I believe this blogging phenomenon has allowed amateur memoir writers like myself to get the satisfaction of publishing by just clicking a button. It is rather heady to be on the production end of content, even if hardly anyone reads our stuff. In addition, while writing is still a very important workplace skill (I use “writing” loosely to include bulleted phrases in PowerPoint decks), blogs have created a nice venue for the return of the old-fashioned essay.
So now, please welcome the “writerly” side of my friend Shari with her essay on chemo sitting…
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I met Gigi about 16 years ago when I was invited to join a group of graduate student women attending a book signing by Gloria Steinem on the Drag (a raucous and very empowering evening). Our mutual friend Margaret moved away and Gigi and I started salsa dancing. Over the years we’ve done a lot together and I’ve helped her with a garage sale and a couple of moves, but I never imagined accompanying her to a chemo treatment. On Friday, December 21st I sat with Gigi as she received her chemo treatment. As Gigi has described previously, the infusion room is very sunny with nice furnishings and surroundings. But the poles with machines on them regulating the intake of the hanging bags of liquid certainly indicate the purpose of the room, as does the lack of hair on the heads of those tethered to the poles.
Gigi dozed after the Benadryl went in, but talked while eating lunch and when her naps were interrupted by the nurse doing something new. David, who brought Gigi that morning, had kindly left the New York Times for me to read leisurely when Gigi slept. For four and a half hours, varying liquids dripped into her port, mostly through the machine, but in two cases they were administered by the very nice nurse. It was quiet, calm, and uneventful.
As Gigi slept, I couldn’t help looking around the room at the half dozen or so other people receiving treatment and I was struck and saddened by their youth. Other than a couple of elderly patients, they seemed so young and included a young man who looked like he was high school or college-aged with his parents on either side of him and a young woman sitting next to Gigi, probably in her late 20s or early 30s. Her young husband was with her. I am so curious about their stories – what, why, how?? I felt a bit voyeuristic, watching them calmly sit for hours absorbing their drugs, a stranger witnessing a moment in probably the most challenging time of their lives.
Surely I’m not the only one contemplating my mortality as Gigi battles this cancer. Admittedly, I feel pretty selfish thinking about myself at all, but I feel myself wanting to be sure that life isn’t taken for granted by those of us who don’t have cancer. I walked to Quizno’s next door to get a turkey sandwich for Gigi about halfway through the treatment. I wanted a salad but was told that they were out of lettuce, sorry. My first irrational thought: “Out of lettuce? There are people getting chemo treatments next door and you have run out of lettuce? What if one of them wanted a salad?” No connection, I know, between cancer and lettuce, but I guess the chaos that is the universe seems kind of scary. Cancer is much worse than not getting a salad, but what can you count on? No lettuce today, cancer tomorrow. Of course, Gigi didn’t want a salad, so I didn’t actually say anything.
On Thursday, the day before the treatment, Gigi and I went to a movie, but she was nauseous and we were leaving. She was worried about being sick in the car, so I went to the candy counter and asked for a bag to take with us. But no, even if you have cancer and are throwing up, you can’t get a popcorn bag unless you pay for a bag of popcorn! After an incredulous comment from me, the young woman behind the counter called the manager, but then I remembered I had grocery bags in the car, so we left. Does that employee know how lucky she is not to need the damn bag? That’s how Gigi’s cancer has me thinking.
I have felt helpless to change the course of Gigi’s cancer and am grateful that Western medicine has made great strides in doing just that. In fact, Gigi received such good news right before her treatment began that I was thankful that all of those chemicals were coursing through her body. I was happy to sit with her in the infusion room and read the paper and help push the pole when she needed to head to the restroom, adjust the chair when she stood up or sat down, get her lunch, drive her home. I felt useful, which mitigated somewhat the feeling of powerlessness over the cells in her body that had gone awry.
2 comments:
Is it common for chemo patients to have a sitter? What a blessing.
About half of the patients have a chemo sitter. Only 1 sitter per patient. No kids under 14 allowed in the infusion room.
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