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The train ride to Amsterdam was interminable. I thought I’d lose my mind. What people must have thought of me, I don’t know. One morning John and I woke up feeling intensely unhappy. During room service in our beautiful suite overlooking a quiet, leafy, tree-lined canal in Amsterdam, I realized something that hadn’t occurred to either of us before. “It must be the pills!” I remember saying. “There’s something wrong with me, I’m not acting normal. This is not me and I think it’s these stupid pills I’m on.” I guess this rang true for John, too. Suddenly a whole new light was cast on the situation and his tone changed from angry to calm.
“Well, what are you going to do? You have to take the pills,”
he said.
“No I don’t!” I responded with conviction. “Not if they’re ruining my life I don’t. This can’t be what I need. It just can’t be. . . .” Upon my return from Europe I called Doctor #1 and described my extreme reaction to the pills.
Without skipping a beat she said, “Well, why don’t you try 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 56
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taking half the dosage and see how you feel?” I’d started by taking one pill in the first place, before doubling it to two in the second place! Jeez, what was she thinking? Right then and there I decided that was it for Doctor #1. Au revoir. I never, ever wanted to see her again.
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ishould have known 2000 was gonna suck when on New Year’s Eve, in front of my house, a driver smashed into poor Howie’s parked car and totaled it. Fire trucks, policemen, and neighbors were congregated out there trying to sort through the damage and mess. For security’s sake, I sat inside watching the action on my monitor as my party guests milled around outside taking photos and trying to calm down Howie. He eventually went home in a taxi around ten-thirty P.M. with a doggie bag of food and about ten milligrams of Valium. Happy New Year! From that point on the rest of the year only got worse.
I continued to suffer from all the usual symptoms, and just to add to the list, I now began to experience a nagging leg pain. It was mostly in my left leg, and occurred mostly at night. It had gotten so bad I hated going to bed. Every night the same thing. I couldn’t sleep without taking some kind of painkiller or sleeping pill. I tried lying with pillows under my legs, wearing socks, rubbing BenGay, using a heating pad, even filling hot-water bottles.
Sexy, huh? But nothing, and I mean nothing, worked. I felt like I was falling apart and wondered if all this stuff was the nagging aches and pains of impending old age. Did I just need to learn to live 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 58
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with it? I was at my wit’s end, in desperate need of help. So I made an appointment with a vascular specialist, Doctor #6. I mean, the leg thing was the worst symptom of all. I was like a trapped wild animal. If I didn’t get help soon, I was gonna chew my leg off!
I remember Elaine had spent a year complaining about leg pain before being diagnosed with a blocked artery by a vascular doctor. Up until that point she’d been told she needed back surgery for a compressed disc. Her fear of surgery kept her searching for another diagnosis, though, and she eventually found her way to Mind Over Back Pain by Dr. John E. Sarno. This doctor’s approach sounded nonsurgical to Elaine, so she pursued it.
An associate of Sarno’s listened to her symptoms and asked her what no other medical doctor had thought to ask: “Have you had a Doppler flow test?” Wouldn’t you know it? That one little test, easily and painlessly performed in a doctor’s office, told the whole story of her leg pain. The cause was a blocked artery in her leg, which required bypass surgery. At least she was getting operated on for the right thing, and it did fix her. The lesson here is that if you’re experiencing pain, numbness, weakness, or weird sensa-tions in any of your limbs, or if you seem sluggish in your head, a bit out of it, just not as sharp as normal, you may have a blocked artery. I don’t know why doctors don’t offer this test regularly.
So there I was, describing all my symptoms again to the vascular specialist, Doctor #6, wanting this Doppler flow test, too.
He used a wand that looked like an ultrasound and scanned my arterial system for any blockages. But once again the test showed nothing. “You probably have night cramps,” he blurted out.
“What are those?” I questioned.
“No one knows why we get them, but they’re very common.
I’ve been told tonic water helps,” he said, while cleaning up his tools.
“Tonic water?” I asked, incredulous.
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“Yup. Do you like gin and tonics?” he inquired.
“I never had one,” I answered.
“Well, try having one before you go to bed, lemme know if it helps,” he said, exiting. Now, I gotta admit, a gin and tonic is a tasty thing at around 11 P.M. with the fireplace goin’ and the TV on . . . it didn’t do much for the leg pain, though.
It was all so crazy. One doctor told me I had the tits of an eighteen-year-old, one doctor said I was eating too much spinach, and this guy thought I should drink gin and tonics at bedtime. So there I was with perky breasts, in need of roughage, going to bed sloshed, all in some futile attempt to cure myself.
That’s when I called the neurologist, Doctor #7, thinking maybe it was neurological. He requested an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the hip and leg area. An MRI is not an X ray, but a machine that uses magnets to create its images. This was my first one and I was a bit nervous. Would I get claustrophobic?
I’d heard from many people that the cylinder you’re slid into is very small. I was told they have open models and closed models. The open models aren’t as thorough as the closed models, and the closed models, while more thorough, are very confined. Well, it was all true and of course, my luck, for some reason unknown to me, I had to use the closed model.
