Chronicles of a
Cancer Patient

The echocardiogram results are in, and they say my heart is healthy.

It seems that there were some problems with my heart at first, but they seem to have been due to the placement of the tumor, and not problems with the heart itself. Now that Tito seems to have shrunk considerably, I no longer have those problems.

So, actually, that sounds like two good things to me – my heart is healthy and normal, and the tumor has shrunk.

That’s right, no questions asked. They excused me in a hurry right over the phone.

It was some awful, administrative mistake that God made when creating me that made me start losing my hair at 15. At first I ignored it, like you do, but it became increasingly difficult to ignore it when no one else would. I think that men make fun of other men for mostly transparent motives, and this was certainly the case in high school, when guys would wait until a really hot girl was within earshot to start talking about my disappearing mane.

So eventually, you start to acknowledge it. With panic. You buy the hair products, you perk up when the commercials come on on the radio, you start to notice men with plugs (and picture yourself with a plug-installed, picket-fence hairline), and you freak out. I would bet that most men do this, but perhaps not with the fixation that I did at age 17.

People do, and I don’t believe this is a figment of my imagination, start to look at you differently. It’s difficult when you are the only person balding in your age-group. People begin to identify you by it, “You know. Dave. The balding guy? He has no direction in life? He lives with his parents? Yeah, right, Dave.”

You go to bars, and you end up feeling self-conscious about how much older you look than the group your with. Or worse, you go somewhere on your own, and have to somehow slip your age into every conversation to make it known that you are, specifically, “not old.”

Of course you start to think about girls. No, in fact, this is the first thing you think about, if not the only thing you think about. You sit in that one biology lecture freshman year, when the prof is talking about the “Law of Natural Selection,” and you look around at all the big dorks sitting around you and you think, “These jerks are going to get all the girls, just because their scalps are hidden by those stupid hair-do’s.”

Early on, you start to consider shaving your head, but you think, “OH MY GOD, how ridiculous would that look?!” I mean, who knows what shape your head is under that awful mess of hair products and genetics? Christ, whatever you do, don’t shave it!

But then a few years go by, and you start to realize that girls could actually care less. I mean, just finding a guy that age that talks in complete sentences and doesn’t fart on them is enough to inspire everlasting love. Hair? Who cares about hair?

So you start to shave it close. You feel better, your friends feel better, everybody feels better. You don’t look like “that guy,” who’s trying to pretend he’s not losing his hair. You’ve grown into it and you look way better, and nobody cares.

But now, here I am, with cancer. I’m going through chemotherapy, and all my hair is supposed to -*poof* – fall out. Considering the poor reputation my hair follicles have – I’m bound to be running around like a mexican hairless within the first week, right? I’ve been balding for nearly a decade, I am ready for this. I might even look better totally bald, who knows.

But weeks have gone by now. From what I’ve read most cancer patients have, by now, lost most, or all, of their hair. Not me, man. I’m not bald. My hair is like, “Chemo? I don’t see no chemo.” My hair is holding on to my head with an impetuous commitment I could have only dreamed of at age 17. My hair is NOT leaving!

What the hell is this? Who does my hair think it is? Richard Gere? Has my hair seen what’s it’s been doing to me for the past years? It is confused with it’s role? Fall out! That is what you are good at!

My god, am I going to be one of those guys that goes through chemo and doesn’t lose his hair? How unlikely is that?

I would also like to state for the record, that those of you who tell me “it might grow back thicker!,” etc.: No way. You seem to assume that I want hair again, which is absolutely not the case. I look at these poor saps running around with “hairstyles” that they have to spend so much time on and I think – “Thank god I wake up looking the same as I do when I go to sleep.”

But yes, it’ll probably grow back thicker. On my back, I mean.

It was the same as before, just worse. For two days I had hiccups and I couldn’t sleep, then I was exhausted for a few more. I’d get stuck mid-sentence sometimes, unable to think of a simple word like “restaurant” or “achieve,” and unable to remember the names of my friend’s brothers and sisters.

During my first few treatments, there was a part of me that thought, “Com’n, what’s all the fuss about?” Chemo wasn’t so bad, I actually felt much better than I did before. Now I understand all the fuss. If chemotherapy was just a few treatments, I don’t think it’d be all that bad – it’s the fact that you keep going back that makes it difficult. They can rough you up once or twice, and it’s a bit of an ordeal, but nothing to really whine about. But twelve times? It makes me sick to think of having to go in there eight more times.

This is…I guess the word is “longer”, than I realized. It’s not harder than I thought it’d be – I thought it would be hard – it just goes on and on, and – again – you have to keep going back and getting hit again and again.

I see now that there is quality in perseverance. It’s a quality that I’ve often ignored in my convenient, scattered life; but for the same reasons, it’s something I’ve never really needed. Usually my problems go away about as quickly as they come. I cruised through school without studying much, I’ve made a career on a natural skill for music that I never had to work much for. I’ve achieved a good amount for 24 years, but I’ve never had to persevere through adversity. When things became difficult, I would often quit, and start down a path of lesser resistance.

