by Junko Tabei
Recognizing the seriousness in the doctor’s eyes, Masanobu said, “My wife is ready to hear the results herself, so please let us listen to you together.” I was brought into the room to join them.
In a quiet tone, my condition was explained to me. Cancer cells had been found in the fluid taken from my abdomen. X-rays showed that these cells had already spread over a large area, even the pelvis. It was obviously a situation not to be taken lightly. Should all the black spots on the film be cancer, my abdomen was full of it.
“What would you say about this condition?” I asked. What I really wanted to know was how long I had to live.
He remained silent for a while. Then, “Could be till June –” Three months? My life was suddenly confined to three months?
“That’s not going to happen,” I thought, but simply answered, “Is it so?”
And that split second, my take-action mode switched on and I knew I had to first decide if I would stay in the hospital or not. My family doctor called while we were discussing the options. The two doctors quickly conversed and I was told I could go home as an appointment had already been scheduled with Dr. Takizawa of the Cancer Institute at Ariake Hospital within the week.
By coincidence, my son, Shinya, was on his way to Tokyo from our family-run ski lodge in Numajiri. He picked me up from the hospital with a futon in the back of his van for me to lie on for the drive home. Meanwhile, Masanobu stayed at our Numajiri Lodge in order to lead the snowshoe trip for the people from the town of Okuma.
Although I loved outings in the mountains, I was happy to finally be at my own home in Kawagoe. All bases were covered with Cheer Up Tohoku, so in that regard I could relax, yet I truly felt heavy in belly and in mind. I had no appetite, and my muscles were diminished as I had only drunk water since my abrupt diagnosis. Packing to leave for the Cancer Institute at Ariake Hospital felt more sluggish than stages on a mountaineering trip.
On March 15 Shinya drove me to the cancer centre and I met with Dr. Takizawa. He was my past surgeon, who had conducted the procedure of preventive cervical cancer removal. When studying my recent X-ray, he remained completely at ease. In fact, he smiled. “We have great medication these days. By May or so, you might be asking ‘What was that?’ To start, you’ll be admitted to the ward tomorrow.” He announced this as though it was business as usual. Such a simple approach; no brooding air about my diagnosis. My secretary, Minako Yoshida, who had made the trip from my office in downtown Tokyo to be with me, stared blankly at the doctor as though to say, “That’s it?”
While Yoshida’s new job was to clear all my scheduled events for the next month, mine was to throw myself into battle with the cancer that had exploded in my body. In my opinion, I had no choice but to win.
No Fuss
The image depicted on the computer screen showed a black band stretched across the inside of my abdomen with black spots scattered all around it.
My new temporary home was the gynecology ward on the eighth floor of the cancer centre. After instructions on what to expect, the nurses came to and from my room countless times to measure my blood pressure and heart rate and to take samples for blood tests. My doctors, Dr. Iwase and Dr. Abe, were both leading female physicians, and Dr. Iwase was quite the sportswoman herself. She loved mountain climbing and ran marathons, and was lively and cheerful. Dr. Abe was soft spoken and easygoing. I could feel their passion for medicine and their drive for the betterment of it, which made it simple for me to trust them with my life. We were a good team.
In the days leading up to being admitted to Ariake, my diet consisted of either fluid fed intravenously at the previous hospital, or water. It had been nearly ten days since I had enjoyed a meal. My first lunch at the cancer centre was cooked rice with gobo (like parsnip, but stronger in flavour), onion soup, chicken sauté with carrot and cauliflower, potato salad and green beans stewed with mushrooms. Unbelievably, I ate it all. After lunch, a litre of fluid was drained from my belly once again.
That night, my two doctors explained the plan to me. I was to have a CT scan the coming Monday, the results of which would determine the appropriate treatment for my illness. The doctors spoke with a sense of brightness: “We don’t know the cause of this cancer yet. Whether it’s a return of your breast cancer, or, in a very unlikely case, a stretch from the potential cervical cancer that we operated for in 2009. Or, a totally new one. No matter what the cause, we’ll do our best, and in the meantime, we’ll treat any uncomfortable symptoms you may experience. Let’s take on this fight together.” I was greatly reassured by their optimism.
