Cancer Schmancer
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It’s a blessing when the person you love shows the kind of instincts you’d hoped they’d have when push comes to shove. Illness is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, rich or poor, young or old, fat or thin, sick is sick. And if you’re blessed, those around you will rise to the occasion in your hour of need.
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The next call I made was to my parents. Now, who wants to call their parents and tell them their child has cancer? What a monumentally difficult task it was, for me anyway. You see, the nature of my relationship with my mother and father had been one where I’d always tried to be the worry-free child, in contrast to my sister, whom they worried about constantly. My mom gets scared easily by many, many things and worries about everything, but especially her loved ones. For me, being the cause of any pain for them went completely against the grain. I always felt like I had to be strong for them.
Years ago, after the “break-in” (our euphemism for the rape), I’d found it so impossibly hard to tell them that my sister was the one who had to make the call. I was so worried about them, I couldn’t allow myself to turn to my own parents after being raped at gunpoint. It was always so twisted in my mind. I thought I knew what was best, but I never even gave them a chance to show strength.
When my sister was about eight, she had a seizure on the play-ground one afternoon. At the hospital I witnessed my mother completely lose it, and it frightened me. My mother was so sad, so upset, so hysterical. I never wanted to be the cause of that. I developed the bad habit of denying my own needs.
Well, this time was going to be different. I hadn’t been in therapy for three years not to be able to put myself first. I’d learned how to be human, to be able to take as well as give, to sometimes be needy and feel justified in my needs rather than selfish. Can you imagine having to pay someone to teach you that?
I picked up the phone and dialed. My mom answered since my dad was out playing golf. There’s no way to say something like this except to just come right out and say it, so that’s what I did. All my life I’d tried to protect my mother from pain. I just didn’t think she could cope. Well, the first thing my mother said after I told her I 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 79
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had cancer was, “Okay, let’s not panic. What’s the next thing we have to do?”
There were no hysterics, but rather a focused strength. She said she and my father would come out for the operation. I said we shouldn’t decide anything until I spoke with the surgeon on Friday. Old habits die hard, but there I was not wanting them to have to cancel their already planned trip to visit my sister and the kids. I wish my dad had been home when I called. I don’t know what my mom did or whom she dialed when she hung up from me, but I’m sure she experienced her own private hell.
After Leesa left for her next appointment, I called Elaine, who’s always been there when I needed her and is like a second mother to me. Without skipping a beat she said, “Honey, I’m coming with you to the oncologist,” and all I could say was,
“Okay.”
Then I called Rachel, who is, in my opinion, a brilliant woman, and she immediately zeroed in on the oncologist’s name so she could cross-reference it with her own network of doctors. Rachel was particularly helpful in these circumstances because she herself is a survivor of a catastrophic neurological illness. If anyone knew how to navigate through the tough times ahead, it was her. She, too, said she’d go with me to the doctor’s, and once again I said,
“Okay.” I swear, at another time I’d have been unable to say those two little syllables: okay.
When John came home, we hugged for a really long time. We kissed and made love. Slowly, gently, lovingly, as a tear rolled from the outer corner of my eye. He was exactly what the doctor ordered! I remembered my mom once telling me a story of a man who didn’t want to have sex with his wife when she was diagnosed with a gynecological cancer, because he was afraid somehow he’d get the cancer, too. I’d always thought that was a selfish 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 80
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and uninformed way for a man to handle what was already a terrible situation.
John was beautiful and sensitive, though. I was overwhelmed by the tenderness and love I felt from him. Afterward, I realized I hadn’t eaten, so we sought out a restaurant that was still serving lunch. I suggested going to the Ivy at the Shore in Santa Monica.
There’s a nice furniture store right next door and I’d been wanting to go there for some time.
John was obviously eager to do anything to lift my spirits, so we left the dog at home and ventured out. As we sat on the restaurant’s terrace, I gazed out at the swaying palms and the Santa Monica pier just beyond. The Ferris wheel was turning, cars were honking, people were roller skating, and life seemed to be going on all around us.
This gal Anne, whom I’d socialized with several times, was just finishing up her lunch and popped by our table on her way out. She was very high energy and excited to see us, chatting up a storm about her job, her home, whatever. I can’t even remember now. She was like a talking head. I could see her lips moving and I heard sound coming out of her mouth, but all I could think of was how surreal it all was, to be conversing as if everything were normal. She had no idea. Afterward, I blindly walked through the furniture store, muttering, “Purchase, I want to make a purchase.”
But I was unable to focus or make any decisions, so we got into the car and drove off.
John came up with an idea and started heading toward the freeway on-ramp. “Let’s go into Beverly Hills and buy you that friendship ring we’ve been talking about,” he exclaimed. Here it was June, and we’d been talking about this friendship ring since Valentine’s Day. He hadn’t known what to get me, and I said that I’d like something meaningful and everlasting like a friendship ring. No, I didn’t make that up. Friendship rings are a real thing, 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 81
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made up by some other clever girl who wanted a ring from her man. For some reason the word friendship conjures up less fear than, let’s say, engagement might.