I went with John. The MRI, by the way, isn’t a quick test. It’s a very exact science and in my case ended up taking close to an hour. They gave me earplugs “because the device is a bit noisy.”
Well, that’s the understatement of the century, since it’s a ca-cophony of machine-gun-sounding bells, buzzers, and bangs.
They offered me mirrored eyeglasses that would enable me to see John while in the cylinder. My dad said he’d just closed his eyes when he had to get an MRI but, I must admit, I was beginning to feel a bit anxious just looking at the contraption. And that was on five milligrams of Valium.
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So I put on the mirrored glasses and John sat on a chair behind my head, but in the same room. Then, through the reflection in the special glasses, I was actually able to see John behind me.
There he was, his sweet face and calming presence, smiling and comforting me the entire time. I’m so glad I was given those glasses! They made all the difference.
The MRI results came back completely clean. So Doctor #7
gave me Neurontin to take at night. It helped alleviate the pain, but not my problem. R.L.S. (restless leg syndrome) was the closest thing to a diagnosis I ever got. The pills did help, but no connection was made between my leg pain and my other symptoms.
Over lunch the next day with my friend Dorothy, I confided in her about my health problems. She’d directed many episodes of The Nanny, but we’d been friends for years before that, and I knew I could trust her. She suggested I see her gynecologist, an expert on women’s midlife health issues and hormone replacement. She said this woman had saved her; that she now felt full of vim and vigor. I had to admit, she looked great. Apparently, this doctor had written many books and made countless television appearances on the subject of women over forty. With renewed optimism I made an appointment with Doctor #8.
>
In the meantime, John had come up with a clever concept for MTV. I liked it, so I called my contact over there to pitch it. When I gave the guy our one-liner, he said they were already in develop-ment on a similar idea. It’s unbelievable how tough it is to come up with something original. But the executive said we should come in and brainstorm other ideas. John thought that was it for his ideas and didn’t want to take the meeting.
“Are you crazy?” I asked. “When the head of a network says,
‘Come in and brainstorm,’ you go!” Even as I said it I was questioning my sanity over even considering working on a project with John after everything I’d been through with Peter. Separation of 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 61
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church and state had been my intention for all future relationships.
Whoops.
Well, we spent a long, hard day trying to concoct ideas, with few results. We were both hungry and tired, so I ordered in some Chinese. I’ve loved Chinese food ever since I was a kid. Just as I shoveled in a forkful of roast pork lo mein, John blurted out an idea. A show about a local telethon—everything that goes on both behind the camera and in front. The minute he said it, I knew that was it. Oh, I really enjoyed my egg foo yong after that.
MTV loved the idea and ordered a script. That was the beginning of John’s and my writing collaboration. I never learn. I did love creating a world with John, but creation is very hard, and we fought over everything. Sometimes I wanted to kick myself for getting involved with it. But I guess I’m just a hopeless optimist or a complete idiot. I’ve not yet decided which.
So, okay, we got along, we communicated, we were attracted to each other, but he someday wanted to have children and I was perimenopausal. Oy. I began to worry that my eggs were getting old and if the day came that we ever did want to have a baby, it would be too late. Between the staining, the cramping, and the leg pain I felt like I had maybe an hour of fertility left. So even though we’d only been together a year, and hardly ready to talk about this, I got it in my head that we should fertilize some eggs and freeze them. Currently, the technology to successfully freeze an unfertilized egg is in the ear-liest, experimental stage. I figured that when and if we felt ready to start a family, we’d already have a few embryos ready to go, no matter what the current status of my ovaries may be. This process is a common technique used among couples with conception problems, or couples hedging against the march of time, as in my case.
I loved the idea!
But John hated it. He wasn’t ready. Honestly, we weren’t ready, and he turned me down flat. I mean, I didn’t know if I wanted kids, 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 62
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but I knew I wanted to keep all my options open. There I was, forty-two years old, my eggs withering away with each menstrual cycle, and my last-ditch attempt at reproduction was being squelched by my twenty-six-year-old boyfriend. I felt trapped by circumstances and anxious about the impending menopause and all its ramifications. Here’s where I think our age difference became a major problem. John and I weren’t on the same page—hell, we weren’t even in the same book!—and I felt hurt and alone.
One word led to another and I, who by now was feeling not only rejected but also old and misunderstood, said, “Maybe we should see other people.” I mean, he wasn’t budging and I wasn’t gettin’ any younger. I just couldn’t see what possible reason would justify not taking the steps now that would prepare for our possible future later.
The moment I said it, we both started to cry. Why was this happening? It wasn’t what either of us wanted, but somehow this baby thing had become a major bone of contention. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” I said, and we both laughed through our tears.
Then he left for work and I closed the door behind him.
I spoke to many friends that day. One person thought we were such a great couple that she was not only surprised, but disappointed that our relationship had taken this unexpected turn. And the truth was, I had never even wanted children, so it was pretty ironic that that’s what we might be breaking up over. But there we were. I just hated the whole situation, yet I didn’t want to live with regrets, either.