My encounter with cancer was in full force. In truth, I temporarily fell into a dark disposition when I interpreted my prognosis as a three-month life sentence with the clock ticking ever downward. Yet my inner voice assured me that I would not die in three months. To gain perspective, I purposely thought about what really scared me in life – was it this diagnosis? No. It was the moment of being hit by an avalanche all those years ago. I remembered the overbearing feeling of this is it as the blocks of snow crushed against me. By far, that moment of fear exceeded anything I felt as a patient in the cancer centre. So, I had one choice: to embrace the finest technology available at a hospital with the most expertise in cancer treatment, and face my future. I was seventy-two years old.
On March 22, the scan results were ready. I asked Yoshida to be with me to hear the outcome. “Not all these black spots are cancer; however, many of them are and it has spread to your abdomen. The test results suggest it’s either a recurrence of breast cancer or the original peritoneal cancer. Fortunately, medication and treatment are the same for either case, and we’ll follow that method.” Then the stinger, “If it is peritoneal cancer, it’s at stage III.” My heart skipped a beat – stage III already? How was that possible when it had only been a month since I felt the first pangs of pain in my abdomen? Distracted, I quietly listened to the doctor continue.
“Here’s what we do next. You’ll be on an anti-cancer drug therapy starting tomorrow, and we’ll use medications that are common with breast cancer treatment. Your dose will be administered on a once-a-week cycle for three weeks. Times that by four cycles, so twelve weeks of treatment in total. If this therapy works well and the cancer cells shrink, then you’ll have an operation to remove any remaining tumours, followed by another twelve weeks of the anti-cancer drug therapy. Overall, the commitment is twenty-eight weeks. Seven months. You’ll likely have anemia, and your white blood cells and platelets may decrease in number. If those numbers fail to increase back to a normal range, or other side effects persist, we may postpone the second round of therapy, extending the duration of treatment. Other complications may include nausea, vomiting, lack of appetite, hair loss, numbness and muscle pain. Take good care of yourself when your white blood cell count is lower, because your immunity will be weak. Don’t go out into a crowd. Put a mask on, thoroughly wash your hands and gargle often. Once the increased fluid in your abdomen is gone, you can become an outpatient. There is a possibility of total recovery; however, there is also a potential of 70 per cent recurrence in two years, even once seemingly healed.” The information hit me like a head-on storm, and it was all I could do to latch onto the doctor’s closing reference that a five-year survival rate was 30 per cent. This was going to be tough.
As we made our way back to my hospital room, Masanobu repeatedly encouraged me to aim for that 30 per cent. “You can do it,” he said. I was lost in thought, wishing I could base my recovery on effort alone. Despite my agreeable response to him, I was distant. Calm, but aloof.
I wondered if I would have remained as calm with my prognosis if I had not yet reached the milestone of my seventies. Not likely. Depression would certainly have set in if I had been told much earlier that my life would be cut short. Instead, my decades of a go-getter attitude and my history with good luck had me feel no regret and enabled me to gently accept my prognosis without a dramatic response. I admit, I wished I could have continued climbing m
ountains for another ten years, but I had a fulfilling past in that regard, too. I had lived a good life.
My main concern, of course, was leaving my family. I was apprehensive about my husband being alone after I died. We had been having such fun together since his retirement at age sixty. We shared the freedom of travelling and hiking more often, and it was nice to see Masanobu enjoy life after working so hard for all those years. Again, I concluded I was lucky to have reached my seventies, and I told myself to accept this next stage in life and do my best. No fuss, no mess.