Well, I’d seen something I liked while shopping at Barney’s one day, and I liked a little platinum ring from the Tiffany’s catalog as well. “Where should we go?” he asked. But I felt bad, like he was only suggesting this because he felt sorry for me and not because he truly wanted to. He insisted that he’d always in-tended on us going to pick out the friendship ring, but that a million things kept getting in the way. Now was the perfect time, and today was the perfect day. Who was I to argue? It was a lovely gesture.
So I called both stores to see how late they’d be open, because it was now around five in the afternoon and the shops in Beverly Hills tend to close early. As fate would have it, Barney’s had just closed and Tiffany’s was open another half hour. So Tiffany’s it was!
As we drove from the beach to Beverly Hills in a race against the clock, I felt loved. We got to Tiffany’s just as they were closing.
I knew exactly what I wanted and they happened to have a ring that fit perfectly, a beautifully simple platinum-and-diamond Elsa Peretti friendship ring that I slipped on my thumb and haven’t taken off since. As we drove home, I gazed down at my finger and contemplated my life. The future was uncertain and nothing made sense. I felt like a stranger in a strange land.
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The First Night with Cancer
J u n e 1 3 , 2 0 0 0
that evening when we got home, the house was empty and dimly lit by a night-light. Chester was asleep in the bedroom.
As the sky darkened, so did the weight of the cancer. I walked around the house quietly, going through the motions of preparing for bed. The fi
sh tank light illuminated the kitchen, John read in the living room, and I slipped into my bathroom to wash my face.
Yup, “going through the motions” is a good way to describe it, because I was really somewhere else. Somewhere far away and deep inside my head. I opened a drawer, removed the toothpaste, turned on the faucet. I could see myself doing it all, but it all seemed strange, foreign, and out of step.
As I sat at my vanity, I thought about my things. My chair, my makeup, my toothbrush. What will happen to them after I’m gone?
Will they be trash for the garbage man to haul away? The toothbrush was expensive and I’ve got Lancôme I haven’t even opened yet. I felt myself plunging deeper and deeper into a horrible feeling of isolation. I was sitting there staring at my image, my face, me, when the piercing ring of the telephone broke through my silence. It was my sister, Nadine.
Now, my older sister and I have had a complicated relationship our whole lives. I say “older,” but really we’re only a year and eigh-9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 84
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teen days apart, a closeness in age that definitely exacerbated issues growing up. It’s not easy being the “older” one when a baby comes into the house, especially when you’re still a baby yourself.
And since Nadine was always much taller than I, it made her seem even older. In fact, I never realized how close in age we really were until quite recently.
As an adult, being a year apart means nothing, but for us, as children, it created an enormous gap, each of us trying to define ourselves as individuals through friends, hobbies, sports, even food preferences. And everything seemed to be opposite. I was left-handed, she was right. I had dark hair, she had light. She liked ath-letics while I preferred performing arts.
As a teenager Nadine was always rebellious, which constantly worried my parents. In fact, for the better part of my life, I was either a witness or sounding board for my parents’ endless worrying over my sister. In a desire not to give them any more cause for worry, or perhaps out of a competitive need to be the “good one,”
a lifelong pattern of self-denial, of not expressing my needs, of giving rather than taking, became my M.O.
Even as an adult, after I moved to California and was married to Peter, I hardly had a conversation with my mother that wasn’t dominated by worries about my sister. First there was the issue that she wasn’t married; then it was leaving her alone when my parents moved to Florida. These days, it’s how hard she works while trying to raise two kids. It’s always something, and because it’s always been something, I think it prevented Nadine and I from experiencing the closeness I envied in other siblings.
Consequently, I’d never opened my eyes to see how much I had in common with her. We both were successful, career-driven women. We both loved to travel and hike. We both loved culture, theater, and museums. We loved restaurants, all different 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 85
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kinds of foods and entertaining. We could have been best friends, but unfortunately, that friendship we should have been sharing our entire lives was something we’d missed out on.
So it was my sister, Nadine, on the phone. Now, in all the time I was experiencing symptoms and searching for a diagnosis, I’d never once picked up the phone and reached out to her, an experienced nurse married to a doctor. What an idiot. How stupid of me, but asking for help wasn’t in my vocabulary.
“How ya doin’?” she asked with concern.
“Ya know, I’ve been better,” was all I could answer. I really didn’t know how I was doing or what I was feeling, but I guess numb would have been a more appropriate answer.
“When do you see the surgeon?” She sounded businesslike.
“Um, Friday, not until Friday.” I felt whipped, sapped of my strength.
