Talking in the Chemo room
I am not a gregarious person. In large groups, I tend to watch instead of talk. When I am with my tribe, I am more talkative.
I never expected to find friends in the chemo room, but I have. I am in this room at least twice a week: once to get chemo and the next day to get a nutrient bag since the chemo also tends to kill my white blood cells, potassium, magnesium, and sodium levels.
Some people, I see every time. Others, occasionally. And still others, very infrequently. We all have different sorts of cancer and we all are treated differently. Some of us are chatty (Diane and Ray) and some of us are not (No one knows his name but he is a dead ringer for Morgan Freeman.) Some of us are chatty except when we are under chemo attack and some of us would frankly rather read, but will talk to be polite (me, usually...)
Today, I was the first in the chemo room, so chose the coveted seat by the bathroom. This is well understood by anyone getting chemo. Being close to a bathroom is imperative because when your stomach or bowels suddenly go wompy, it happens very quickly. And since you are usually tied up to a chemo bag, you have to get out of your chair, find a way to unplug your chemo pole and then get to the bathroom in a twenty second radius.
Bathrooms are critical and the stuff of dark humor in this room. We have seen more than one person projectile vomit or shit their pants. And we get it. We are sympathetic. But, when they are taken away to be cleaned up, we are gagging. Just being honest. Luckily, that has not been me yet, but I have been one second away from it more than once.
So, I sat down and got hooked up to my goody bag, which is code for nutrient bag in chemo. Poison is code for chemo. Soon Ray joined me and we talked Thanksgiving. He and his wife went to his son's house. Ray has pancreatic cancer, so he rarely eats. As he puts it, he mimics eating. We all know exactly what this means. The people who love us get scared when we don't eat, so we have learned to eat like a bulimic person. We push food around on our plate. We take tiny bites. We chew a lot. The sad part about Ray is that he was the family cook before he got cancer. He loved cooking. Now, he can't taste anything. The love of cooking is just...gone. He also owned a liquor store for nearly 40 years and brewed his own wine and beer in his basement. Another hobby that he has abandoned.
"All my neighbors, friends, and family were used to getting their bottles of homemade booze every Christmas," he said. "But, now my heart is just not into it. And none of my kids ever took an interest in making it. Drinking it, yes. Making it, no. The wife HATED my hobby anyway, said that I stunk up the basement, so she was glad when I stopped. Now, she uses the basement for her yoga studio."
He said that he was grateful that his daughter-in-law wanted to try her hand at making Thanksgiving this year.
"She did a very nice job," he admitted. "The turkey was a little dry, but for a first try, she aced it."
Soon, Gemma joined us. Gemma has been in treatment for metastatic breast cancer for 5 years. Like me, she is at the end of her options for treatment but this last one has been working for her for nearly a year, so she is cautiously hopeful. She sat down and a nurse came in to hug her.
"I hear that this is your last treatment with us. That you are moving to Phoenix. Don't forget to ring the bell before you leave!"
Ringing the bell is stupid. Most cancer patients who do their homework know this. If you have cancer, it is rare that it never shows up again. Sometimes it takes 25 years. Sometimes, 2 months. But, it nearly always comes back. I have a theory that cancer is triggered. We don't know what triggers it, but something does. I had breast cancer in 2015. It came back as leukemia in 2017. Then, as metastasized cancer to my sternum, spine, and liver in 2018. I have a sister who had breast cancer nearly two decades ago. It is all a game of chance. When I supposedly beat breast cancer in 2015, I rang that bell and felt as if I were at the end of a terrible journey. Almost everyone who rings the bell feels like that. It is temporary. Most of us know that. It is all just a matter of how long you can trick that cancer into sleeping.
After the nurse left, Gemma looked cagily at Ray and me.
"I am NOT ringing that damn fucking bell. I have metastatic breast cancer. Terminal cancer. I am not finishing treatment. My sons are moving me to an old folk's home in the city that they both live in. They are worried about me living all alone in the house that they grew up in. All those stairs. I'm a little worried, too. So, I am grateful. It is a hotsy totsy place. Caregivers galore. I will get wheeled to the dining room for meals, get driven and wheeled to chemo and doctor appointments. No more having to depend on vans to pick me up or friends to help me. I won't ever have to be cold again. I will get Sunday dinners with my grandchildren and great grandchildren. This makes me happy. But, I will NOT ring that silly bell. It is a liar's bell designed to make us believe a non-truth. If they just called it a happy bell or something, fine. But, a survivor's bell? There are no winners in cancer."
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I have seen the look of joyous hope on the people's faces as they shyly or lustily ring that bell. I remember the first time that I rang that bell. I truly thought that I had beaten the shit out of cancer and that it would never come back. I was wrong.
