There are so many musical references throughout my memoir. Plays off of song names for my chapter titles, scenes that center on a Metallica song. I even wrote a separate piece titled My Cancer Playlist in which I attempted to chronicle the emotional tides of my "cancer journey" (as people in the medical field like to refer to that time for their patients) through songs that hold significance for me. So naturally, I've thought about how neat it would be to have a soundtrack to accompany my memoir. Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" would have to be there; Radiohead's "Pyramid Song"; especially Beth Gibbon and Rustin Man's "Show."
Today at work I stumbled upon Beck's acoustic set of many of the songs from his heartbreak album, "Sea Changes." If I had a soundtrack memoir, Beck's "Lost Cause" would undoubtedly have to be there at the tail-end of Side B. Though it's been a while since I moved from all the heartache and breaks that make up a chunk of my memoir, this song still cuts deep sometimes. Still sneaks up on me. Still implodes.
I honestly don't know how Beck can perform this song with such honest emotion and not once tear up.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
The Growl
A few days before I began chemotherapy, I came home from a day at work and school. In my bedroom, alit in waning sunlight, I peeled off my office get-up. My roommates weren’t home. I loved having the flat to myself so I could blast a boogielicious tune or some rock ‘n’ roll that was born to be loud. Sometimes I would roar to the song, bang my head, even bust out some air guitar flails. I flipped through my spinning CD tower. Metallica’s ferocious cover of Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” was what I felt pulsing in my veins. I needed induced catharsis.
An unexpected thing happened while I stood there listening to the militaristic intro blare through the flat. Like a howling wolf, I craned my head back and roared in the hopes of letting out some of the frustration I had been feeling from Life With Lymphoma, especially after I had to subject myself to a second bone marrow biopsy a few days before. The joyous, playful roar that usually came out whenever I would shout along with a rock song was more of an angry, guttural growl. It rattled from my chest, up my throat, filling the room. It felt like something with its own life. Something I couldn’t quite control. Once I finished roaring, I nervously tittered to myself.
That’s when I got a sense that I was like a human walking volcano. Beneath my stoic, I’m-being-strong veneer, the tension was building. Bubbling, rumbling, escalating. It was all those hospital visits. Medical examinations. Agonizing lines to wait in. All that time lost in those drab, life-sucking waiting rooms. All those medical terms and cancer jargon I had to become familiar with. All those big decisions to make: should I get a catheter port inserted into my arm for the duration of treatment? Should I have my sperm frozen? And all the e-mails I had to respond to from my family in Peru telling me that they were sorry—that I just had to put my faith in God, that this “nightmare” would soon pass. All the times I had to tell them, it’s going to be okay.
As if I knew.
An unexpected thing happened while I stood there listening to the militaristic intro blare through the flat. Like a howling wolf, I craned my head back and roared in the hopes of letting out some of the frustration I had been feeling from Life With Lymphoma, especially after I had to subject myself to a second bone marrow biopsy a few days before. The joyous, playful roar that usually came out whenever I would shout along with a rock song was more of an angry, guttural growl. It rattled from my chest, up my throat, filling the room. It felt like something with its own life. Something I couldn’t quite control. Once I finished roaring, I nervously tittered to myself.
That’s when I got a sense that I was like a human walking volcano. Beneath my stoic, I’m-being-strong veneer, the tension was building. Bubbling, rumbling, escalating. It was all those hospital visits. Medical examinations. Agonizing lines to wait in. All that time lost in those drab, life-sucking waiting rooms. All those medical terms and cancer jargon I had to become familiar with. All those big decisions to make: should I get a catheter port inserted into my arm for the duration of treatment? Should I have my sperm frozen? And all the e-mails I had to respond to from my family in Peru telling me that they were sorry—that I just had to put my faith in God, that this “nightmare” would soon pass. All the times I had to tell them, it’s going to be okay.
As if I knew.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
El Loco vs. Mr. Hodgkins
Here's an excerpt from my memoir:
INT. LOCKER ROOM – NIGHT
MR. HODGKINS, dressed in his tuxedo, stands next to a balding, mustachioed man, MEAN GENE OKERLUND. They both face a large Panavision television camera. Donning a black suit, holding a microphone, Okerlund stares at the woman wearing a headset. She stands beside the cameraman. Okerlund nods when she points at him. She holds her fingers up in a silent countdown—three, two, one—before the red lamp on top of the camera turns on.
MEAN GENE OKERLUND
We are just minutes away from our career-ending match between “El Loco,” Juan Alvarado Valdivia, and the gentleman standing beside me, death himself, Mr. Hodgkins.
