RETURN FROM HELL

“Primum non nocere.”

                     ~Auguste Francois Chomel

     I could not formulate thoughts or write coherent sentences throughout the past weeks, bundles of days that saw me navigating treatments and side effects and making every possible effort to just stay alive. It was somewhat questionable, a few critical times, as to whether I would survive and, at those times, some quick emergency remedies saved me from succumbing to what in my chart is termed “severe malnourishment and dehydration.” I had to really want to stay. I knew and felt that. I also felt the draw to just let go, to succumb. It was terrifying. It would have been so much easier to let go and die. Or would it? I found myself contemplating just that – what if I just gave up? What if I simply let go? What would I miss? What would the world miss? How much pain would I cause?

     I just couldn’t go there. For just the second time in my life, I realized that I truly and wholeheartedly love life, no matter its negative or even its most abhorrent features. It was all, to me, glorious and thoroughly embraceable. It could be nothing else, nothing less.

     So it was settled. There would be no punking out, no shirking. Instead, it was “yes,” a resounding and irrevocable “Yes!”

     Beginning with the simple maxim, “Primum non nocere” (“First, do no harm”), I committed to life and began the journey.  Every single weekday, twice, at 8am and again at 1:45pm, I lay down on the cold slab, received the hand stirrups and waited while the technicians carefully pushed and pulled and, finally, tightly clamped my masked skull down in order to render it immobile and able to receive the punishing, healing rays- to kill the cancer.  That the techs gently covered me in soft, warm blankets and never forgot to start my playlist before leaving me alone in the dark, otherworldly room- this meant so much to me.  We all do what little we can to ease another’s suffering. Or so we should. It’s often just the little things that allow us our dignity and invite our grateful release.

     As with radiation therapy, so it was with chemotherapy, although somewhat less so, due, I think, to the nature of the treatments and to the less well-organized processes and routines.  Paul and I would often sit in the crowded third floor waiting area for up to an hour, proceed to a recliner chair, wait again for some time before the IV was started, and then wait more time before the proper medication bags could be verified/cross-checked and hung. We did a lot of waiting indeed. These periods, however, afford us the opportunity to listen and to dig, learning about what motivates such service.  There are some, it seems, who gravitate towards this type of work because of its precision, its demand for detail, while others have loftier motives, including the desire to give back (one nurse having had childhood leukemia, for example) or to learn more before moving off into alternative treatment modalities.  What they all had in common, though, overwhelmingly so in my view, is sincere and earnest compassion.  They are, simply, kind.

     Then there were the effects, the aftereffects and the side effects, the unintended adverse responses that my body had to the various toxic treatments.  These were, on several occasions, serious and even, perhaps, life-threatening.  I recall my visit to the ED one Sunday, where I lay helpless on the stretcher, vomiting so violently and profusely, that I couldn’t actually see or even hear anything besides the sound of my own retching.  Oddly, I recall, I could see, as if at a great distance, Paul’s dear face, looking so helpless and fearful of losing me.  I couldn’t even reach out.

     Mostly, in retrospect, I envision the many, many kind faces and voices of technicians like Leslie and Ed and nurses like Diana and Elaine, Stacey, Kelly and Laura, who clearly communicated empathy and the desire to heal and comfort.  I knew that I could rely upon them and could let go as much as I needed to in order to receive the healing that was available. And although I knew that I was never alone, thanks to Paul’s constant presence and unceasing desire to ease my pain, these service “angels” assured me that there was an abundance of reserve assistance, always available.

     And so it went for nearly 2 full months, but feeling more like years or even a lifetime.  Everything slowed down and I slid beneath the waves where there was no time or even a sense of progress or events passing.  On October 26^th, I received my final radiation treatment and was given leave to bang the almighty gong that stands in the front lobby of radiation therapy.  I felt changed forever, as I struck that instrument, and indeed I am.  No one, I suspect, gets through cancer or any other life-threatening illness without being altered in some way. In my case, the alterations have been profound and, perhaps, even radical.  In subsequent posts, I’ll seek to explicate these and to determine where I am now compelled to go as a result of the effects.  It has been a “Radical Cleanse” indeed!