Chemo Round #3

 

Chemo round #3—maybe halfway done? We were a little late getting started today, but Princess Margaret isn't the worst place to hang out while you're waiting for your procedure to begin.

An elderly couple were in the lounge with me, waiting for the husband's chemo. The wife asked me if I could help her husband out of his wheelchair and onto the sofa where he could rest. I gladly agreed. He was almost weightless in my arms. He didn't look at me while I was helping him, and I instinctively knew that, for him, this was a matter of his dignity—even at his age (or perhaps particularly because of it) the notion of being lifted out of his wheelchair by a fellow cancer patient, and a stranger at that, was something with which he was not entirely comfortable.

His wife was grateful, however, and I noticed that she was likewise tentative and fragile in her movements.

I read my book, she read her book, and her husband dozed quietly on the sofa while we waited for our pagers to go off, announcing that our "beds" were ready.

As I watched them, I tried to consider what it would mean to have been married as long as they obviously had been—decades and decades—and to be this fragile, this vulnerable, and for one of them to be going through this cancer treatment. The Hero MD has been terrific, and I'm fairly strong, so it's less of an issue for us. But I was deeply moved by the gentle, measured, rickety, well-worn marital ballet of these two older people who loved each other as much as they obviously did, and who were facing the unthinkable with grace, and with unshakeable intertwined devotion.

Half an hour later, our pagers went off nearly simultaneously. I looked across the room to where the man was waking up from his nap, and his wife was gathering his belongings. I asked her, very quietly, if she'd like me to help her husband back into his chair. She said, "Would you please?" I said that of course I would. He trembled a bit as I helped him off the sofa. I told him, "It's OK, you're not going to fall," and got him into his chair. This time, he looked at my face and smiled, and said, "Thank you, I'm glad you were here." I told him I was glad, too.

If I'd helped him, he'd helped me too.

Cancer is the great equalizer. It makes one tribe out of disparate tribes, and it makes fellow travellers out of strangers. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, we owe each other a terrible loyalty.

Chemo Round #2

Chemo round #2. There was a curtain on my cubicle today, and I asked that it be drawn, for privacy and also to avoid the distraction of seeing everyone coming and going in front of my sight line. I wanted to focus on the experience. The pellucid sunlight poured in through the large window, turning what might have merely been white medical sterility into a cocoon of brightness that was surprisingly soothing, like an aircraft high above the clouds. Midway through my procedure, I heard the sound of a gong echoing down the corridor, accompanied by a cacophony of cheers and clapping. A purely joyful sound. Someone had finished their l final round of chemotherapy and were sent home for the last time. Unsurprisingly, it moved me deeply, and I teared up a bit—not only in anticipation of that happening for me, but also in the spirt of shared joy of triumph over illness that seems to run through the veins of this blessed hospital like quicksilver. I'm glad I had my dark glasses, because my eyes were a bit sore afterwards, and the sunlight was so bright. I don't know who hit the gong that hard, but I hope it felt wonderful, and I hope they felt all of our love. Today's angel was a nurse named Margareta who had that quality I admire most in a nurse—the ability to take care of a patient while allowing them the dignity of autonomy. There's a lot of that going around at Princess Margaret, thank God. So now I'm home resting, with my carbuncle of a portable chemo thermos—Flo #2, so named in honour of my friend Jen McCarthy, who named hers "Flo." No negative effects yet, and feeling strong, though the side-effects may kick in later this evening. But if they do, I've got the drugs to knock them into next week. #fuckcancer

Aiden

Two-year old Aiden McCarthy was found wandering down the street alone in the aftermath of the Highland Park massacre on the 4th of July. Only later did authorities realize that he was alone because both of his parents had been slaughtered by a man on a rooftop with a legally-purchased assault rifle.  Even amidst the shrill, nauseating obscenity of the gun rights advocacy in the wake of yet another mass shooting, I have to wonder how the image of this little boy, who very likely saw his parents murdered in front of him, perhaps even while holding his hands or carrying him in their arms, doesn't set everyone with a pretence to having a heart, or a conscience, on fire. All we ever hear from conservatives is "What about the children?" Well, what 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 the children? It's time someone forced these fucking people to answer their own favourite damned question.