Okerlund takes a step back toward Mr. Hodgkins. He stretches his hand to Mr. Hodgkins as if he is going to put it on his back.
MEAN GENE OKERLUND
Mr. Hodgkins, I’ve got to ask you, just what exactly is it that you have against El Loco? You’ve come into his life and, without exaggeration, turned his world upside-down, casting a dark pall over it. Tell me, why him?
Mean Gene holds the microphone up to Mr. Hodgkins. Hodgkins stares back at the camera with an indifferent expression that Camus would have envied.
MR. HODGKINS
It’s like this, Okerlund. I have nothing personal against the man. We simply crossed paths—and it is my job to ensure that he suffer the consequences. It is nothing more than that. He’s the one who has taken it personally—the flawed, vengeful human that he is. I do not hold that against him. But nevertheless, my objective is to annihilate him. And I will.
Mr. Hodgkins stalks out of camera view. Okerlund watches him leave, then turns back to the camera after a long, dramatic pause.
MEAN GENE OKERLUND
And now let’s go to Sean Mooney who’s standing by with EL LOCO, Juan Alvarado Valdivia.
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM – NIGHT
SEAN MOONEY
All right, thanks Gene. El Loco is in rare form tonight. He’s been pacing this room ever since I got here.
While Mooney stands in front of the camera, Juan—in El Loco gear—paces behind him in front of a black curtain. He pumps his arms and gives an occasional menacing snarl to the camera. Earthy brown and green-colored tassels are tied around his wrists and bronzed biceps. A mask bearing the same colors has been painted on his face. He is wearing a wig—an oversized afro. A sharpened pencil is tangled in it. His arms, chest, and modest paunch are varnished in body oil. They glare beneath the studio lights. Besides the tassels, the only thing he wears are tasseled brown boots and a green Speedo.
SEAN MOONEY
El Loco—I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this amped up before a fight! And you’re always roaring, running full speed into the ring and yanking on those ropes as though a lightning bolt were coursing through your veins.
El Loco grabs Mooney by the collar.
EL LOCO
Well what can ya expect, Mooney. This is the fight of my life!
He shoves Mooney back, snarling at the camera.
EL LOCO
Of course I’m pumped up! This is it—this is fucking it for me or that punk, Mr. Hodgkins. Well no one gets to take my life except me!
Juan’s mouth drops. His brows furrow. He looks away, ashamed to have stumbled upon this truth before a live television broadcast.
He turns back to the camera, shaking his head violently as if he were trying to wake from a daze. Mooney leans his head back frightfully. He holds the microphone out to El Loco as he points at the camera.
EL LOCO
You fucked with the wrong man, Hodgkins. You fucked with the wrong man.
Juan turns his back to the camera. He cranes his head back and lifts his clenched fists up high. He roars, then punctuates it with a gorilla-like pounding of his chest.
EL LOCO
Just take a look at my trunks. It says it all, right there, baby.
Juan cackles. He pumps his arms. The camera zooms down to the green tights covering his butt. Mr. Hodgkins’ head, with his signature derby hat atop, is stitched on it. Below it reads: Your Ass is Mine!
El Loco cranes his head back to roar before he dashes out of the room.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Farewell, Rocinante
On an overcast Monday morning, a drab gray blanket hanging over Lake Merritt, I walked out of my apartment with a bicycle fender in hand. My shoulder bag was packed for a workout, my helmet strapped to it, clutched against my hip. It was gym time. But when I turned the corner to the bike racks at the back of the apartment complex, I did not see my bicycle in the spot where I locked it. With my mouth agape, I stood and stared at that bike lock where my bicycle should have been. It was not locked to the other two racks. Confused, I wandered back to my apartment. I had that familiar fuck, my-bicycle-has-been-stolen feeling. Gee, I guess I’m not going to my gym today. Back in my apartment, I thought back to when I last rode my bicycle, which I called Rocinante. For an instant or two, I got bouncy and thought, you dumbass! You left him locked up in one of the lockers at the Lake Merritt station. But then I remembered that I had gotten Rocinante out of the locker and secured him in my apartment complex on Friday night.
And that was the last time I saw him.
He was gone.
What a way to start the week.
Rocinante was a blue Bianchi Osprey mountain bike. He was equipped with an odometer, kickstand, bottle holder, and big plastic horn shaped into the head of a blue cartoon hippo (everyone loved that horn, loved giving it a squeeze to hear its silly squeak). When he was stolen, Rocinante had practically brand new hybrid tires since both tires were stolen two months before within the same Oakland apartment complex where he was ultimately taken.