On March 23, my first cycle of chemotherapy began. Anti-allergy, anti-nausea and anti-cancer medication inundated my body through IV, and I dozed off throughout the morning as a sleep-induced drug was also part of the mix. On days when I was free of therapy, I established my own routine of well-being. There was a private shower on my ward that I was welcome to use. There were also stocked bookshelves scattered about in the hallways, plus a mini library on each floor. I read as much as I could and enjoyed the endless supply of manga (Japanese comics) at my disposal. I could never quite adapt to the city view that surrounded Ariake; there was not enough trees and natural greenery for me. The saving grace was the cap of Mount Fuji and the expanse of Tokyo Bay visible through the gaps of the city’s high-rise buildings. At night the Tokyo Tower lit up, creating a spectacular panoramic view of the cityscape, the nearly six hundred steps of the tower inviting people to climb it. But in the hospital, elevators were the only way up or down and I missed having access to stairways to keep myself fit. I was left to invent an exercise routine for myself, which was to walk to a distant bookshelf and take one book at a time back to my room. I found that my eyes quickly tired if I read for too long, but I was able to write, enough to stay on schedule with my book publisher and various projects while in the hospital.
The side effects of the chemotherapy drugs began to take their toll. Before I lost all my hair, I ordered a wig from a company whose president I had been acquainted with several years beforehand. Together, we were part of a panel discussion for a television show. Little did I know that my new wig would lead to a fashion statement at an evening Cheer Up Tohoku event that would take place in July. There I was, almost four months after I had started chemotherapy, performing with a group of singers called Women of No Fear, where all the women, in support of my illness, wore wigs like mine, laughing it up with their new-found hairstyles.
Mount Fuji
As I woke from general anesthesia, my throat hurt and I was aware of the numerous tubes connected to my body. I was on oxygen as well, something in mountaineering that one could only afford to use at 7500-plus metres of elevation.
As many as sixty students from Tohoku applied for the first planned trip to Mount Fuji, in addition to thirty local students from Fujiyoshida who also decided to join the fun. The Fujiyoshida Board of Education had expanded the original trip idea to include the phrase “Let’s make it a friendship experience.” Thus, our venture became larger than expected, and the sudden need for two busloads instead of one had us making last-minute changes with the local transportation company.
Seventy people responded to the request for volunteers with mountaineering experience. Grateful for people’s will to contribute, we found jobs that suited everyone, including much-older volunteers who would have had trouble keeping pace with the teenagers in the group.
As in life, Mount Fuji was not the only mountain to climb in this enormous project – there were dozens of tasks to complete without even setting foot on the trail. Still, even with all the help we had, and although I knew arrangements for the hike would be perfectly taken care of by my good friend Tadao Kanzaki, my mind would not rest. I had concerns about the rental equipment and food, and the on-mountain instruction and guidance that would be provided to the students. I wanted the trip to run without a hitch.
Then came the morning of July 6, the day of the Women of No Fear concert. I reserved a hotel room near the Cancer Institute at Ariake Hospital because, the day after, I would be re-admitted to the hospital for surgery. Mine was the combined role of medical patient and event organizer, having packed the items necessary for a hospital stay and a singing performance. A dress, for example, and sweets and fruits to be served to event-goers filled my bags along with the more mundane toothbrush and dressing gown. My husband drove me to the places where I was expected, keeping me punctual.
Musician Muneyuki Sato arrived by bullet train and taxi, while the Kouriyama Women’s Chorus had chartered a bus. I asked my son and his wife to greet and care for these stars who would grace the stage. Yoshida was in charge of selling tickets and guiding people to their seats (plus countless other duties that continually arose). My childhood friends from Miharu also showed up, although I had warned them I would have limited time to socialize. Unfazed, they settled into the theatre amongst strangers, and Shinya, not knowing that these were my dearest friends from long ago, approached them for a donation to the Tohoku cause.
Time flew and the curtain was raised.
