Friday, February 6, 2009

Frat Party

I rested on a gurney as Genevieve drew on my groin with a Sharpie: the straight lines and hash marks and crosshairs that would serve as a radiation target.

She used gauze and athletic tape to pull my personal bits to one side, clearing the range for target acquisition. The region south of my belt buckle looked like a drunk conventioneer’s necktie at closing time.

“A guy usually has to go to a fraternity initiation or a bachelor party to get this kind of treatment," I said.

Genevieve giggled, but nervously, as if she didn’t know whether she should.

~~~~~~~~~~
Jill and I had been in our financial planner’s office a week earlier. It was a Thursday and Brad was helping us prepare an offer on a house. My cell phone rang. I excused myself and stepped into the hallway. I answered hello and listened as the doctor told me what the lump was made of.

“You’ll need to see an oncologist,” he said. “What side of town do you live on?”


"Side of town? We're... I'm... We're northeast,” I said.


“Is St. Vincent okay with you?”


“Sure. I guess. If you think that’s best.”


It didn’t take Jill but a moment to quash this suggestion. “What side of TOWN do we live on?” she said. “What the hell difference does that make?” Indiana University Health is one of Jill’s clients and she’s written profiles on many of their physicians and departments -- including oncology.


“Forget St. Vincent. We need to be at IU Med Center,” she said as a fact. “I’ll make the call.”


~~~~~~~~~~

We auditioned oncologists, but never got past Dr. Larry Cripe. I had mentioned his name to a friend who worked in oncology. She pointed me to an essay Larry had published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In his piece titled, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers” (referring to the Emily Dickinson poem), Larry had written:


"...I began to realize that hope as a thing – a decision or an action – is fragile; while hopefulness – the enduring capacity to hope, to live with meaning even if recovery is not possible – is resilient."

When we began seeking an oncologist, we thought we were looking for a mechanic, maybe a plumber or carpenter of men. Here there seemed a literary sensibility and a depth of understanding, and even spirit. We looked no further.


~~~~~~~~~~

A week later, we found ourselves in the basement of the IU Simon Cancer Center. Down the hall from two linear accelerators, our waiting room was the size of a walk-in closet. Each day, a half-dozen of us bided time, waiting for our turn to have some body part or another blasted with radiation. Sitting in the waiting room was like being stuck on a crowded elevator, but without a panel of floor numbers you could pretend to scrutinize.

I felt like an imposter. I felt like the protagonist in a Chuck Palahniuk novel who visited his Tuberculosis Support Group on Thursday, his Blood Parasite Survivor’s Group on Friday, and his Sickle Cell Circle every other Saturday. I was a tourist.


Because you see, these people were much sicker than me. I had one little lump. One. And it was a lump I fully expected would melt away during the course of 15 radiation sessions.


The people in this waiting room, on the other hand, were banged up. Nauseated. Chapped. Bald. Sore.


They were getting radiation. Radiation and chemo. Radiation and chemo and stem-cell transplants. They were tired.


Me? I felt fine, thanks. Like Forrest Gump, shot in the ass and eating ice cream, and Lt. Dan in the next bed with no legs. I didn’t want to appear too strong or too well in front of them, perhaps making them feel worse in contrast. I didn’t know quite how to act, so I did the only thing that seemed to make sense: “Hi. My name is Joe. What’s yours?” And we went from there.


I learned that Angela was 18 years old and going to college. She had a brunette wig, a 13-year-old sister who was pregnant, and a 
PICC line and stage-four lymphoma throughout her body.

Ray was a retired auto worker. Esophageal cancer had taken his voice box and the economy was threatening to take his GM pension.


Margaret was an African American woman with long, ornately painted nails. She drove herself down from Anderson each day for chemo and radiation. She said she swerved all over the road as she drove down, but we would all nod in sympathy as she talked about getting a ticket.


Randall, trying to understand what they were doing to save his teenage son’s life, described to the congregation how a stem-cell transplant worked: “They drain all the blood out yer body, see? Then they put in them 'baby cells' in there. Them baby cells grow into adult cells. Then you're cured.”


Margaret was incredulous. “You mean they drain all the blood??” Randall: “Evvvery drop.”


I'd ask “How was the Veteran’s Day thing at your son’s school?” or “When is your daughter coming up from Florida to visit?” or just “How are you feeling today?” For this short time, we were in it together.


I learned that Brian, the tech who positioned each of us on the treatment table at our turn, he liked to ride motorcycles with his dad. Brian was proud of his Triumph Bonneville with a freshly painted Union Jack on the gas tank. His dad rode a Harley Fat Boy. Brian liked to watch UFC with his buddies, or go down to

Atterbury and spend some time on the rifle range. Brian didn't mind that I carried into every treatment a small cross Jill had given me, a cross carved from 20,000-year-old mammoth bone.

The head of radiation-oncology was Dr. Peter Johnstone, an Annapolis grad who’d retired from the Navy after 28 years of service. We shared a military background, so I could speak plainly. I could make the observation, as Marines are known to do when talking with sailors, that "Sir, you are aware that squids are a lower form of 'marine life'?" I could bitch that his goddam machines were scorching my region, and if something didn't change, I was gonna need a toupee or a comb-over.

I had to make an effort to remember his given name, but not for lack of respect. Far from it. In my mind, he was simply “Commander.”


~~~~~~~~~~

Jill cried twice and then only for joy. The first time was after the initial diagnostics: x-ray, blood tests, bone marrow biopsy, CAT scan, PET scan. We waited in an exam room to hear how bad it was going to be.

Dr. Mina was kind and petite and Middle Eastern. She knocked politely and let herself in our room. She pulled up a chair and she seemed barely able to contain a smile, as if she had a present and couldn't wait for us to open it. “Has anyone told you?” she asked. The bone marrow and PET scan results had come back. The cancer was in only one place. This was the only scenario, we were told, in which it was fair to use the words “possibly curable.”


The second time I saw a tear from Jill was weeks later, after the radiation treatments were complete. Dr. Cripe went over the results with us. He said the radiation appeared to have done its job. He said it looked good. He leaned back in his chair and said, "You can come back in three months, if that would make you feel better. But six months would be fine.”


~~~~~~~~~~
My friend Sarah shared a Raymond Carver poem that was a favorite of hers. “What the Doctor Said” became a favorite of mine. In that poem, the patient recounts a question the doctor asked him:

"…he said are you a religious man

do you kneel down in forest groves and let yourself ask for help  

when you come to a waterfall  

mist blowing against your face and arms  

do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments 

I said not yet but I intend to start today"




8 comments:

Cathy said...

eloquent and brave, an honor to read...

Jared said...

Thank you for letting me know about the blog my friend. I am quite touched. It is hard to know what you went through. My dad did not say much and I was in Indy for most of the hard stuff only returning to the south once he was in remission. While I can imagine your writing is therapeutic for you, I think reading it is helpful for at least me; I bet for others too. Thanks.

Joe said...

Cathy and Jared, thanks for the comments. Appreciate being able to share this with you. Joe

Seba said...

Very brave Joe! Thank you for letting me know about it

Anonymous said...

Wow Joe! You are an amazing writer. And your story is awesome. Thanks for sharing your experience, strength, and most of all, hope. So cool.

pat

Joe said...

Glad you like the story, Pat. Thanks for looking. j

Ken Robertson said...

Thanks for sharing! Wow...

Joe said...

Thank ya, Ken.