By CLARE FOSTER
I sat, lymph nodes missing, while cancer was granted a free ticket to tromp through my system. The lump was gone, and in its place a lot of fear mixed in with a lot of lonely. There must have been some mistake, I thought while driving down the river road, slick and snow-covered, and fuck you God. That river road, driven a thousand times before, fog rising off the river, water rushing, but it was different that time. I stopped, sat by the river for a while and the lonely washed over me, almost drowning me. Where was the Almighty waving his staff and announcing that all those who are good and who believe will walk through life, sometimes stumbling but always finding their way? How do you find your way to this, to lonely and cancer, fog rising off of the river?
I read about cancer in books and on the Internet until I was so overwhelmed that I cried. I cried about breast cancer, about this new club that I was now a member of, a club full of bald, scared, skinny, sick women infested with cells that could kill. Those fucking little cells having a party, a full-blown party in my body, unwelcome cells that I would fight with lonely, with chemo running red.
There were eight times that my veins were to be injected with red chemo, with poison promising to kill those estrogen-eating cancer cells. Eight treatments but I couldn’t bear more than six. Chemo runs fast and burns as it first enters the vein. There were four other women in the infusion center, and I wondered if they were lonely too.
Treatment two, one of the four other women, Celia, was not there. I asked the nurse where she was. She told me Celia decided she did not care, and was planning on dying anyway and don’t we all die eventually and what is the point? Now there were three women who sat with me, being injected with poison running red, red like blood but not as thick, and if it got on your skin it burned you. They told me 12 days after the first red infusion, my hair would start falling out and it did, in clumps. The local barber would not give me a buzz cut, he was afraid and he did not know what to say; he cut my son’s hair when he was little but he was afraid, wondering what is this lonely? I braided my hair into two braids and cut them near my chin, sent them to Locks of Love in hopes that my thick black hair would be made into a wig for a child full of chemo running red.
In the shower, I shaved my own head with my razor that really I did not need anymore because besides the hair on my head falling out, shaved and washing down the drain, all of the other hair on my body was also gone, except for my eyebrows. I did not wear a wig. I wore hats. It was winter, it was cold, and sometimes I wore nothing on my head at all. Damn that lonely.
The women sat by themselves, unsure of the red running chemo and unsure of the lonely that they felt. I looked at them and smiled; they turned away. I did not feel good, full of poison, red running fast now, bag almost empty. And this lonely running red, it is nothing I have ever felt before. It is empty and full and numb and bald, 100 pounds with yellow tinted eyes, and an occasional smile. I flirted with life and the possibility of none at all.
Treatment three, fingers completely numb, getting over bronchitis, and two less women. I asked the nurse where they were and she told me one was in the hospital with fluid in her lungs and more cancer, and the other went home. And then there were two. I was in need of something to do, couldn’t sit still, couldn’t focus, so I started cracking jokes with the nurses. They humored me and even laughed, but the jokes were not that funny.
My kids floated through the days with me, with my promise that I was not going anywhere, that I would be there still to laugh and to love, and that yes my hair would grow back, and yes my jeans would fit again, and yes I would still walk in the canyon, that place filled with so much light.
It was morning and I was getting ready to go, bringing lonely with me to that place again, to the chemo running red, to the place with my tired veins that took three nurses to try, and then another one, to actually find a vein worthy of being injected with poison.
Cancer is not a gift to make you value life, it is not a wake up call to eat healthier, run faster, jump higher, it is cancer, no secret. It is cancer. Cancer plays no favorites, it doesn’t sit around late at night and choose who to hit, it just arrives unwanted and undeserved and full of the promise to shake your world, full tilt, so hang on tight.
It was treatment six that I met with my oncologist and told him “NO MORE.” He was silent and urged me to reconsider, to have all eight treatments and 35 zaps of radiation. “I will do the radiation,” I told him, “but I am done with chemo.” He stood for a while, arms crossed, just looking at me. Breaking the silence, like after a service that has gone way too long, I asked him if he would like to come to my funeral, because if I continued with these treatments that is where I saw myself. I had already felt the life rushing out of me, felt legs that didn’t want to stand, dreams that were locked up tight, and this treatment, the sixth treatment, would be my last.
The sixth treatment was the worst; everything started to spin and I became ill, vomiting on the floor the little bit of food that was in my stomach, but vomiting much more than that. I imagined I was vomiting all those little cancer demons out, all of them. I continued to be ill for what seemed like a lifetime, and then I stopped. I stopped and watched the chemo running red, watched the remainder of the bag drip-drip-dripping into my arm, and then I was finished. Did I dance, perhaps in my heart. But I was so weak that I could hardly stand. The nurses would not let me leave until I could stand on both feet without holding onto anything. I stood, holding onto the promise of life, of life lived and life breathing, of life continuing, of lonely keeping our deal to stay away forever, and walking out of the infusion center. They wanted to wheel me out of the hospital in a chair, but I kept walking, and I was hearing voices, swirling and curving, and I was sweating and my heart was pounding, and I felt the urge to throw up again, and I made it, and my friend that came to pick me up was watching and crying and I couldn’t comfort her, I just couldn’t.
Lonely lingered and eventually was gone, and in it’s place a feeling of gratitude. The words “cancer free” poured out of every pore in my body, and on my head hairs started growing, slowly at first, like my strength. As the days went by and spring began to gather speed, lonely seemed further and further away, and I thought to myself, I am a survivor, I am cancer free.
Lonely does as lonely feels, breathing breath breathed lonely, breathing breath life, lonely leaves, life lives.
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