Chronicles of a
Cancer Patient

Dave 3, Cancer 0

See, what cancer doesn’t understand is that I’m the home team, and I’m undefeated. Furthermore, I’ve got the best oncologist in town pitching, and the best chemo nurse anywhere who’s catching. My brother is at first, my other brother at third, my parents are sharing shortstop and second, and the WHOLE rest of the family is covering the outfield like a volleyball team. I’ve got friends in the stands, friends in the dugout, friends on the street, friends on the rooftops. I’m kicking the crap out of this cancer. It doesn’t even have a chance.

Tito has got to be so sorry he climbed in me. He’s getting one express ticket to Tumor Heaven. The loser better enjoy the ride, too, because the ticket set me back more than he’s worth.

It just goes to show, you can’t be friends with a tumor. You invite him over to dinner and before you know it – the guy’s living with you, eating your food and using your hemoglobin without asking. Sooner or later you’re paying some professional to evict this pathetic excuse for an organism. And it’s sad, ’cause the guy can’t even live on his own, he’s just totally dependent on other people. But you can’t blame yourself, you can’t take responsibility for his inadequacies. You just gotta let him go. I mean, what a loser, right?

Treatment #3 was good. They even gave me my own private room – how sweet is that? Like I was Liza Manelli looking for the VIP seating or something. The nurse is still cute, and again, I had no complications. They took my blood, and then I even went out for lunch while they did the labs.

The results of my blood test are miraculous. I have better results on my blood test now, after 4 weeks of chemo, than I did before I started. I’m happy to announce that I am no longer anemic. Before chemo, I had enough platelets for two people, but no longer. My white and red blood cells are right where they are supposed to be. Plus, I’ve gained 14 pounds since the beginning of treatment.

I guess its starting to be clear how sick I was. Man.

The nurse sort of squints and pauses for a minute…looks at me again…smiles, “You know, I’m sort of surprised you’re doing so well, too.”

I’m the HOME TEAM, baby! Bring it on!

I’ve found out something about myself during all this – well, I’ve found out many things, but this in particular: I am awesome in adversity, it’s monotony that kills me. Strap me up to the chemo IV, I’ll take the pain and the fatigue and I’ll keep smiling, but put me in a cubicle with a pile of paperwork and I’ll never live.

I slept through the Benedryl this time, and surfed through my classical music when I awoke. My parents came and read the news. News about people on the Gulf Coast that are so much worse off than me.

I was out of the Center by 4 and off to play piano by 5. Now, in all honesty, while I may be feeling particularly cocky tonight, I am not feeling particularly good. Chemotherapy is exhausting, and as I’ve said before, I feel like a truck ran over my soul. But I went to two rehearsals tonight anyway. And it’s probably because of the steroids, but my mind is blaring out of my mouth at Michael Schumaker speeds. I’m like a revved up little boy before bedtime. I don’t want to go to bed! Just ten more minutes!

I had a fantastic talk with a fellow member of the Cancer Club tonight, someone who is clearly a kindred spirit – someone who is totally on the same page as me. It was energizing to talk with her. She had an rare form of cancer, and the docs gave her 8 months to live. A year ago. This woman has some fire in her, and she blazed down her treatments. She says the chemo tore her apart, and she adds, quietly – so that, I imagine, other people won’t think she’s a nut – that cancer might be the best thing that ever happened to her. (Might be.) Amen. The air smells sweeter, the the sun shines brighter, etc., etc. I’m so glad to be alive.

So, I don’t expect to be feeling well on Thursday, Friday or Saturday. And part of me hopes that I lose my hair this time so I can just get it over with. I expect bone pain by Monday, and my immune system should fall by next Saturday. I’m ready to tank if that’s what happens. My head’s in the right place.

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?”

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.