I will be sorry to see Gemma go, though. She was sassy. I like the sassy ones best. Don't see enough of them. I see so many scared people in this room.
A nurse came in to hook up Gemma to her last treatment and to ask Ray why he was there since his treatment was not scheduled until tomorrow. He got a sheepish look on his face, checked his pocket calendar and muttered, "Shit. Gloria just dropped me off and was going to to go to the mall. She was thinking she had three hours of shopping time. She is going to kill me."
We all laughed. Teased him about chemo brain. Another real thing you get when you have cancer. Chemo brain is being forgetful and it is very real. You not only forget your next appointment and have to write everything down, but like me, you forget your own sister's married name. It happens.
Ray left and Diana came in. She looked like death warmed over. Diana and I say that we are twin cancer patients. Our situations are weirdly similar. We are two days apart in age. Both had our first bouts with breast cancer in 2015. Both took Neulasta. You've seen the commercials for Neulasta. It talks about how it keeps your white blood cell count up so that you don't have to go get nutrient bags at the infusion center after chemo. What it doesn't say is that there is an 11% chance that it will trigger leukemia in you. You have to sign a paper saying that you are aware of this. I signed it. Diana signed it. Like me, she thought that an 11% chance was pretty low and it was SO nice not to have your white blood cell count fall into the toilet and put you in bed for a week. So, we took Neulasta and ended up in that 11%. We ended up fighting leukemia and somehow beating the odds (85%) that we would die. And then after beating it, four months later found out that we had metastatic breast cancer that had moved to our sternums, spines and livers. Weird huh? We do have differences. She has a dead husband. Died of a heart attack while she was fighting leukemia. She fell into such a depression that one of her sons moved in with her and still lives with her today, taking excellent care of her. She worked for Mutual of Omaha since she was 18 and was hired as a secretary. When she fought her first bout with breast cancer, they kept her on. When she got leukemia, she had to take an early retirement. But, she has an excellent pension.
Diana sat down wearily in a chair. Like me, she is on Halaven. Like me, it is kicking her ass. She tried to go without her sodium bags because she and her son were driving to Pilger for Thanksgiving to be with one of her other sons. Now, she has been in bed for three days.
"I finally gave in and called today," she says. "I need help."
Gemma and I nod. Been there. Done that. Diana, usually chatty, gets hooked up to her rescue bag and promptly falls asleep in her chair, snoring.
Been there. Done that.
At last, as I am finishing my bag, after Gemma has left and Diana is still snoring, the man we all call Morgan Freeman walks in and takes a seat. None of us know his real name because he rarely, if ever, talks. That's fine. We let you be you in the chemo room. Morgan looks exactly like Morgan Freeman without the freckles. He always wears the same outfit in all weather. Gray dress pants with a white tee shirt tucked in. Nicely polished black dress shoes with white socks. A black raincoat. He sometimes takes the black raincoat off and politely nods to all the women in the room, but he doesn't talk. If asked a question, he politely answers in as prompt an answer as he is able. Yes. No. Fine. Good weather. Bad weather. Thank you.
Today is no different. He sits waiting quietly for his poison. A nurse has turned a game show on and he watches it. It is hard to tell if he is concentrating on it or not. Mary, the nurse brings his bag. She cheerfully asks him if he had a nice Thanksgiving. He says yes. She asks him if he cooked. He says yes.
"So, what did you cook?"
I look up. This will require an answer. He is quiet for a moment and then says, "I didn't buy a turkey. Too big. I bought a little chicken and cooked it up with some dumplings."
Diana continues to snore, but he has my attention.
Mary asks him if he had a lot of company.
No, he says. "It was just me and my little dog, Cookie."
Mary smiles and pats his hand. Tells him that his treatment will take about a half hour. Is he comfortable? Would he like a warm blanket? He says he is fine.
He goes back to watching television. I am sitting with tears in my eyes. You never know what someone else's story is. Morgan ate alone on Thanksgiving. I think that must have been really lonely. I have never seen him with a companion to pick him up or bring him in for treatment. Or, maybe he likes being alone.
That sounds like a story that I tell myself to not feel badly. I think that I should try to engage Morgan more in conversation. I was once quiet like him, until someone (now long dead) got me talking about The Walking Dead.
And then my beeper goes off. I am done. Mary comes to unplug me. Asks me if they will see me next week. I tell her no, that I am to have a week off to let my body rest. Everyone in the room knows that this is code for the fact that the cancer is killing the good parts of me and we are giving my body a chance to heal, hoping that the cancer isn't spreading too fast while we do this.
I get up, gather my book and coat. Suddenly, Morgan reaches out and touches my hand.
"See it as a vacation," he says. "You'll be okay."
I nod. Our hands release each other.
"See ya when I see ya," I say in my jauntiest voice. He nods and I see a little glitter in his eyes.
