Lessons learned?

Home alone tonight – so cold pizza and a can of diet coke for dinner as I ponder what to do about this blog in the absence of any real news.

The original purpose of fabulouslythin.blogspot.com was entirely practical – a place to house all of the information that so many people kept calling me to enquire about. Test dates, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment schedules and follow ups.

But now – 2/3rds of the way through treatment there’s less to say – I’ve slotted into a chemo routine. It’s comfortingly dull.

Of course there are odd things – whenever I think about the orange stuff that they push into me right at the end of treatment I shudder so violently items of clothing are thrown clear of my body. When I see a Hershey’s bar (I was eating just such a confection when they ‘glooped me’ for the first time) I have to fight the urge to throw up. Even seeing the empire state building go orange for the night had me throwing up into my mouth a little.

Then there’s my profound irritation with work – where good people are stretched too thin and bad people are paid too much. Where the clients get it and the internal team doesn’t and where an attitude of exasperated belligerence is the only cool thing to be sporting.

What else? Well there’s my teeth gnashing at the jovial demeanor that people adopt during short visits to the hospital. “Oh yes, the transplant is failing, the drugs made my testicles drop off and I have an appointment to have my feet amputated this afternoon – but you’ve got to laugh haven’t you?”

And of course there’s the fake flirting as sick men try to hang on to the last vestiges of their virility by making ever so slightly suggestive comments to the nurses.

You don’t see a lot of fear in these chemo rooms. You see people who have been placed on the conveyor belt and are just trying to hang on as long as they can without getting thrown. There’s a routine to cancer treatment that’s actually quite soothing. Something about having things on the calendar that makes you believe that you’ll be around to see them. “Twenty one weeks of treatment means that they think I’ll still be here in 5 month’s time.” seems to be the thought.

Of course what happens post treatment tends to be scarier. If you’re one of the 30% given the all clear you’re suddenly out of the institution and alone to ponder whether every cough, sneeze and splutter is the beginning of the end. And to go back to the life that everyone (including you) thought would be profoundly changed by a brush with mortality.

What have I learned throughout all of this?

Well I’ve learned that my wife has a capacity to cope that is astounding.

I’ve learned that the people I’ve met here in New York are good and genuine friends and that I owe them more than another disappearance to another continent and only occasional contact.

I’ve learned that white wine is the only alcohol that I really miss – and that it’s not the alcohol but the occasion (home from work, Jeopardy, veggie chips and a selfish half hour with my wife).

I’ve learned that people only talk of ‘hope’ when it’s gone.

I’ve learned that my head isn’t quite as weirdly shaped as I’d been led to believe.

I’ve learned to let go and trust… to give some control to other people, to offer some things up to the universe and to turn off the e-mail when I get home.

But I’ve not learned to stop blathering.