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 drove up to Madison last week to spend a few days with my brother and his wife. I ate their food, watched their TV and hogged the affection of their cat. I played a game with their cat, where I would sit on the couch with my computer, acting busy, and the cat would walk onto my face, shakily claw it’s way down my torso, and sit it’s butt on the “Send” key (or a similar key I wouldn’t want him to press with his butt). Actually, this game wasn’t fun for me. But the cat seemed desperate to play, and I figured I was a guest and all…

I came back to Illinois to catch a game of Pinocle with my Grandma and her friends at her retirement community. The ladies that play this game are very sweet, but they’ll bid you into the ground and steal your lunch money if you try to set them. (For those of you who don’t know the game, Pinocle is a game played with a minimum or three old ladies and a funny deck of cards, where you bet to see who has a gambling problem, then you try to “set” that person to prove to them that they are a poor decision-maker. The youngest person always has to eat a lot of cookies.)

There’s a mechanism in the human brain that makes you enjoy life in moderation, but cancer broke mine, so Saturday I went to Great America. It was half-price day, which meant that you’d have to also be half-insane to go, as the number of people in the small park was bound to exceed the population of Nevada. Nevertheless, the weather was crisp and sunny, and the rides were great (by which I mean they did not break while I was on them). The food, however, must have been made many moons ago by a sadist with a penchant for obesity. That was about as close to “Orange Chicken” as I am to Peking.

Great America has instituted a thing called the Fast Lane. For $15 you can buy 4 tickets that will allow you to go straight to the front of the line on (almost) any 4 rides you want to go on. One of two things will end up happening with this. Poor people will still have to wait in line, and rich people will never have to “associate” themselves with the squalor of those peasants waiting in the real line. Or, everybody will end up buying Fast Lane tickets and there will not be any regular line anymore, at which point they will need to create another level of line. Perhaps you could pay $50 and they’d blow you out of a cannon into Lake Michigan and put you out of your misery altogether. Either way, it’s an interesting mix of capitalism and classism that is touted as convenience.

Anyway, the day was an oppressive study in the sociology of crowds, but having, of course, purchased my Fast Lane tickets (hell yes I did), I didn’t wait long for any rides. As we left the park, I saw that the scrolling park marquee read, “Park crowded, please visit another day.” This is theme park speak for “ALL YE WHO ENTER MUST SUFFER! THE END TIMES ARE AMONG US! SAVE YOURSELVES!”

My fun was over by this morning. I woke up and dragged my feet getting to the hospital. They put me in the corner lazy-boy and hooked up the machine. It’s starting to get very routine. I think my body has adjusted to the steroids, so I don’t feel as antsy when I get them. The Benedryl knocks me out still, and I having an ever increasing disgust for the taste of the drugs. I was annoyed that I couldn’t steady my eyes on my reading after having the Benedryl. Out of obstinance I tried to fight the sleep, but it didn’t work.

There were less people in the Cancer Center this Monday. That means the regulars are either done with chemo, changed the day of their treatments for any number of reasons, or they are dead.

I weighed in at 182 lbs today. I started chemo at 149 lbs. Before cancer I was a constant 180 lbs. This session marks the half-way point in my scheduled chemotherapy treatments. Let’s hope the second half of treatment doesn’t beef me up like the first half has.

I’m working gigs all week. Like I said at the beginning, I’m going to keep playing as long as I’m standing. Cancer can’t beat me.

8 Bells and All’s Well

I found this boat I want to buy. Well, it’s more like a yacht. Like, a big yacht. And I was watching this travel show over at my girl’s place the other day, and I found this killer house I want. Ok, it’s a mansion. Ok, it costs $14 million. But the boat only costs $7 million, so maybe I’ll just start with that?

Well, I’ve got a long way to go from here if I’m planning on getting there. My total income last week was the $10.00 my grandmother slipped me when I wasn’t paying attention. And I’m looking outside at the damp weather and it doesn’t look like I’m going to be hacking away at that $7 million today either. Not that it needs to be sunny to earn a boat, but it provides the right inspiration.

Ah face it, I’d be lucky to just see the ocean these days, let alone commandeer it. But when I’m done with this mess, ooohhhh baby, I’ve got some traveling to do.