But I have questions about perseverance. Like, what is the difference between “perseverance” and “patience?” And also, does “perseverance” require, or even imply, a positive attitude?

I am still not upset about having cancer – I’m not depressed, I’m not disappointed, I don’t blame a higher being, or wish things were different. I still think that there are things that cancer has shown me that I never would have seen otherwise; I still think cancer is a good teacher.

But that doesn’t mean I’m particularly happy about it, or that I should be. Certainly, I think there is something noble about a person that walks through something like this with constant sunshine on their mind, the kind of person about which people say “You know, he never complained once!”

I wonder, though, if Sisyphus particularly enjoyed rolling a stone up that hill? Or if Lawrence actually liked taking that camel across Arabia? Or if Churchill enjoyed sending his bombers over Axis territory? I would say they didn’t. And didn’t they do it anyway? And isn’t that exactly what “perseverance” is? Perseverance is not continuing a task that you enjoy, it is by definition, continuing a task despite your continuing dislike for it.

(This differs from “patience,” I think, in that “patience” is a little more benevolent. “Patience” becomes “perseverance” once the task in question requires “tenacity.”)

To get back to the point, I would say, definitively, that the quality called “perseverance” does not require a sunny disposition. It may help, but it is not required, and I’d venture to say it’s not always even realistic.

But there remains another question here – what is the proper way to handle this negativity? As a cancer patient – and I’ve heard this from other cancer patients – I think it’s tempting to try to hide your real thoughts from most people. I mean, when somebody asks you “How are you?,” they are not exactly expecting you to pile on them all of your problems. You don’t want people to start shying away from you because of your negativity; you don’t want to make other people suffer just because you are. That’s rude.

So what do you do? Well, personally, while I think “perseverance” does not necessitate optimism, I don’t think you can just go around moaning and complaining, and still call that “persevering.” I think that perseverance does require a certain bit of “acceptance,” if not “appreciation,” for the situation. That means that you shouldn’t go around ruining everybody’s day just because you’re on chemo. Have a little stoicism, why don’t you.

It’s clear to me that I wouldn’t be learning anything worthwhile if I liked having cancer. I think that cancer is worthwhile because it’s so awful – and it’s not until times like these – where I HATE chemotherapy, and I DETEST going to the doctor, that character can really be built.

So, I’m grateful that I detest going to the doctor, but that doesn’t change the fact that I do detest going to the doctor. And to act like, or pretend like I enjoy going to the doctor or to chemotherapy would be, I think, negating that which is worthwhile about this experience.

And it’d be a big, fat lie anyway, so I guess all I’m saying that you’re not going to get any of that happy nonsense out of me on this journal; and maybe this is just a very, very long disclaimer that doesn’t get to the point until the last paragraph.

I didn’t ask him if I could post this, but I keep thinking about it, and I can’t help but put it up. This is from an e-mail from an old friend of mine. This is the kind of thing that almost makes this cancer experience worth it.

“Since I had no idea this was going on for you it really did hit me like a ton of bricks. But it kind of put a lot of things in perspective for me that needed to be kicked into place. Made me realize how stupid it is for me to just sit on my ass and not act on things. So the next day a girl from work was taking me out to dinner for my birthday, and by the end of the night I finally worked it up to talk to her. Megan and I have been dating for over a month now and she is absolutely amazing.”

A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn. ~ Author Unknown

The Sunflower Fields

“…anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea…” over and over in my head this morning without stop. I didn’t, though. Making a mess would have just complicated things.

The Cancer Center was busy today, everybody is dying to get in here. The nurses seemed curt with each other, but they’ve got a tough job, I think they are allowed to be that way with each other now and then. When the nurse came to take my blood, she smiled and asked me how I was. She’s good at her job.

Everybody else in the Cancer Center was already hooked up by the time I got back there. They walked around with IVs and tubes disappearing under their shirts. It’s weird to see people walking around with bored looks on their faces as poison is being pumped into their hearts. It seems like they should have a more dramatic look on their faces; one like they had just been stabbed during a swordfight, etc.

My nurse tells me that my difficulty concentrating lately is due to the drugs. Something “they” call “Chemo Brain.” I’m forgetting names now. Names I’ve known for years and years. Its like parts of my brain aren’t connected anymore. I hope I don’t lose my memories.

They hooked me up to the IV and started dripping the Benedryl. I started to get nervous about the drugs coming on, and I started to feel funny. I thought about my hair falling out, and forgetting friends names, and my skin drying out, and anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea anticipatory nausea… Then I was like, “—- this, I’m going home.”

I jump on a plane bound for Dee-troit, to hang out with Berry Gordy. Coltrane is there too, but you know how that guy is. Everywhere we go he’s taking these HUGE steps. So we get out our old, white, thunderbird convertible and motor around the city.

