It Might Get Messy


Friday morning at the hospital, fine-tuning my rehabilitation with Therapist Bethany. Friday afternoon with Dr. K, my GP, gentlemen who saved my life by recognizing my Stage 4 tumors last February. After the exam, he said “May I ask a question? What was the worst part of the whole experience?”


I had to think about it. I thought hard about the emotional strain, the panic over my professional life, the night I was certain I was not going to survive.


The latter was the key. I had gone through the whole seven weeks of two-a-day radiation and weekly chemotherapy treatment, and while it grew increasingly painful on my throat and jaws, it didn’t disable me. I was chirpy and optimistic on the last day of treatment, a Friday when I got the last two doses of radiation. It was that Saturday night that the shit hit the fan. That was the night I dehydrated in nonstop vomiting and had to be shuttled to the ER next morning, where I was admitted, packed into a room, hooked up to an IV and an automatic vacuum throat drain, and given two units of blood for anemia. It was the physical exhaustion and pain of those first few nights after treatment ended that were by far the worst of the worst. As a scientist and at least amateur practitioner of Zen acceptance, I knew going in that cancer is like auto accidents, lightning strikes, and jet engines falling from the sky onto beds. It can happen to anyone. There’s no sense being personally affronted by it when it shows up. You’re gonna spend enough of your physical and emotional strength fighting the battle for recovery. Don’t want to dilute that focus by worrying about what you’ve done to insult the gods.


Dr. K is only a few years younger than I am (his daughter played double-reed instruments in her youth, as did Molly). He said he’s had cancer patients who didn’t have the strength to fight their way through the physiological wasteland of radiation and chemotherapy. 


While it did cross my mind that Saturday night that I might not survive the experience, that just kind of pissed me off. Weak as I was then, and horrified as I was at having to go to the emergency room (4th time in my life, once as a kid for a cut on the head, twice for my stone-packed gall bladder), it made me mad that I’d been forced to it and steeled myself for getting through it. I was, in short, enraged (along with being pretty much prostrate). 


So there you have it. Turns out I lied to Dr. K, and misled you a few paragraphs up. I DID end up emotionally vested in the process, angry, frustrated and out for vengeance. Which latter, with some hard work on this physical therapy, may come to pass. I may yet beat this and come out scarred but whole.


Speech therapist Bethany ran a scope through my sinuses to check out my throat yesterday. Turns out my epiglottis actually still exists. It’s twisted, misshapen, and dysfunctional. But it’s there. Hopefully I’ll have a picture for you next week. 


I hope everyone is having a good runup to the holidays. I sure as hell am thankful this Christmas. Just glad to be here!