I was thinking about my $7 million yacht while I was at chemo this time. My brother was there and he brought it up, so it’s really his fault (I had sent it to him as my Christmas List). See, the boat seats twelve, so you all would have to take turns coming with me. But one of you would have to learn how to steer the thing, because I will be in the hot tub. Find some place nice so that I can go scuba diving when we drop anchor. And one of you would have to cook, unless you want to eat toast and microwavable hot pretzels for the whole trip (that’s all I can cook, sorry. Oh, and canned soup. I can make a killer bowl of canned soup.).

But at night I’ll play piano (yes, of course there will be a piano aboard, duh), so that could make up for the three meals of toast that you just had. And if whoever is steering manages to keep us away from pirates and reefs, we could last out there a very long time (lots of canned soup).

You notice that I don’t like talking about the actual treatments anymore? I’ll find anyway to talk about something else.

Chemo smells like alcohol swabs and it tastes like saline and it looks like a bunch of tubes and needles. I feel like writing a letter of complaint to the makers of “Chemotherapy” and giving them a piece of my mind. This is the most expensive product I’ve ever had somebody else pay for, and if you ask me, they could do a little more in the “customer satisfaction” category. The medical field has got to be the only industry that can charge such astronomical rates for products you’d rather puke on than buy. I’m in the wrong line of work, that’s for sure. I mean, what if I showed up at a gig and was all like, “hey I’m going to play a bunch of really terrible, screeching crap for the next four hours, and it’s gonna cost you $10,000.” If only I could convince people that it was good for them.

MY PIANO MUSIC WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE.

(It’ll cost you, though. And give you a migraine.)

Right, so the 8th treatment. It sucked. But the nurse, who is still cute, but smells like chemo (sorry baby, that’s one of my top 5 turn-offs), told me that the textbook treatment for Hodgkin’s Disease is 8 treatments of chemotherapy. Which would mean I’m done. In fact, the order for chemo that she has for me only includes 8 treatments. So I’m done. Yay! I’m done!

Riiiiiight. Fat chance. Everybody back on the boat, we ain’t finished yet. I’ll get a PET scan on Saturday and then go see the doc, who will most likely tell me that the cancer is gone, but we’re going to need to do 2 more months of this crap-o-therapy just to make sure I’m good and pacified before they hand me the final bill.

You see why I’d rather talk about my $7 million boat and your toast diet? They keep these yachts in Panama before people buy them. I imagine that’s so they can deliver them to the East or West coast, as well as stay away from hurricanes. (sigh)

4 more treatments I can do. I will be a bad ass when I get done with this. Go ahead, punch me in the face, I don’t care. I went through chemotherapy, you can’t hurt me. I’m unstoppable.

But you’ll need to excuse me because I need to go lay down. And microwave another hot pretzel.

8 bells and all’s well.

I bought a compass the other day on eBay. Ok, well, two compasses, actually. I wasn’t sure about the first one, so I figured I should get a second. I got outbid tonight on something that was billed as the “complete desktop recording system,” although now I’ll never be sure if it actually was. That one upset me, too, because I only lost it by $2.50. I mean, I could have paid another $2.50, come on!

I bought a spindle of CDs. And a ceiling fan for my tent. Not that I can use my tent for the next 9 months. Or a compass for that matter. And what on earth do I need a compass for? Do I look like Magellan? The pocket knife I bought will probably be useful, but I’m glad I asked my father to talk me out of buying the over-priced keyboard I was eyeing today. I have a keyboard. Two keyboards, in fact. Actually, I already own the same keyboard I was thinking about buying today.

I started to read the “Jeans Style Guide” on eBay just now, and I realized that it was for women’s jeans. But then I kept reading. It was about then that I realized that I have a problem.

Somewhere between getting cancer and getting really bored, I started surfing eBay again. I say “again” because I believe I’ve done this before, where I start to roam around eBay, buy a few useless things – sunglasses, spatula – and then realize what I’m doing.

This time, though, I really, truly, have nothing better to do that pick through the yard sale crap on eBay (i.e., check this gem out), so it’s especially alarming.

