February 3–February 9, 2011
Session 5 of chemo was last Thursday. Although there were times since that day that I doubted I’d ever surface for air, by Monday I had and it was a welcome surprise. If I had had to write a post anytime before Monday, it would have been short and not so sweet, reading something like “My body has been assaulted, and I don’t want to do this anymore.” And, at the risk of sounding theatrical, I would have been crying while writing just those few words. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, which I hate to admit. Not to imply that the act of crying is foreign to me. It’s just that I rarely cry out of pity, sadness, or misery; my tears usually always come from loftier sources: happiness, laughter, pride, even overwhelming peace. And to know that my tears stemmed from weakness really undermined a lot of what I thought I knew about myself. This last battle is still so raw in my head that even writing about my chemo-tears is enough to make me cry still. Frankly, right now my eyeballs are as dry as the Mojave Desert from chemo (just one of its myriad unpredictable side effects...see, for example, photo below), and I certainly don’t need to compound the problem. So I will share the good news and then move on: (1) I have five treatment sessions under my belt and only one more to go and (2) prior to session 5 my cancer protein level had decreased even further, from 16 to 10.1. I know that it is only a matter of time before I will feel normal again, that I will feel whole, that I will feel warm.
The sun was brilliant today, belying the wintry 13-degree air and ice-encrusted snow that stalked us outside the front storm door. Suspecting that my sun-worshipping cat and dog were on to something, as they lay prostrate, side by furry side, on the foyer doormat in the sun’s direct path, I joined them on the floor. And I let my face follow the warming sun, hoping for repair and replenishment. It wasn’t long before I found myself dozing in and out of a light sleep under the sun’s anesthesia, periodically surfacing long enough to scoot my body far enough along the floor to follow the trajectory of its rays. Enjoying this brief respite, I willed my lightly dreamy state of being to transport me back to Matunuck Beach in Rhode Island and—since it was my dream to direct—to a time when I was younger and healthier, when Pete was younger and hotter, when 10-year-old Chris and 8-year-old Shannon still thought their parents were "funner" and smarter. My mind took me to an early-in-the-season beach day when it’s still sweatshirt weather but the spring sun is strong enough and high enough to offer mind-fuzzying soothing and calm. I am dozing on the beach under the midday sun on top of an old woolen blanket my Dad found at an army surplus store, which, after serving its time in the military, had been resurrected to new life as a beach blanket. It feels like it weighs about 50 pounds and is more likely to crush a body than provide warmth or protection from the elements. But as a beach blanket, it suffices quite nicely, that is, as long as you can lift it. Having served many years of beach duty, this blanket has sand so firmly woven into its fabric that it is now less a protective layer between body and beach than just a piece of nostalgia for the long-gone days of my father. I let my feet dangle over the edge of the blanket to find the sand, which feels pleasantly warm and gritty between my toes. Closer to the shore, I faintly hear Pete, Chris, and Shannon laughing with each errantly tossed Frisbee that lands in the still-chilly water, followed by a loud debate about who is the loser who must retrieve it. (If I were to actually let this scenario play out in my head, Chris would have dunked Shannon in the water anyway, instantly rendering the Frisbee-retriever decision moot, and then Pete would have tossed Chris in the drink just to keep the scales of family justice balanced.) My sisters and brother are there with me, along with their families. Barb is convulsing in throaty giggles as her grandbaby looks on in horror at a seagull that has swooped down next to her to steal her sand-drenched Ritz cracker. Fred, my brother-in-law, is sitting in a beach chair, smoking a cigar; mixed with the wafting salty, seaweedy air, it smells familiar and good—just like my Dad’s pipe smoke—as it passes under my nose. Despite this being Red Sox country, he and my brother, Freddy, discuss the Yankees’ great chances this year, and my brother, who is older than I, complains that he still hasn’t been invited to spring training tryouts. I hear the flapping and crumpling of newspaper, defiantly resisting page turning in the slight ocean breeze: Kathy brought a stack of Washington Posts with her, and she fully intends to get through them all by day’s end. Everyone else is lulled into napping, like me. A noisy prop plane flies overhead, and I don’t have to open my eyes to know that a white banner trails on its tail, announcing that Mews Tavern is having a band tonight, along with fabulous drink specials. I hear seagulls squawking, fighting over someone’s leftovers from Cap’n Jack’s takeout snack bar. The increasingly faint music from a radio lulls me deeper into my reverie: I hear the song “Brandy” (by then a classic beach town tune, so it still got a lot of local radio time) and hum along in my mind. (You remember that song, right? About the girl who works in a harbor town laying whiskey down who loves a sailor man who’s not around who made it clear that, although Brandy is indeed a fine girl and what a good wife she would be, and, despite him leading her on by bringing her gifts from far away on a summer’s day, he couldn’t stay because his true life, lover, and lady is the sea and no harbor was ever going to be his home? As a teenager, I always thought to myself, “Really? This sailor’d give up Brandy for the sea?” For some reason, I envisioned the sailor man as looking like the Gorton fisherman, who was far too old and clearly too self-centered for cute, sweet, kind, hard-working, long-suffering Brandy. I concluded that Brandy dodged a bullet. ... But I digress.) I hear the rhythmic crash of the waves; as they break closer and closer with the rising tide, children squeal with equal parts delight and fear (though they wouldn’t dare admit to the latter) as they try to outrun these mini-tsunamis (all things being relative). I hear the blare of a ship horn as the ferry leaves its berth across the breach way in Narragansett, headed for Block Island. Oddly, I also hear a clearly displaced voice worriedly calling to me through cupped hands, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” For a flicker of a moment, in my shallow subsciousness, I think to myself, “Wow, how weird is it that Patty, my neighbor from Missouri, is here at the beach with me?” Within seconds, I know this dialogue doesn’t belong in my dream imagery. I bolt awake from my place in the sun, which I am surprised to find is no longer the front foyer but rather 5 feet away in the dining room. There I lay sprawled, and the sun’s path has long since detoured away from me beyond reach. Even Minnie the Cat and Ziggy the Dog Who Must Have Constant Human Physical Contact have abandoned me. Peering around my opened door, I see Patty looking toward me from across the street with some alarm in her face. Laughing at myself and at where Patty’s imagination must have taken her, I wave and call back through the door. “I’m fine,” I reassure her, “Just taking in the sun.” I look at the clock and see that, instead of parking myself in my office and working as I should have done, for the past hour I instead followed the sun. I am happier, and more healed, for it.
Like Charlie told me, I’m rounding third and heading for home. Outta my way, everyone. I can’t get there soon enough.