Cherry trees

I woke up this morning to a young man in our cherry tree, picking the cherries. I have no idea how young he was (at my age, almost everyone is "young") but he was certainly agile enough to have shimmied up the tree and made a safe perch for himself in the crook of one of the branches.

Apparently he'd rung the doorbell or knocked, but we slept through it (thank you, magical gummies) so we hadn't given permission. Still, no part of me wanted to reprimand him for "trespassing." He looked so natural, and so happy, up there that all I wanted was for him to be safe and not fall.

I waited for about five minutes, then went out to introduce myself and tell him how pleased I was that he was making use of fruit that would otherwise lie fallow, or feed the squirrels (not that there's anything wrong with that, either.)

There was something so perfectly "summer," so perfectly natural, so organic, and so perfectly beneficent, in his presence there. Youth is, among other things, for being limber and deft and athletic enough to shimmy up a stranger's cherry tree and harvest. I was glad for his presence, and honestly felt blessed by it.

The goodness of the day continued apace with the magnificent news (and complete surprise) that my best friend, whom I have not seen in two and a half years is not only in this part of the world, but that we will see each other in a matter of weeks when he flies up to Toronto from his film set in Ottawa for a visit. Next week is set to be a fairly medicalized one, so having a reunion with Ron to look forward to is yet another gift that fell out of the morning sky, entirely unexpectedly.

I got a haircut this afternoon. I'm not anticipating hair-loss on this chemo protocol, but they tell me it can get thinner and drier, so I thought I might get a jump on the whole mess. Joe, who cuts it, has been my friend for longer than I've been married, so a check-in with him is really a visit with an old friend at least as much as it is an exercise in making me presentable.

After the haircut, I took a cab downtown to get something to eat. The cab driver was a New Country fan, and we drove down Yonge Street incongruously blasting Paul Brandt and Brad Paisley and I took in the signs of summer at every turn, particularly the wonderful ease and speed of the youth as they move through the month. Like the boy in the cherry tree this morning, I was unaccountably and powerfully moved the rush of life all around me, and it fed my soul in a way.

At the restaurant, I re-read May Sarton's Journal of a Solitude and had a brief check-in phone conversation with my family in Nova Scotia, which always anchors me to who I am, who I love, and what my history is.

When I arrived home, I took Beckett out to the park. The temperature has mellowed and the humidity was gone, so it was intensely pleasurable to be outside again. We went to the top of the hill brow overlooking the Riverdale Park bowl and parked ourselves there on the grass. I combed his fur with my fingers and we both watched the dogs and frisbee players below as the sun started to set.

To my delight, I was joined by an old friend I hadn't seen in awhile. She's a woman I've always admired for her intelligence and the dryness of her delivery. I hadn't known that she was also a cancer survivor, and we had one of those marvellous talks I'm growing used to with women who are either survivors themselves, or in treatment as I am, where useful and practical information and advice is shared as naturally as our mothers' generation shared recipes.

It's almost 9:00 p.m., and I'm wondering why today feels like one of the best days I've ever had.

One of the surprising side-effects of this cancer has been the shredding of several layers of numbing "protection" between events and my reaction to them. Tears seem much more at the ready, but so is laughter, so is tenderness, and so is pure wonder at the beauty and preciousness of life, and how lucky I am to be in it.

I'm not high, or drunk, or even especially tired, so I have to assume that the good feelings I have right now are legitimate, and that everything between the young man trespassing in our cherry tree and Beckett and I watching the sun set at the top of the hill was as good and wholesome and nurturing as it seems to have been.

Today's lesson? Look for the gold in your waking hours. It's most likely there, but if you're not open to it, you'll walk right past it, lost in self-indulgence, or self-pity, or even just clueless, harmless ambivalence.

There's so much beauty out there, and it's all free.