Part one of the event was called Cheer Up Tohoku Talk One on One, hosted by non-fiction writer Michiko Yoshinaga and myself. Yoshinaga wrote a book titled Women of No Fear, which summarized the story of an amateur singing group that was born from a hiking club – MJ-Link – that I initiated in 2009 for professional women. The acronym MJ represents mori (forests) and jyosei (female), and from its early days, our group of singers evolved, called Women of No Fear. At the start, we were not very good performers, to the point of offering our audience ear plugs and eye masks, and serving snacks to make up for the fact that they had paid to see us. But over the years we improved, and up until 2016, we held concerts twice a year in Tokyo and various other local cities.
Part two was the Evening for Songs concert, which began with the Kouriyama Women’s Chorus passionately singing Memory of Summer, a popular folk song that described the beauty of a subalpine meadow in Tohoku. Next up was Women of No Fear. On that night, my cohorts and I were adorned by makeup artists who had us looking like professional singers. Eyeliner, fake eyelashes that whooshed like fans with every blink, and the wig – I was transformed into a different person. I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, dressed in a vermilion red gown, and I was another form of Junko Tabei, layered in cosmetics and style. Since I was unable to see anyone from where I stood on the stage (I had relinquished my glasses in the name of fashion), I became unafraid of performing. We were introduced one by one with whimsical comments that made the audience laugh. By that point, everyone was at ease. I sang “Plaisir d’Amour” by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini and “Le Marchand de Bonheur” by Jean Broussolle and Jean-Pierre Calvet. During my second song, all the women from our group joined me on stage and the audience clapped in rhythm to the music. I could feel the connection in the theatre, the beat of the room in synch with the beat of my heart. The success of generating support and awareness for the people of Tohoku was well under way.
Muneyuki Sato sang next, with the audience enraptured by his music. After that, my friend Kanzaki wished the students safe pursuit on their Mount Fuji hike, and the crowd joined together for a rendition of “Fuji the Mountain.” The evening was complete and marked a huge triumph when ticket, book and T-shirt sales, plus donations, added up to 850,000 yen (approximately CAD 10,000).
The next morning, I was re-admitted to the Cancer Institute at Ariake Hospital, a direct commute from the hotel. After the doctor explained the details of the surgery scheduled in two days, I asked if I could leave the hospital for one more day. I needed to travel to Matsuyama, a short airline flight away, to deliver another speech. Astounded, but knowing me well enough, the doctor granted me permission.
The trip to Matsuyama was based on a previous conviction of mine from my earlier experience with cancer, that my commitment to mountaineering and travel would still find its way in the midst of medical treatments. Thinking back to September 2007, I was on a climbing trip to Mount Aragats in Armenia and to Georgia. A day I remember as amusing, havi
ng watched our guide place specially designed crampons on the hooves of our packhorses for glacier travel, was also the day that marked my introduction to cancer. On that trip, in the shower, I felt an unfamiliar lump between my breasts. When I returned to Japan, the doctors were surprised by how early I was able to detect that tiny lump, which via biopsy proved to be malignant. “Breast cancer?” Masanobu was stunned at the diagnosis, but I lightly brushed it off by stating that removal of the lump was getting rid of the bad stuff.
My reaction was more along the lines of “Oh, cancer has come upon me, too. Darn.” I dutifully followed the doctor’s post-operative instructions for two days, then returned to life as usual. I attended a magazine interview, bought three dozen sasa-dango (rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaves) as a thank you to the doctors and nurses, and readied myself for a trip to the Baltic countries that was approaching in ten days. What else could the medical staff add to my instructions other than recommendations like “Avoid hitting your chest with tree branches.” I think I gave them reason to smile as I left the hospital.
As part of my goal to climb the highest peak in every country, I followed through with my planned trip. Thankfully, Lithuania’s Aukštojas Hill, Latvia’s Gaising and Estonia’s Suur Munamägi were not too demanding of me, even with stitches in my chest. More so, every time I changed the dressing on the incision, I felt grateful to mountains in general. It was because of climbing that I detected the lump in the slightest of spots. For that reason, I would uphold my commitment to mountaineering and travel no matter what else happened.