Today I got tired of staring at my computer, so I pulled on my shoes and draped my coat over my pajamas and drove my car to our mailbox (driving to my mailbox will make sense to those of you who know where I live). See, two packages had already come to the house, and neither of them were for me – specifically – neither of them were the new Victronox Swiss Army Knife Picnicker Edition #53652 pocket knife that I bought off eBay that I don’t need. So I thought I’d take a drive up to the mailbox to see if anything came for me.

I didn’t find anything from eBay, but I did find a few more doctor bills. *Not what I was looking for.*

So I came back to the house and surfed a bit more, and that’s when I started to bid on this “complete desktop recording system,” which I desperately do not need.

Mostly, like I said, I’m just still sort of bored. I had chemo on Monday, and here it is Wednesday, and I can’t really go very far without having to lay down, and I’m sort of tired of seeing the people on CSI solve EVERY case (wow they are good), and I can only lurk so much on my own website waiting for comments before it gets obsessive.

I have, however, come up with a bunch of things to do. When I’m done with this, I mean. First, I thought I’d backpack in Sierra Nevada this April. And then travel Europe again – no, make it South America this time – oh, and include a language immersion program in there so I learn to speak Spanish.

And I thought I’d record my own CD of piano music. I would have my own recital, too. It’s about time I did something like that anyway.

And if I do any of that backpacking stuff, I’m going to need a compass, right? (You don’t even know how to use a compass.) And a Victronox Swiss Army Knife Picnicker Edition #53652 pocket knife? (You could probably manage without.)

Well, anyway, if anybody is interested on how to find the right pair of women’s jeans on eBay, just let me know. I have the link right here.

Update: I just got this e-mail from the dude I bought the pocket knife from:

Hello,

I greatly apologize we have indentified a large inventory and shipping mistake that effects your order. Unfortunately your item is unavailable. I have refunded your money plus $5 for the waste of your time and I again I greatly apologize.

Thank you,
David Harris
www.ABCKnives.com

Besides being really lame, and besides the fact that I no longer get my Victronox Swiss Army Knife Picnicker Edition #53652 pocket knife – this means that I just made $5 by buying things I don’t need on eBay.

I don’t have much to report this week about me. I had chemo on Monday, and it was a bad week, worse than the others. My hands went numb again, and I’m almost glad because that means the doc will take out one of the drugs for the last couple times. I played one gig all week, a choir concert for a good friend, and it just knocked the hell out of me to do it. It was on Thursday, and usually I’m ok by Thursday, but I guess it’s getting worse.

But whatever, it’ll be over soon. 2 more chemos, and at least I beat it. I guess once I heard that I beat it, my mind started to turn to future things and plans, and just getting on with my life. In that way, these last few chemos seem like such a nuisance. I don’t think I would have described them as a “nuisance” five months ago. Also, there are some other medical things going on in the family now that seem more important, and that’s saying something.

Life is rolling along, despite the cancer treatments. I can’t say much yet, but I’ve got my fingers crossed that I might get a short story published in the next year – more on that another time. I’ve heard from some people interested in becoming students, and once chemo is finished next month, I’m booked solid with gigs until April. (I’m booking May now, anybody want me for May?) And I’m still working out recordings for the coming CD.

In a way, I sometimes think that it’s been nice to have the past 5 – soon to be 6 – months to sit and reflect on life while in a semi-desperate situation. I mean, I’ve come up with a lot of good thoughts during this time, and – no doubt – grown up double quick. I’m infinitely closer to several people – my parents, my brother, my girlfriend – and that’s a really nice outcome from a terrible situation. When I first started I knew that cancer would teach me things, and I hoped that I’d be wise enough to find the lessons – and I think I have learned a lot.

I know not to take health for granted. I was good, before, about living life deliberately, but I’m even more set on that now. I know the value of a relationship, and what it really means to stick by somebody.

They say that cancer mellows people out, that survivors are pretty chill people. I’d say that I’m a lot more mellow about somethings and a lot more vehement about others. I’m a lot more uppity about living life on my own terms and not following the pack, I used to waver more on that subject before this. Now I know that life is too short to live someone else’s and call it your own.

