Hello, everyone!
Thanks so much for your prayers, kind words, irreverent humor, and loving support. It has made this adventure much more manageable.
Alright, that said, I haven’t been wanting to write this e-mail. In fact, I’ve been using just about every means of procrastination available not to write this e-mail. No, don’t worry, it’s not due to some dire medical prediction. It’s something much deeper. Something at the heart of me and why I’ve been in such a funk lately. It’s my Ego. That damned Ego-Me entwinement. Still, I’ve decided to ‘fess up, because, in the end, that’s all I can do, right? And we really don’t have time for games, not anymore.
That said, first some good-news (further procrastination):
We got a house! Yes, folks, finally. We’re currently under contract. It’s a great ‘60’s brick/stone house on two acres. There are loads of saguaros, great mountain views, and a wash (read: lots of wildlife). Plus, it’s in Northwest Tucson and right by my favorite shopping haunts (you can never be too close to a Trader Joe’s is my motto). The house has some funky ‘60’s elements so I’m currently trolling e-bay for retro furnishings like ‘atomic’ fiberglass lamps and eames-style furniture. We are due to close on the 22nd of this month. We’ll also have our apartment until mid-April. So those of you seeking warmth in the desert, book early. I figure we should have some furniture in the new house by early March and the apartment is completely furnished. Come one, come all.
On to the hospital front:
Apparently, the CT scans that I had in late December showed that, as my oncologist put it, the “nodules” in my lungs (which, he says, are too numerous to count) have “progressed.” Thus, we are off to “bet on another horse.” That horse is Gemzar. Gemzar is an approved chemotherapy drug. It just isn’t widely used on sarcomas. So, after an initial false-start in which I was primed for treatment and then told that we had to wait a week to see if it was approved by my health insurance, I am on it. Chemo is now every Tuesday of each week for 3 consecutive weeks followed by a week off.
Which brings me to the bit that I’ve been avoiding – no, not just avoiding, burying – because it’s such a freakin’ blow to my ego. (Which, I suppose, all in all, is a good thing. Ego blows can be nothing but good. Still, they’re painful.):
Alright, so … on the 9th of January, I go to the Cancer Center for my first Gemzar treatment. I’m all psyched. I mean, hey, the other times were spa days: no pain, little hassle, interesting talk with friends, and a few cups of tea. And chocolate. So, I am ready to enjoy the day. Even the fact that I had to wait 2 hours for blood work and that they misplaced my orders didn’t dissuade me. This was spa day. So, at a quarter to one, after squeezing in lunch due to the blood work debacle, my friend, Shirley, and I head up to the Central Pod. (I kid you not. It’s called a ‘pod’. They recently moved the Center to a new swanky building a few blocks away and now they have a player piano and pods.) So, we go upstairs. To the pod. We’re told that my treatment today will be in a communal room. The communal rooms have four different treatment stations, one to each corner, with a recliner and I.V. hookup (not to be confused with an R.V. hookup). The room’s full except for the empty chair to the left of the door. We go and get situated. I look around the room. To my right is an attractive younger woman getting an infusion. Her rather anguished-looking husband is beside her. To my left is a 50ish man dressed in flannel. His legs are jumping up and down (the spasms are a result of one of the nausea drugs he was given before chemo). Okay, fine. All is well. Then I look directly across from me, catty-corner. There sits a large, loud, middle aged, dark-headed woman. Immediately, I get uncomfortable. No, not just uncomfortable – pissy uncomfortable. I haven’t even started the drug and already I’m having a reaction. To the large woman across from me. When I say large, I mean obese, and when I say reaction, I mean vitriol. Literally, vitriol. I am watching this woman – trying not to watch this woman – and spewing thoughts (not out loud, blessedly). They go something like this: “Of course you have to be hooked up to oxygen, just look at yourself. Look at your ankles, all swollen. Look at your legs. God, I bet you can’t even get up without help. Sitting there, all high and mighty. No wonder you have cancer. You deserve it.” Then, I watch her some more. Watch her with the nurses and I become incensed, “How dare you order those nurses around. God, you’re so rude. And why are the nurses being so nice to you? Why are they taking this? Can’t they see what you are?!”
No shit. That’s what I’m thinking. No, spewing. Spewing. Internally. At this woman. A complete stranger.
If you haven’t guessed it already, this is the part that I don’t like talking about. This is the part that isn’t supposed to happen. Not by me, anyway. I’m above this. I’m enlightened. I love everyone. Well, it happened. By me. To someone else. A complete stranger. But we’ll get to that later.
My thoughts continue this way pretty much all of the time that I’m getting treatment. Which, by the way, is no tea party. First off, they give me compozine. It’s supposed to be an anti-nausea drug that works on the mind. Welp, it worked on my mind. Did it ever. Within minutes of receiving it, my thoughts turn to death. Cancer-death. Luckily, Shirley immediately flags the nurse. While she’s dosing me up with Benadril (to counteract the compozine), the nurse explains that this reaction isn’t uncommon in young people. “You just want to jump right out of your skin,” she explains. Then comes the infusion itself. Before plugging me in, the nurse warns me that the Gemzar might hurt. Of course I’m thinking, “No, not me. I can just counteract this through thought.” Yeah right. This time I let the nurse know what’s going on and she alters the saline to counteract the pain. While she’s doing this she informs me that some patients liken the sensation to ‘shards of glass’ entering their veins. Ah, the thrill.