I spent the whole day thinking about and digesting what had gone down that morning. John came back to my house after work.
We hugged in the entry hall and although we both knew this issue wouldn’t go away, neither of us really wanted to break up over it.
So for the moment, we agreed to disagree and made up.
It was really all academic anyway. I mean, I was getting all 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 63
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wound up about fertility and frozen embryos because the doctors kept telling me I was perimenopausal. But that was a misdiagno-sis. Fertility was the least of my problems.
I just wanted to feel good again. I wanted to have sex without cramps. I wanted my complexion to be nice again. I wanted to feel more even emotionally. I had to get rid of my leg pain. That, more than anything, was really getting me down. I honestly felt like I was at the end of my rope. The longer I went without a diagnosis, the worse I felt and the more I feared that when they figured out what it was, it wouldn’t be caught in time.
Perhaps Dorothy’s gynecologist, Doctor #8, would help me once and for all. As the elevator doors opened, I entered her posh and spacious waiting room. Doctor #8, the guru of middle-aged women, the maven of hormone replacement therapy, had copies of her books strewn on tables throughout the waiting area. I perused their pages while waiting for my name to be called. Now, I know a lot of women, but I don’t know a single one who actually likes going to the gynecologist. I mean, what’s to like? It’s the ultimate invasion of privacy. Stripping down, spreading your legs. Talk about feeling vulnerable. I was so sick of it all.
As I sat in my examining gown on the table awaiting Doctor
#8, I found myself thinking about Gilda Radner. During her struggles with cancer, she wrote a book titled It’s Always Something. Peter read it first; we both loved her from Saturday Night Live. In her book she urged women to pursue as many doctors as it takes until you get a diagnosis, if you believe there’s something wrong. Poor Gilda, she was put through the wringer; by the time she finally got diagnosed with cancer, it was too late. She wrote about her leg pains, encouraging women to consider them a symptom of gynecological cancer, even though the medical community still doesn’t recognize them as such.
I remember seeing photos in the book of her with her little dog.
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A Yorkie. She never went anywhere without that dog. Just like me and Chester. My friend Danny Aykroyd used to say she was a nice person, a good person. Years after she died, Peter and I spotted Gene Wilder at the Rancho Valencia Resort. There he stood at the front desk with that same little Yorkie, her dog. It broke my heart to see them together, without her. It was an image I’ll never forget.
When Doctor #8 entered the room I ran down the litany of my symptoms, and included Gilda’s story, leg pain and all. I told her I’d been staining for two years. As for Gilda, Doctor #8 said she wasn’t sure what exactly Gilda had, but that it had been well over a decade ago and that a lot had changed in women’s medicine since. The leg pain she dismissed as unrelated. It was the imminent last tick of my biological clock that piqued her interest as she barreled into a series of questions.
“Are you involved with anyone?” she asked.
“Yes, I am,” I answered.
“Do you plan to have children?” That’s a touchy subject, next question.
“Have you considered a fertility doctor?” Boy, was she pressing all my buttons.
Honey, I’m bleeding between periods, can we focus on the issue at hand? I wanted to say, but sheepishly answered, “John is quite a few years younger than I am, and not ready, p
lus my divorce isn’t even final yet, so we decided to wait a little longer.” She seemed disappointed in that answer as she reexamined my chart. I just knew she was focusing on my age as she grunted, “Hmm . . .”
We did an ultrasound in her office as well. She noticed a slight thickening of the uterine wall, which she said birth control pills would take care of, but saw no tumor of any kind. “Your ovaries look fine, your uterus looks fine,” she said, showing me the monitor, but all I could make out was swirls of gray and patches of dark gray. I didn’t know what she was seeing.
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She told me my symptoms did not indicate cancer, but rather a perimenopausal hormone imbalance. “As for the progesterone Doctor #1 put you on, that wouldn’t have been my choice,” she said. “Birth control pills are the way to go!” she exclaimed with great confidence. I never realized that if you take the pill for even six months it can reduce your risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 50 percent. I told her that when I was a teenager I’d tried the pill to help relieve severe menstrual cramping, and that I hadn’t reacted well to it at all. But Doctor #8 shook her head and said condescendingly, “The birth control pill has improved greatly since the ’seventies, Fran.” Well, aren’t I just an old battle-ax from the Dark Ages. She assured me I wouldn’t have any noticeable reaction this time around, except possibly some bloating and slightly enlarged breasts. Okay, let’s just say the enlarged breasts sounded good and leave it at that.
I never really liked the idea of a birth control pill. It seemed unnatural to me. All my sexual life I used condoms, and not the ones with the spermicide, either. I was used to them. I really never knew any different, and aside from the occasional wrapper stuck to my ass, I liked them. It seemed easy, safe, and clean. I’d keep some in my purse at all times so I could always be spontaneous. I even kept a few in the shower. Because ya never know. . . . The concept of taking the pill was new to me, but I decided to give it a whirl. She seemed so sure and confident in her diagnosis, I wanted to remain open. Maybe she knew what she was doing.