We stop at the Grand Canyon and get out our hang gliders to get across the gap. But Coltrane had been fooling with his hang glider the whole way there, modifying it and decorating it, so by the time we got there, it was way too heavy. It doesn’t have any practical use. So we drop him in this little town called Winslow and pick up Elton John, because that guy’s a more practical thinker. Coltrane takes off with a chick in this crazy-looking flatbed.

So there we are, me, Berry Gordy, and Elton John, in the middle of the desert, trying to think of which way to go. I tell them I want to go to the beach, and since I’m the one with the successful music career, and since they are just happy to be hanging out with a guy like me, they are cool with the idea. We motor to Malibu and buy a place right on the beach.

After awhile Surfer Magazine starts sending out photographers to check out my crazy moves, but I get bored with it. I want to take off to the mountains for awhile, so I drop the guys and take the ‘bird up to Montana for the weekend.

The people there are wild, and they act like they’ve never seen an outsider.

“What do you do for a living?” They ask.

“I’m a cancer patient.” I say.

“Do you like it?”

“Well,” I admit, “I’m still in training right now, but between you and me, I don’t think it’s for me. It’s steady, though, and they can’t fire me, so I guess it’s ok for right now.”

They’ve never heard of cancer or chemotherapy or anything like that, and it seems rude to talk about such things at the dinner table, so I pull up and forget about it. They serve gyros, and daiquiris; mint chocolate chip gelato imported from Venice, and mussels from this no-name French cafe on the Atlantic coast that makes the best kind. Out back, Sinatra is grilling a pig and mixing poi, which I think it’s pretty ambitious, given his condition.

Out of no where this big group of Tunisian taxi cab drivers runs in and wants to take all of us to their cousin’s place to buy some rugs, but I’m not into it. I thank everybody for the hospitality, and I point the car toward the Dakotas. I want to drive through the sunflower fields before I wake up.

I end up on the beach again, I think it’s the Bahamas, but I don’t know. I miss all my friends, and I want to go home, or get them down there with me. They are probably busy though, so I start driving home. I take the back roads, though, I don’t want to get home too fast.

…

I woke up and took off my headphones. The nurse was pushing buttons, trying to kill the beeping on my IV pump. They told me I should get some sleep.

I lost my Sense of Humor About Cancer the other day. I don’t know where it could have gone, I put it right on the dresser with my wallet and keys before I went to bed, and it wasn’t there when I woke up. Maybe somebody could have come and stolen it, but I think it’s probably just lost.

If anybody sees it, its big and round, sometimes its sort of dry, and inside is my Positive Attitude About Chemotherapy. It’s hard to come by those things, and I’m going to need that tomorrow, so I’d really like to get it back.

I picked up a replacement Sense of Humor today, but it’s doesn’t work as well as my old one. This one’s not as funny, and I’ve really got to concentrate to get it to work, and it ends up sounding forced. I’d rather just have the other one back.

Item had sentimental value, reward if found.

To the little spider perched above the shower head, watching my hair slide down the drain:

Dude.
A little privacy please?

That is how much my first chemo session cost, according to the bill I found in the mailbox today. [edit: i later found out that this bill was for 2 sessions of chemotherapy, which is one month. - djh]

(I should quickly add that this bill was submitted to my insurance company, and they should, KNOCK ON WOOD, take care of most of it.)

My first reaction was laughter (“Surely you jest!”), my second reaction was to blame for the now-empty beer bottle I have here next to the computer.

I could have bought a cadillac. Or another college education. Or 24 new keyboards. Or 96,552 bags of chips from the ECC vending machines.

I don’t get it. You cut me up, you stick a tube in me, you fill me with crap that’ll make my hair fall out, my stomach upset, my face puffy, my bones hurt, and my face break out. You make it so I can’t sleep for days and days, and you tell me this stuff might give me cancer. Then you charge me $48,276.30 and tell me to come back 11 more times?

Somebody wake me up. I fell down the rabbit hole, and now there are ladies dressed in white trying to stab me with little plastic tubes and doctors pulling out my bones.

Maybe they messed up. Maybe they meant to send this to the other Dave Hahn with cancer. Who’s also a patient at their hospital. And who also had chemo that day. In that chair. With that nurse. And that blood type. And that basic appearance.

I’m sorry guys, I really wanted to stick around, see ya’ll get married and meet your children and such, but I’m afraid “living” just wasn’t in the budget this year. We’ll try again next time.

Are they NUTS? My father has said in that past that he believes that there are comedians in the back room that make up the prices for these things.

“First chemo? Ooh! Tell him $50 grand. No – how about just under? Yeah, like, $48-something. Yeah, that’ll be great! Oh, I wish I could see his face when he gets the bill! Man, is he going to need a drink. Tell me what he says, ok?”