So, we finally escape the hospital. Me being one drugged up puppy and Shirley right-minded and driving us home. (Chris, S-G, Rufus and I were spending the month in her apartment. She had returned home briefly in between jaunts.)
Okay, jump to the next morning (early, before Stella-Grace awakens), I’m having tea and gazing out the window, trying to pull it all together. What the hell happened yesterday? And why? I think back to the treatment. I think back to the room. I try not to, but I think back to the woman (the large one who started it all). And then I begin sobbing. Sobbing, just like that. Hard solid sobs. I walk over to Shirley, who just happens to be in the kitchen eating her granola, and tell her about the woman. Very reluctantly, I tell of my thoughts about the woman. I’m talking about this, trying to get it out, and not wanting to get it out. I mean, whatever will Shirley think of me? Me, Jennifer. You know the one. The one who doesn’t do anything wrong. The one who’s perfection embodied. What will happen if she figures out that I’m flawed? What will happen if I figure out I’m flawed? Still, in the end, I have to tell her about it. So, I go on and on. All the while, Shirley proves very insightful and reassuring (and she seems to still like me, even though it’s pretty damned obvious that I just might not be perfect.)
Then, just like that, in between sobs, I get it.
Or at least part of it. I get that I don’t hate that woman. I get that I don’t actually feel those things towards her. I don’t know why I feel those things but they aren’t at her. I don’t know her. In fact, I want nothing but ease and comfort for her. I do. And my heart grows, and I realize that I love her. Not her, per say, because I don’t know her, but her generally. All of her. And it’s a comfort.
Somewhat taken aback, I ask Shirley about the vitriol. Where’d it come from? I mean, if it isn’t towards that woman, who is it towards? And then, I kind of get that, too. See, for a long time now, my teachers have been telling me about how we humans project things onto others which we feel towards ourselves. That’s why, they always explain, you have to figure out what’s wrong with you in a relationship before ending it and going on to a new one, or you’ll just replay the same scenario with someone else. Well, I was always like, ‘yeah, yeah, sure’ – it might be like that for other people but not for me. (Did I forget to tell you that I’m perfect?) So, I kind of get it now. It wasn’t the woman I was thinking all those thoughts about. It was me. Is me. And I don’t even fully understand that, but it’s true. Many, many times I’ve thought those things about myself. Including the swollen ankles bit (my right ankle and lower leg swell due to the lump in my calf). Have I ever fully accepted what’s going on? Do I look at myself in disgust, just as I was viewing that woman? Yes. And that’s a hard one. I look at myself in disgust. And I don’t want to. That’s as plain as it gets. I don’t want to. And part of that not wanting to is accepting what I’m thinking right now and trying to open up to it. Because, and this is the freaky bit, if I allow myself to recognize that I view myself with disgust, then compassion starts to seep in. And that’s what I need. Compassion.
It’s bizarre. I feel like I’m going through this apprenticeship. It isn’t all that fun all the time, yet it has to be done. It’s similar to my time at the Neighborhood Playhouse and in Romana’s pilates program. Break them down before you build them up.
One of Shirley’s teachers told her that the bigger the Ego the better. The harder the fall. And more exhaustive. Apparently, our human job is to build up the Ego, our soul work is to let it go. Well, I must be a straight-A human student because I have plenty of Ego. (In fact, I have enough for 2, maybe 3, people if anyone’s looking.) And it’s hellish letting go. The whole thing has got me so confused. It’s never what I think it is – life’s lessons, messages. Right now I don’t know which end is up. My shaman friend would say that this is a good thing, that what we think we see is only a dream. Yeah, well, why doesn’t it feel any better?
Still, I gotta go through it. This apprenticeship. There’s no other choice. So, if you call or e-mail me and I’m not some beacon of unending optimism, you know why. It’s weird, I’m not frustrated about the cancer or the lack of recovery (although it does piss me off that it hasn’t happened yet). My real frustration, my real internal wrath, is about not “seeing.” Not letting go yet. Yet. I suppose I am an optimist after all.
Still, there’s more, more to write. About Stella-Grace (who has now become enamored of play-acting. Frequently, she is Sparkles, the dog, but the majority of the time she insists on being called Bebe. Chris is Boddy, pronounced Bawdy. I’m Doogadoga. Really. It’s catchy. I’m seriously considering changing my name.) Anyway, I have a lot more to talk to you about, but I figure that you might want a rest from me right now. There’s this whole thing about us all being saints that I’m trying to understand, but that’ll come later, in another e-mail. Probably next week, so beware. Right now, I’ve got to sit with this disgust-compassion idea, because, believe it or not, not until I wrote this e-mail to you did I fully understand what was going on. And for that I am grateful. You have given me the chance and the opportunity to understand. By being there. By listening. To my funk. So thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
I love you,
Doogadoga 