In the winter of 2009, I bought Rocinante to replace a black-gray mountain bike named Charlene (she was stolen at the corner of 26th and Mission in San Francisco’s Mission District; she had a formidable, seven-pound, Mr. T-like chain that I sometimes swung around my head before I locked her up). From the get-go, I was fond of him because he was salvaged from the city’s dump by a man who worked there and fixed them up as a hobby (and as a means of making some extra scratch to give to his grandkids, if I remember correctly). Rocinante was the only bicycle I bequeathed with a boy’s name. When I first bought him, I named him “Blue,” for obvious reasons. Since my testicles ride on the seat over all those miles——and since I’m hetero——I have always given my bicycles a woman’s name, or one that can be both genders. He was my loyal steed for about three years. My primary means of transportation. Together, we surpassed a few landmarks on my odometer: 6,000, 7,000, and 8,000 miles pedaled.
Together, we had many memorable rides: the five-mile ride from the Lafayette station through the beautiful Moraga hillside as I cycled to and from Saint Mary’s for my graduate degree. The morning rides from my home on Dolores Street to USF’s Lone Mountain campus during the summer of 2009 for a weeklong writing workshop when my chemotherapy infusions began. I remember cycling up one of the steep hills to that campus, listening to Led Zeppelin’s “In the Light” through my headphones. With the sunlight pouring down on me, Plant singing Light, light, light…in the light, I closed my eyes. My eyelids were warm blankets of orange. I imagined myself grasping that sunlight, imagined it to be like water seeping into my roots, to my very core. I imagined myself become one with the sun’s light (which we are a mere extension of)——its warmth, its energy, healing and nourishing me as I pedaled on. I rode Blue to and from San Francisco General for all those blood tests, examinations, and check-ups with my oncologist. During a rainy January, Blue and I scaled the sharp hill on Dolores Street and zipped down it on our three-mile long rides to my radiation treatments at USF. In March, we rode over to San Francisco General where my oncologist told me I was cancer-free. We were together through a critical time of life. I am certain that riding him helped to keep me alive.
After I graduated and segued into post-cancer life, I read Don Quixote and redubbed Blue with the name of Quixote’s loyal horse. It made perfect sense. A good friend of mine agreed. I have always been a bit of a Quixote in this insane world we have created.
Last June, Rocinante came with me as I moved back across the bay to Oakland’s Lake Merritt area. It was a time of rebirth. A spring during summertime as I continued on with my life away from the city where my body developed and rid itself of cancer. I fell in love with Oakland when Rocinante and I rode around Lake Merritt one sunny afternoon, the kind that was all too rare in San Francisco. It filled me with a sense of serenity that I needed.
Before long, I met and fell in love with my girlfriend, Maria. Together, we rode our bicycles around the Quarry Lakes in northern Fremont, which happens to be our hometown. It was a joyous, sunshiny ride. It had been years since I had a partner to cycle with, which made it extra-wonderful for me. I am so grateful that my one bicycle ride around those lakes——a ride I had wanted to do for years——was with Maria and Rocinante.
I had a number of rides I hoped to have with Rocinante. I wanted to return to the Lamorinda Trails to cycle through their nature trails that I have always missed. My homeboy, Scott expressed an interest in mountain biking through the lush wooded trails at Joaquin Miller Park in Oaktown. I looked forward to more bicycle rides with my favorite Maria in the whole wide world. And I never tired of riding Rocinante around Lake Merritt, whether if it was gray and drizzly, warm and bright, or alit at night with its necklace of lights that have shone since 1925.
Like any good bicycle, Rocinante was an extension of myself. Now that he’s been stolen, I don’t want to think of him being taken apart, piece by piece. Whoever has his frame, his handlebar, cannot imagine or understand what we went through together. All those hills we surpassed, all that sweat I expended, all those miles we traveled. They cannot imagine all the beauty we saw, felt, and created together——foot to pedal, hands to handlebar; my legs pumping, his chain turning to propel us forward. There was so much I wanted to see and feel with him. So much we had left (or so I would like to believe, but nothing in life is certain except for death and impermanence). I have had no choice but to move on without my dear companion but I will carry those memories we made together.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
The Shittiest Part of Being a Young Cancer Survivor
As far as I am concerned, the shittiest part of being a young lymphoma survivor is having to deal with the fear of getting cancer again. Or something nastier (like leukemia). Maybe I have become more of a worrywart than other survivors, but I have found that I am capable of freaking out whenever anything peculiar happens on my body. Unfortunately, I am adept at turning anything——a faint burning pain by my stomach (after a strenuous workout), or an unfamiliar rash growth——into the possible symptoms of some form of cancer. My recent vacation to visit my family in Arequipa is a prime example.
