Ziggy, Severus and Perspective

Time might be fleeting but it can also weigh heavy.

Without doubt it has been a rough week for fans of David Bowie and Alan Rickman and if you are a fan of both...it was a double whammy of unexpected death. When I worked at CBC's The Journal, years ago - when Television Current Affairs had the power to shape a national dialogue - whenever two famous individuals would die in close proximity we'd nod our heads and remark aloud that death came in threes and wonder who would be the third. As of this moment, I am still waiting for the name and desperately hoping that whoever it is, they don't die of cancer.

And if you are crazy about Dancing in The Streets and fabulous acting and you happen to be dealing with a cancer diagnosis then you might be even more bummed out by those seemingly inevitable lines: "died after battling with, struggling with, years of coping with cancer." Don't get me wrong, I am not sitting here awash in doomsaying or worrying deeply about my impending death. The opposite, in fact. But when I read the obits, something I have done for decades, and cancer is the reason for the death, especially an early death, I get glum for a few minutes. I suspect that is inevitable. After all what else do I really share with Rickman and Bowie, other than my incredible ability to carry a tune or portray evil so effectively (not), than the fact that all three of us have (had) cancer? But in reality, and this is what really truly has me writhing, I don't even share that. And just at the point where I was about to get truly dark, I open the New York Times and read a review of Clive James' latest book of poetry, Sentenced to Life. You know the man was diagnosed with terminal leukemia in 2010...and since then he's written 6 books. I think he's the model I'd emulate.

Cancer as a diagnosis never comes without a designator... cancer of the liver, breast cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and so on. And each cancer has a different prognosis, origin, treatment options etc. Cancer scares people and it saddens people. But making sense of cancer actually does demand that you pay attention to odds, treatments and possibilities. Paying attention to these issues allows you to actually wrestle with your situation in a constructive fashion, in ways that help.

And if this sounds like inside baseball, it is actually. These types of distinctions matter to me, to Debi and Jane, probably not so much to obit writers, Snape fans, Glam aficionados or the recently deceased. But these are the thoughts that come to you at four in the morning when it is dark and the house is quiet and you are on hold.

I am on hold. My chemo and radiation is done and my CT scan doesn't happen until early February. I have to wait that long to see what's up with the tumor and whether surgery is possible. My surgeon's nurse tells me that on average surgery happens about four weeks after the scan which would mean early March. On one hand, this is really normal, on the other hand this is crazy making. Waiting for surgery is anxiety inducing on its own ( trust me I know this from too much experience), waiting to see if you can even have surgery is a whole new order of anxiousness. That's what they invented meditation for, trying to sort out the true difference between normal and crazy making and, of course, it is all in the perspective.

So now at four in the morning, I ignore the obits and watch old movies staring Alan Rickman (God, he is good) and YouTube videos of Major Tom.

Oh and just as I was about to post this, Celine Dion's husband has just died, after a two decade struggle with cancer. That's number 3.

Phase one done: what next?

Late in the afternoon of New Year's Eve, I walked out the doors of the Juravinski Cancer Centre atop the mountain in Hamilton, wished Gus the security guy a happy new year, climbed into the car, smiled at Debi and we headed home. We had a three-day break and we needed it. Driving in to Hamilton is hard, getting zapped by radiation beams and being pumped with chemicals is tiring. What made the three-day break even sweeter is that we could see the end of this, even if not yet the end. 

Before the end of the first week of 2016, I am done with phase one of dealing with this Cancer thing. By Thursday the 7th of January I have had 25 radiation sessions and 4 rounds of chemotherapy. In the radiation suites there is a bell and the tradition is that when you are finished you ring the bell three times. Trust me, I rang the bell so hard you could hear it where-ever you were on the floor.

For the most part, and I am knocking on wood here, the impact has been minimal. Fatigue, at times deep fatigue, but otherwise few serious side effects. I know all kinds of people have been laid low by the sheer impact of chemotherapy or radiation or a combination of both. But me, I have for the most part skated. My doctors tell me that it is sometimes the case that people sail through and then at the very end get whacked. I am OK if that happens, I'd prefer it not to happen but if needs be, let me wrestle with it at home in bed without the daily commute to Hamilton.

I have watched people having to cope with the knock-out punch that chemo/radiation therapy can throw at you. One day I was travelling from the lobby of the centre to the floor below where the radiation suites are. A woman was heading for the elevator and I held the door for her. She slowly shuffled in. She was bald, wrapped in many layers as if freezing ( and the temperature that day was balmy) and once past the doors she thanked me and leaned against the elevator walls. In the short time it takes the elevator to go down one floor...we are talking a handful of seconds....she was sound asleep and I had to wake her when the elevator announcement, " Floor Zero" didn't. She thanked me, shuffled out and headed for the radiation suites. Being tired can wear you out...watching someone so tired and knowing why can make you tear up.

So phase one is done. Now it is 3,4,6, maybe 8 weeks of rest and rebuilding the immune system. Chemo did knock the stuffing out of my immune system. I am prepping for surgery, which everyone (meaning the medical team, Debi, Jane and me) assumes will take sometime in February. The idea is that having zapped, attacked and brutalized the tumour with radiation and chemo, it is shrunk and dying and cutting out what is left is the next stage. Part of the reason for waiting and resting is so that my esophagus can heal from the havoc that radiation wrecks on cells and tissue. The doctors all speak as if the surgery will happen though everyone acknowledges that there is a small percentage of people in my position who for some reason can't do the surgery but we are told we will deal with that if that contingency proves true.

Strangely enough, this phase might prove to be tougher than phase one. Not seeming to do something to battle the disease is anxiety inducing...shouldn't we be doing something? Can you really beat a fast moving disease by sitting still?

One more shot, I guess, at learning to worry about the things I can change and not worrying about the things I can't.

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