes. That’s still the best medicine of all, especially since some people still run from you when they know you have cancer.
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