Anyway, I know that a lot of other stuff and I can’t think of right now.

I’ve got two more treatments. Stick with me. I’m almost done.

I’ll Tell You What Tough Is

I saw a guy in the chemo room today with tattoos all over his arms and neck. He was a slight, asian man, maybe forty, and with the exception of the tattoos, he looked pretty harmless. I understand it’s awfully painful to get a tattoo, and I always thought you had to be tough to get one of those.

And to ride a Harley – maybe wearing leather and a bandana. Those things can all make a guy look tough. Sometimes a goatee can make a guy look a little ornery, and definitely a shaved head. If he’s beefy, then I’d stay away, and if he’s got beefy friends, well, I wouldn’t even say hi.

But what a silly, stupid idea. A guy spends his mornings shaping his beard into some priggish pattern on his face and I start to shake? Another guy has enough money to buy a Harley and a two dollar bandana and that’s enough to make me cross the street in aversion?

Forget it. I’ll tell you what tough looks like.

She’s wearing a wig. It’s too big, and you can see the extra lining hanging over her forehead. Her eyebrows are penciled in with a color that doesn’t match the wig. She walks with a stuttering gait to and from the bathroom. Her clothes are too small, and cheap. A IV stand – one taller than her – is next to her chair. Three bags hang on the stand, and their tubes disappear under her brown, velour jacket. Her eyes are like hot bayonets.

She has a son sitting next to her. He nervously jerks his head up at her every time she makes a move. He stands up when she gets up to walk to the bathroom, and although he’d like to help, there’s nothing he can do. He listens attentively when the nurse talks, but he doesn’t really understand everything that’s going on. Like, what is it like to lose your stomach lining? Why is there a rash on his mother’s chest? What does she feel when her friends ask her how she’s feeling?

His mother comforts him when she returns from the bathroom. She puts her hand on his shoulder, says, “I’m ok” and “Sit down, it’s ok.” She has the nurse get her son a blanket.

Now THAT is tough. She doesn’t have a Harley, or a bandana. She’s maybe 5′ 2″, and she couldn’t beat anybody up. She’s dying, like everybody else, but the difference is that she knows it. Maybe she knows when. Maybe not.

But she doesn’t give up being a mother. Or a woman. Or a person. That’s tough.

I’m not that tough, maybe. But I’m tougher than I was before this. I know what it’s like to sit through something horrible, or to live with a body tortured by chemicals. I’m tough enough.

But I have good days, and I have hours that go by without a thought about chemo. Some people in this mess don’t have that luxury. I’m lucky.

One more treatment. Let’s end this.

Vinblastin is the drug that puts the “V” in ABVD Chemotherapy. It’s a nasty chemical, or mix of chemicals (who knows?), that attacks not only the cancer cells, but also your nervous system. Vinblastin is to blame for the numbing of my hands and, now, my feet.

Given that my hands are, say, a significant part of my current “career,” the doc decided to cut the Vinblastin from this last chemo round, and from the next one, too. Nevertheless, the drug seems to have some lingering effect, and when my little pinky toe started to go numb yesterday, the doc decided he wanted to see me.

I think he just misses me. Maybe he’s getting used to me shuffling around his office with my eyes half closed and mumbling half-answers to his half-questions.

I guess I can maybe tell that this last chemo was missing a drug. It’s hard to pinpoint, but it feels like maybe this week is a bit less of a trial than the others. I stress “a bit,” though.

It might be all the drugs I’m taking to swing the effects of chemo. I think I’ve finally got it down. I count 16 separate medicines that have entered my body in the past two days. Three of them are chemo, the other 13 are all to dull the effects of the chemo. My body is 70% water, 25% drugs and 5% silly putty. Or at least it feels that way.

As I was leaving, the doc told me that the kid in the room across the hall was about to start when I’m just about done with. I glanced into the room on my way out and saw him. Younger than me, with dark hair and scared eyes. He should be scared. Poor guy.