The Beast

Two best friends, three days, one chance to connect. I met Annika in Los Angeles for the weekend. I’ve been in Hawaii for six months. My universe has consisted of tourist-packed Waikiki and a retreat that resembles Jurassic Park. I felt the relief that comes from being surrounded by old friends who knew me long before I became Chemo Boy. Hawaii has been a compromise. It presents an ideal environment for someone in need of a ‘longer term’ recovery solution to nearly four years of chemotherapy. Its climate, its gentility, its clean air, its pace welcome the weary and beckon me to rest. But it came without the companionship of those who know me best. It was a pilgrimage, an homage to the isolation of chemotherapy, and a chrysalis.

A sizzling LA afternoon found Annika and I backed up in rush hour traffic, inching towards Pasadena, running an errand. The traffic was tedious, but the chance to talk was invaluable. I confessed to Annika how frightened I am. Sure the unpredictability of my future scares me, of course it always has. But rounding the two-year mark for this treatment, with an additional year and a half of therapy left, my second wind has both come and gone, as has my third and fourth. And while the finish line may be vaguely in sight somewhere in the future, I’m nowhere near that point yet. I wake up feeling miserable almost every day from these toxic drugs, and after two years, I find it hard to remember what anything else feels like.

Annika suggested that perhaps part of my fear is actually a fear of becoming better again. As she said the words, I hunched forward in my seat and sobbed. She held my hand and let my demons drive for a bit. It’s the cruelest joke, to be forced to endure this endless misery, and to have to make peace with that in order to survive. I reimagined chemotherapy as an intimate force, a lover of sorts, in order to survive. I had to. Right or wrong, sensical or non, it was my way. Either it would kill me, or I would understand it to be something very different than it first appeared, a friendly force. And I survived. But two years later, the routine of illness has demanded that I continue to lie at peace with this beast. The irony? I’m equally terrified of losing it as I am of it killing me. I don’t know who I am without this monster. I have difficulty remembering who I was before. I have more difficulty imagining who I will be after.

Annika, ever the firecracker, leapt in her seat and reminded me that it is still a beast, and while peace must be made the goal, for myself and my loved ones, is to be rid of it. Be angry with it, be frustrated to all hell with it. Point to the door and tell it to get out. Don’t ever stop fighting it.

It’s tremendously difficult to let the gravity of my situation drift out into cyber space. I’ve been lying with a terrifying beast for two years. Friendly as it occurs at times, it is still the beast on my back, burdening me with its terrible weight. And I hate it. I hate it. I loathe it so much I can’t even begin to describe the depth. This is hell, folks. And I don’t know what more to say.

Balancing Act

Coffee has long been one of my most dangerous temptations. In New York, I bordered on addiction, no worse than when I was writing. My roommates and I would put a fresh pot on sometime around seven in the morning, and usually filter out the last pot around one or two the following morning. When I started chemotherapy, it was one of the first things I cut out, mostly out of compassion for my body. There have been things all along this ride that I have had to put on the back burner: frozen margaritas, extreme diving, hallucinogens, speed dating. Simply put, my system can’t balance them. Exhibit A: an afternoon shot of Jack Daniels served as the celebration for the end of a round of chemo (I know, I know. I’m still just as blond as I acted before). My afternoon ended in convulsions on the couch. It was awesome, trust me. You had to be there.

Three months ago, I threw meditation into my morning routine, the annoying hippie kind where you sit on a yoga mat, roll your eyes back, breath in incense and hope that you’ll be visited by Ghandi or Dali. You hope, though you can’t often witness it, that something is happening as your legs squirm and your lower back quivers in agony. But something has been happening, I find myself feeling more and more balanced. My body, my life. The strangest result? I’m craving things I haven’t craved in years. I suppose they’re just thoughts, and the crude matter keeping me from nirvana. But dude, a snickers is a snickers. And I was told strictly to say ‘yes’ to anything that heals. ‘Nuff said.

Then two weeks ago, an old friend asked for permission to join the party again, my morning cup of coffee. I hesitated: coffee and chemo don’t mix. Well see, I’ve believed chemo and a lot of things don’t mix. I’ve been surprised, you wouldn’t believe how much so. So who’s to say, really? So I went and got my cup of coffee—perfect temperature, perfect milk ratio—and, not knowing where else to take it, walked with it back to my yoga mat. I sat down and drank in each warm, sinful taste. Nothing tastes better than forbidden fruit. My spine shot up, rigid. My abdomen tightened like a screw. My head began almost floating. And a tiny smile came to my face as shock registered in my eyes. That’s right, the morning cup of coffee was actually helping me to balance. I held it out, let it tilt a bit, played with it’s proximity to my stomach. I could feel my body struggling to keep up with this added weight. But I smiled down to the last drop, remembering mornings in Brooklyn and musical epiphanies. Quality memory in this case outweighs health benefit.

When you give something up, I think you’re always secretly terrified that you won’t get it back. Chemotherapy has been a journey of giving up for me, and also trusting that it will all come back, whether it’s a tolerance for late night parties (one of my favorite pre-chemo rituals) or a relationship. It takes time, it takes patience. A lot. But little by little, I’m starting to notice that I can very naturally balance things that I couldn’t before. For someone like me, who has come to see every minute step of this as an adventure, this is a giant leap in recovery. But I suppose it’s only a very small step for a former coffee junkie.