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mallorys_cameraSo-ooo… Someone I've sort of known for 20 plus years just got the news that the intensive course of chemo he's been receiving for his Stage IV colon cancer is not working.
I could have told him the chemo wouldn't work a year and a half ago, but of course, one does not say those types of things to someone one "sort of knows."
The one time I did say that type of thing was to my pal Tom Mandel when he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer – can it be close to 20 years ago now? It can! But Tom and I knew each other quite well, and I only said it once, very careful to hold my voice in the most neutral register and with a minimum of inflection. He completely ignored it. I went on to become his medical amanuensis, accompanying him to all his subsequent medical appointments, acting as his interpreter since "Doctor-speak" is actually quite different from English. A doctor, for example, will tell you, "This drug will give you a 27 percent chance of recovery!" What that actually means is that even if you take the drug, you have a 73 percent chance of dying.
I still think he would have been better off flying to Paris for a last glorious month or two than lying in the Stanford Medical Center watching poison drip into his veins in a slow IV, but hey! T'weren't my decision to make.
And truthfully, I'm not sure what I would do if I was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. I hate to even conjecture about shit like that, at least in words, because it's kind of like daring the Universe to give you Stage IV cancer.
I kind of think I would eschew the treatment route though.
Although I also know two people who beat the diagnosis, and both of them against tremendous odds. I wish I could find the online cancer diary Liz kept during treatment – it was quite brilliant and quite savage. But I lost the bookmark somehow in my migration between various computers, and I'm scared to ask Liz for the link – she's moved on with her life and no doubt doesn't want any reminders of the Dark Times. Quite possibly even she's taken that blog down.
I would worry about my cats! Who would take care of them if I wasn't around? Who would love timid, pawkish, furry Rutger and skiddish, hostile, beautiful Meezer? Where would they go?
I would not worry about my children whom I am quite sure would hardly notice if I was gone. Oh, I mean Max would be sad. Max does love me. I doubt that Robin would even shed a tear though. Maybe it would hit him in 30 years or so. I think just possibly the old person I am today could communicate with the old person Robin will become.
The person I sort of know who's dying has no family. He has a web of friends sort of like me who know him at a remove, and then he has a closer circle who hang out at the coffee shop in OK City he hangs out in – the famous Red Cup (which I hope to visit some day.)
He's a very brilliant, amazingly funny guy – great writer, great cartoonist. He's also amazingly self-absorbed. (I realize this is one of those "Pot –meet Kettle!" observations, since I am one of the more self-absorbed people I "sort of know" myself!) But I mean, Mike is self-absorbed to the point where he has consistently rejected all attempts to get close to him over the course of his lifetime. It's not out of fear or depression either, although as the child of raging alcoholics, he's familiar with both. No, I think in a very essential sense, other people just don't register on Mike. He has a very full inner life. Other people are essentially projections on the walls of Plato's cave to him.
I'm not sure he understands that about himself.
I tend to see lives as lesson plans. Against all rational proof to the contrary, I believe quite strongly in reincarnation just as I believe in astrology even though I know quite well that the sun does not go round the Earth and therefore astrology is patently a lie.
So I find myself mulling this morning on Mike's curriculum during this lifetime. Just what was he supposed to learn? And did he learn it?
I suspect the lesson is about other people and allowing other people to love him. I like to think he'll learn it in the last few moments he draws breath. I am imagining Rena holding his hand somehow, stroking his forehead, looking lovingly into his eyes. I am hoping he gets it then –
– 'cause if he doesn't, he'll have to come back and repeat the whole fucking class!
I could have told him the chemo wouldn't work a year and a half ago, but of course, one does not say those types of things to someone one "sort of knows."
The one time I did say that type of thing was to my pal Tom Mandel when he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer – can it be close to 20 years ago now? It can! But Tom and I knew each other quite well, and I only said it once, very careful to hold my voice in the most neutral register and with a minimum of inflection. He completely ignored it. I went on to become his medical amanuensis, accompanying him to all his subsequent medical appointments, acting as his interpreter since "Doctor-speak" is actually quite different from English. A doctor, for example, will tell you, "This drug will give you a 27 percent chance of recovery!" What that actually means is that even if you take the drug, you have a 73 percent chance of dying.
I still think he would have been better off flying to Paris for a last glorious month or two than lying in the Stanford Medical Center watching poison drip into his veins in a slow IV, but hey! T'weren't my decision to make.
And truthfully, I'm not sure what I would do if I was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. I hate to even conjecture about shit like that, at least in words, because it's kind of like daring the Universe to give you Stage IV cancer.
I kind of think I would eschew the treatment route though.
Although I also know two people who beat the diagnosis, and both of them against tremendous odds. I wish I could find the online cancer diary Liz kept during treatment – it was quite brilliant and quite savage. But I lost the bookmark somehow in my migration between various computers, and I'm scared to ask Liz for the link – she's moved on with her life and no doubt doesn't want any reminders of the Dark Times. Quite possibly even she's taken that blog down.
I would worry about my cats! Who would take care of them if I wasn't around? Who would love timid, pawkish, furry Rutger and skiddish, hostile, beautiful Meezer? Where would they go?
I would not worry about my children whom I am quite sure would hardly notice if I was gone. Oh, I mean Max would be sad. Max does love me. I doubt that Robin would even shed a tear though. Maybe it would hit him in 30 years or so. I think just possibly the old person I am today could communicate with the old person Robin will become.
The person I sort of know who's dying has no family. He has a web of friends sort of like me who know him at a remove, and then he has a closer circle who hang out at the coffee shop in OK City he hangs out in – the famous Red Cup (which I hope to visit some day.)
He's a very brilliant, amazingly funny guy – great writer, great cartoonist. He's also amazingly self-absorbed. (I realize this is one of those "Pot –meet Kettle!" observations, since I am one of the more self-absorbed people I "sort of know" myself!) But I mean, Mike is self-absorbed to the point where he has consistently rejected all attempts to get close to him over the course of his lifetime. It's not out of fear or depression either, although as the child of raging alcoholics, he's familiar with both. No, I think in a very essential sense, other people just don't register on Mike. He has a very full inner life. Other people are essentially projections on the walls of Plato's cave to him.
I'm not sure he understands that about himself.
I tend to see lives as lesson plans. Against all rational proof to the contrary, I believe quite strongly in reincarnation just as I believe in astrology even though I know quite well that the sun does not go round the Earth and therefore astrology is patently a lie.
So I find myself mulling this morning on Mike's curriculum during this lifetime. Just what was he supposed to learn? And did he learn it?
I suspect the lesson is about other people and allowing other people to love him. I like to think he'll learn it in the last few moments he draws breath. I am imagining Rena holding his hand somehow, stroking his forehead, looking lovingly into his eyes. I am hoping he gets it then –
– 'cause if he doesn't, he'll have to come back and repeat the whole fucking class!