“Did they grade the tumor, any mention of a letter or number?” She sounded like a nurse, my nurse.
“All she said was that it was very early, very slow growing, and very noninvasive.” By soft-pedaling it, I hoped to convince myself it was hardly anything. The fact that it was indeed cancer was merely incidental. I still needed to be the shtarkar, the workhorse everyone else had come to depend on.
“Next time you talk to her, try to get a grade number, too,” she said, as I wrote everything down on a list of things to remember to ask the surgeon on Friday.
“Okay,” I answered.
“I’d also feel a lot better if the surgeon did her own biopsy.”
My sister was now in full medical mode. I’d never seen her in action before, and I regretted that I hadn’t turned to her sooner.
“So I should tell her I want her to do another D&C?”
“Yes, definitely. The gynecologist took it in her office. Now 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 86
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you’re working with a surgeon in a hospital. It’s a more controlled environment, and I always like it when the surgeon starts fresh with her own tests. I think it’s better.” She was pretty insistent.
“All right, I’ll tell her. I’m going to call her tomorrow and I’ll tell her.” I was glad my sister was now in the loop. She cared about me. She loved me, I could trust her to do right by me.
“Do you want Mom and Dad to cancel their trip to see me and the kids so they can be with you?” she asked. Did she know how hard a question that was for me to answer? I hemmed and hawed, then said, “Um, I don’t know what I want.” All I knew was, I didn’t want to be the sick one, the weak one, the needy one. That was never my role, not in my entire life. Was I supposed to totally shift gears because of one call from my doctor?
“If you want them to come to you, they’ll cancel their trip.”
Her voice began to escalate. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t want them to cancel their vacation. Let’s see what happens,” I answered, clearly in denial of the gravity of my situation.
“Fran, just say it. It’s okay. If you want them to come, they’ll come! Just say it!”
But I simply couldn’t fit the words in my mouth. I’ve never asked anyone to sacrifice anything for me. I could take care of myself. “I want to wait until Friday, when I see the doctor,” I answered, weakly. I just couldn’t say what she wanted to hear, so she began to cry now, as well as scream.
“Why can’t you just say it? You never just say what you want!”
But I couldn’t and I didn’t. Calmly and quietly I said, “Nadine, I just found out I had cancer today. I want to decide this on Friday, after I see the surgeon.”
What she was expressing in all her rage was a lifetime of feelings that she hadn’t ever voiced before. And she was right. I never said what I wanted, never asked for help, never let anyone in. I never 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 87
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opened up and shared my pain with anyone. And for everyone, but especially for my older sister, Nadine, that must have been an isolating hardship. Her voice instantly lowered and calmed. Though still filled with emotion, she became gentle and sympathetic.
“Okay, will you please call me if you need me?”
“I will.”
“Any time of the day or night, I’m here for you.”
“I know.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
In that conversation, through my sister’s fear and frustration, I saw myself as other people experience me, and I felt bad and inadequate as a friend, wife, daughter, and sister. John couldn’t understand why she was yelling at me on the day I was diagnosed with cancer, but for the first time in my life I understood.
I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I was lucky I had both a mate and a dog. Neither one was ever really able to change anything for me, but there was a grounding factor to their presence.
They were warm and loving and kept me f
rom falling deep into my despair.
But when they were both sleeping and I was staring at the ceiling in solitude, my mind played tricks on me. And like the ceme-tery nightmare in Fiddler on the Roof, everything seemed to be leading me back to one conclusion: My days were numbered. The dog was aged. The marriage was over. My career had crescendoed with The Nanny, and in the silence of the night they all seemed to be nails in my coffin.
Why had I felt a recent urge to make out my will? Why had my favorite fish died? Why had I left Peter? Why had I told John he completed my life? Why? Why? Why? Because I must be about to die!
It all made so much sense. It was all over, now it was just a 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 88
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matter of time. I began to weep on my pillow, and as I sobbed John woke up. Bless his heart, he’d always wake out of a sound sleep to hold and comfort me. My thoughts were so loud in my head, but when I spoke, the words came out as whispers in the night, in the darkness, in my bed.
Panicked, I rattled off my hardly audible thoughts: “I think this must be it, maybe this is it. I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared.
Was I bad, am I bad, is it because I hurt Peter, is that why this is happening?” But John whispered back that I was good, that he was there, and that we’d get through this.
In the morning he left for work and I called the surgeon, Doctor #9. Fuck it, I had to do something to gain some sense of control. “Why do I have to wait until Friday?” was my first question.
Now that I knew I had cancer, every minute of every hour seemed like an eternity. I mean, what do you do with yourself? How do you pass the time when you know there’s a cancer within you?
One good thing she said was that we didn’t have to wait until we met on Friday to schedule an operating room. She said if I wanted her to, she could book me in for the following Wednesday.