My First Cancer

I can’t believe I said it. I actually used the “E” word talking about my cancer.

E. As in Enjoy. No, no, no. I do not enjoy — and never have enjoyed – having cancer. Cancer Sucks, as my t-shirt shouts. But there’s cancer my disease, and then there’s cancer my experience.

Cancer, my disease: I had my regular, semi-annual checkup in July, another checkup on another birthday. The results could have been better, but to have hoped for such would have been pure greed: My PSA, a marker of how well I’m keeping my cancer at bay, was up a scant 0.01 (to 0.10) over the past six months. Great results, and my oncologist was effusive, saying, “It’s really⁶ slow growing. You’ll probably die of something else.” (“Really” to the power of ⁶ because I think he said “really” something like six times to emphasize his point.)

So that’s where I stand today – medically speaking – precisely nine years after my prostatectomy on Sep 11, 2007.

And then…and then. There’s cancer my experience: all of the people, the life adventures, the challenges, and self-discoveries that have enriched my life only — and only – because I have cancer. They’re big things, and they’re little things, many sad, some uplifting, but I would have missed out on them all if I didn’t have cancer.

Like the woman at the cancer survivors’ gathering who declared, “I’m not grateful I have cancer, but I am grateful I’ve found out what I’m made of.”  For this is what only we cancerians know: What would I do if I got cancer? For others, it’s rhetorical; for us, it’s real. She knows, and she found out what she’s made of. Ironwood, I suspect.

Or reporting to the infusion bay and overhearing through the curtain that the person in the next bed is being sent home — without treatment — because her blood counts aren’t right. It’s bad enough to undergo the anxiety of a test, or to steel yourself for the harsh side effects of a treatment. But then to be turned away after such emotional expense, all for naught?

Or the email from my Seattle Cancer Care Alliance infusion nurse, Kim. Subject: “I have cancer.” What do you say, what do you do when the woman who has been with you for so many years, for so many treatments, with her needles, meds, pumps, laughter and, most of all, her loving care, herself is diagnosed with cancer? I say, thank you, Kim, thank you for everything. May you rest in peace.

***

I’m on the elevator to ride down to the parking garage at Seattle Cancer Care. There are four of us:

1. Me
2. Sunny, middle-aged woman — doesn’t look like a cancerian
3. Non-descript man with
4. His wife bundled up in a heavy coat, wearing a ski cap over her chemo-bald head and staring at the floor. Surgical mask covers her mouth and nose.

The lights on the elevator panel show we’ll be stopping on parking levels B, C and D. Me: “Looks like my grade card.” Door closes.

Level B. Non-descript man and cancer-wife leave elevator. Door closes. Sunny, middle-aged woman says something about how she always feels better coming to the cancer clinic. I say, “When I see people like that” — I point to the door — “I have no problems today.”

Level C. Sunny, middle-aged woman agrees: “There’s always someone who’s worse off.” Door opens, and she steps out. Abruptly, she turns to me, and holds me perfectly in her eyes, brandishing the absolute brightest smile I’ve ever witnessed: “I was given 18 months to live,” she says, “and that was three years ago!”

Door closes, and she is gone – even before I can ask her name.

But I’d like to think it’s Hope.