Yes, he could be part of my tribe. You just never know.
I never expected to find friends in the chemo room, but I have. I am in this room at least twice a week: once to get chemo and the next day to get a nutrient bag since the chemo also tends to kill my white blood cells, potassium, magnesium, and sodium levels.
Some people, I see every time. Others, occasionally. And still others, very infrequently. We all have different sorts of cancer and we all are treated differently. Some of us are chatty (Diane and Ray) and some of us are not (No one knows his name but he is a dead ringer for Morgan Freeman.) Some of us are chatty except when we are under chemo attack and some of us would frankly rather read, but will talk to be polite (me, usually...)
Today, I was the first in the chemo room, so chose the coveted seat by the bathroom. This is well understood by anyone getting chemo. Being close to a bathroom is imperative because when your stomach or bowels suddenly go wompy, it happens very quickly. And since you are usually tied up to a chemo bag, you have to get out of your chair, find a way to unplug your chemo pole and then get to the bathroom in a twenty second radius.
Bathrooms are critical and the stuff of dark humor in this room. We have seen more than one person projectile vomit or shit their pants. And we get it. We are sympathetic. But, when they are taken away to be cleaned up, we are gagging. Just being honest. Luckily, that has not been me yet, but I have been one second away from it more than once.
So, I sat down and got hooked up to my goody bag, which is code for nutrient bag in chemo. Poison is code for chemo. Soon Ray joined me and we talked Thanksgiving. He and his wife went to his son's house. Ray has pancreatic cancer, so he rarely eats. As he puts it, he mimics eating. We all know exactly what this means. The people who love us get scared when we don't eat, so we have learned to eat like a bulimic person. We push food around on our plate. We take tiny bites. We chew a lot. The sad part about Ray is that he was the family cook before he got cancer. He loved cooking. Now, he can't taste anything. The love of cooking is just...gone. He also owned a liquor store for nearly 40 years and brewed his own wine and beer in his basement. Another hobby that he has abandoned.
"All my neighbors, friends, and family were used to getting their bottles of homemade booze every Christmas," he said. "But, now my heart is just not into it. And none of my kids ever took an interest in making it. Drinking it, yes. Making it, no. The wife HATED my hobby anyway, said that I stunk up the basement, so she was glad when I stopped. Now, she uses the basement for her yoga studio."
He said that he was grateful that his daughter-in-law wanted to try her hand at making Thanksgiving this year.
"She did a very nice job," he admitted. "The turkey was a little dry, but for a first try, she aced it."
Soon, Gemma joined us. Gemma has been in treatment for metastatic breast cancer for 5 years. Like me, she is at the end of her options for treatment but this last one has been working for her for nearly a year, so she is cautiously hopeful. She sat down and a nurse came in to hug her.
"I hear that this is your last treatment with us. That you are moving to Phoenix. Don't forget to ring the bell before you leave!"
Ringing the bell is stupid. Most cancer patients who do their homework know this. If you have cancer, it is rare that it never shows up again. Sometimes it takes 25 years. Sometimes, 2 months. But, it nearly always comes back. I have a theory that cancer is triggered. We don't know what triggers it, but something does. I had breast cancer in 2015. It came back as leukemia in 2017. Then, as metastasized cancer to my sternum, spine, and liver in 2018. I have a sister who had breast cancer nearly two decades ago. It is all a game of chance. When I supposedly beat breast cancer in 2015, I rang that bell and felt as if I were at the end of a terrible journey. Almost everyone who rings the bell feels like that. It is temporary. Most of us know that. It is all just a matter of how long you can trick that cancer into sleeping.
After the nurse left, Gemma looked cagily at Ray and me.
"I am NOT ringing that damn fucking bell. I have metastatic breast cancer. Terminal cancer. I am not finishing treatment. My sons are moving me to an old folk's home in the city that they both live in. They are worried about me living all alone in the house that they grew up in. All those stairs. I'm a little worried, too. So, I am grateful. It is a hotsy totsy place. Caregivers galore. I will get wheeled to the dining room for meals, get driven and wheeled to chemo and doctor appointments. No more having to depend on vans to pick me up or friends to help me. I won't ever have to be cold again. I will get Sunday dinners with my grandchildren and great grandchildren. This makes me happy. But, I will NOT ring that silly bell. It is a liar's bell designed to make us believe a non-truth. If they just called it a happy bell or something, fine. But, a survivor's bell? There are no winners in cancer."
I'm not sure how I feel about this. I have seen the look of joyous hope on the people's faces as they shyly or lustily ring that bell. I remember the first time that I rang that bell. I truly thought that I had beaten the shit out of cancer and that it would never come back. I was wrong.
I will be sorry to see Gemma go, though. She was sassy. I like the sassy ones best. Don't see enough of them. I see so many scared people in this room.
A nurse came in to hook up Gemma to her last treatment and to ask Ray why he was there since his treatment was not scheduled until tomorrow. He got a sheepish look on his face, checked his pocket calendar and muttered, "Shit. Gloria just dropped me off and was going to to go to the mall. She was thinking she had three hours of shopping time. She is going to kill me."
We all laughed. Teased him about chemo brain. Another real thing you get when you have cancer. Chemo brain is being forgetful and it is very real. You not only forget your next appointment and have to write everything down, but like me, you forget your own sister's married name. It happens.
Ray left and Diana came in. She looked like death warmed over. Diana and I say that we are twin cancer patients. Our situations are weirdly similar. We are two days apart in age. Both had our first bouts with breast cancer in 2015. Both took Neulasta. You've seen the commercials for Neulasta. It talks about how it keeps your white blood cell count up so that you don't have to go get nutrient bags at the infusion center after chemo. What it doesn't say is that there is an 11% chance that it will trigger leukemia in you. You have to sign a paper saying that you are aware of this. I signed it. Diana signed it. Like me, she thought that an 11% chance was pretty low and it was SO nice not to have your white blood cell count fall into the toilet and put you in bed for a week. So, we took Neulasta and ended up in that 11%. We ended up fighting leukemia and somehow beating the odds (85%) that we would die. And then after beating it, four months later found out that we had metastatic breast cancer that had moved to our sternums, spines and livers. Weird huh? We do have differences. She has a dead husband. Died of a heart attack while she was fighting leukemia. She fell into such a depression that one of her sons moved in with her and still lives with her today, taking excellent care of her. She worked for Mutual of Omaha since she was 18 and was hired as a secretary. When she fought her first bout with breast cancer, they kept her on. When she got leukemia, she had to take an early retirement. But, she has an excellent pension.
Diana sat down wearily in a chair. Like me, she is on Halaven. Like me, it is kicking her ass. She tried to go without her sodium bags because she and her son were driving to Pilger for Thanksgiving to be with one of her other sons. Now, she has been in bed for three days.
"I finally gave in and called today," she says. "I need help."
Gemma and I nod. Been there. Done that. Diana, usually chatty, gets hooked up to her rescue bag and promptly falls asleep in her chair, snoring.
Been there. Done that.
At last, as I am finishing my bag, after Gemma has left and Diana is still snoring, the man we all call Morgan Freeman walks in and takes a seat. None of us know his real name because he rarely, if ever, talks. That's fine. We let you be you in the chemo room. Morgan looks exactly like Morgan Freeman without the freckles. He always wears the same outfit in all weather. Gray dress pants with a white tee shirt tucked in. Nicely polished black dress shoes with white socks. A black raincoat. He sometimes takes the black raincoat off and politely nods to all the women in the room, but he doesn't talk. If asked a question, he politely answers in as prompt an answer as he is able. Yes. No. Fine. Good weather. Bad weather. Thank you.
Today is no different. He sits waiting quietly for his poison. A nurse has turned a game show on and he watches it. It is hard to tell if he is concentrating on it or not. Mary, the nurse brings his bag. She cheerfully asks him if he had a nice Thanksgiving. He says yes. She asks him if he cooked. He says yes.
"So, what did you cook?"
I look up. This will require an answer. He is quiet for a moment and then says, "I didn't buy a turkey. Too big. I bought a little chicken and cooked it up with some dumplings."
Diana continues to snore, but he has my attention.
Mary asks him if he had a lot of company.
No, he says. "It was just me and my little dog, Cookie."
Mary smiles and pats his hand. Tells him that his treatment will take about a half hour. Is he comfortable? Would he like a warm blanket? He says he is fine.
He goes back to watching television. I am sitting with tears in my eyes. You never know what someone else's story is. Morgan ate alone on Thanksgiving. I think that must have been really lonely. I have never seen him with a companion to pick him up or bring him in for treatment. Or, maybe he likes being alone.
That sounds like a story that I tell myself to not feel badly. I think that I should try to engage Morgan more in conversation. I was once quiet like him, until someone (now long dead) got me talking about The Walking Dead.
And then my beeper goes off. I am done. Mary comes to unplug me. Asks me if they will see me next week. I tell her no, that I am to have a week off to let my body rest. Everyone in the room knows that this is code for the fact that the cancer is killing the good parts of me and we are giving my body a chance to heal, hoping that the cancer isn't spreading too fast while we do this.
I get up, gather my book and coat. Suddenly, Morgan reaches out and touches my hand.
"See it as a vacation," he says. "You'll be okay."
I nod. Our hands release each other.
"See ya when I see ya," I say in my jauntiest voice. He nods and I see a little glitter in his eyes.
Yes, he could be part of my tribe. You just never know.
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