On the second or third full day I was in Peru, a few pimple-sized rashes began to sprout on my body: over my right clavicle, on my chest, and one by my right elbow (which I like to call “bebow”). As the days came and passed, more of these rashes surfaced. A few were the size of a fingertip. This had never ever happened before. They looked like pimples or hives you get from an allergy. Problem with that is that I have never been allergic to anything. And why did these rashes start up almost immediately after I set foot in Peru?
Once my mind began to produce cancer whispers (it could be skin cancer, it could be skin cancer), that fact was the strongest piece of evidence I had that the rashes were not symptomatic of, say, melanoma. If it was, why would my bodily vessel suddenly break out with them once I came to Peru? There had to be some cause to that rapid effect.
And that, in part, shows one way in which I have changed since I overcame cancer. I have had to become a lawyer of sorts, forced to periodically talk myself out of worrying about any strange thing that happens to my body. I have to consider any evidence, any symptoms, to reason myself out of believing that something bad——graveyard-bad——may be manifesting within my body. Nevertheless, about a week after I arrived to Arequipa, I lay in bed until about five in the morning, my nerve-wrecked mind racing at the possibility that I might have skin cancer. A few days before that sleepless night, I had gone online to attempt to figure out what those hive-like rashes were and what their cause could be. While I searched, typing in search terms such as “allergic reaction and high altitude” and “red bumps on skin,” I could not stop myself from looking up melanoma symptoms on Wikipedia. The article mentioned “basal cell carcinoma,” that it was the most common form of skin cancer. So I looked up images of it. (Bad idea.) Some of them looked like the rashes sprouting over the upper torso of my body. This made my stomach turn.
After that long night of little sleep, I decided to go to a pharmacy down the street from my uncle’s apartment. In Peru, there are pharmacies everywhere. In the past——since I always get a nasty stomach ailment when I’m in Peru——I have gone to a pharmacist instead of a doctor to get antibiotics. But walking down the street that night was an act I had to will myself into. I was scared. Afraid that the pharmacist might tell me, once she saw all the rashes on my arms, chest, and stomach, “Ooh, that looks bad. That might not be an allergic reaction. You should see a doctor.” But I went because I wanted some peace of mind. I needed it. I just wanted her to tell me that it looked like an allergic reaction, that it was not symptomatic of skin cancer.
Two weeks later, I visited a clinic once I was back in the good ole’ U S of A. And it turns out I somehow contracted an upper respiratory viral infection called pityriasis rosea (the medical community is unsure how the virus is contracted). The diagnosis made sense since I already knew it wasn’t contagious. The online images the nurse practitioner showed me looked exactly like the kind I had. And once I was on American soil, away from all that nasty vehicular exhaust in Arequipa, my rashes stopped spreading like I had hoped and hoped they would.
Cancer survivors——I would argue more than regular joes——have to strike a precarious balance between freaking-the-fuck-out and being carelessly lackadaisical when strange physical symptoms manifest from our bodies. We have to be vigilant over our bodies for the rest of our lives. On a prior occasion that we will never ever forget, our bodies viscerally and terrifyingly demonstrated to us that they are capable of going haywire for inexplicable reasons. Our bodies are capable of developing a mortal glitch. Finding the right balance has been hard for me since I am still somewhat new to this whole cancer-survivorship deal. And it can really fucking suck sometimes because anyone else who has never had cancer can’t really understand how understandably and rightly worried we can get about such matters.
From this pityriasis rosea episode, I have hopefully learned two things:
1) When you have a health worry, don’t ask a man for advice on what you should do. Most men will say, “Oh, it’s nothing!” then proceed to name off harmless possible explanations that you have already ruled out or make no sense (such as that the hive-like rashes are, in reality, mosquito bites).
2) Don’t cross a perilous bridge that you might not have to.
By this I mean that you shouldn’t assume the very worst from the onset. In retrospect, I should not have looked up all those skin cancer symptoms and pictures and descriptions when I had no idea what might have been the cause of my rashes. I knew this at the time but didn’t stop myself. Consequently, I ended up worrying more than I had to. Not to say that you shouldn’t worry about such matters. As cancer survivors, we kind of have to worry if we love being alive, if we want to honor the fact that we are still amongst the living (and like Private Joker said in Full Metal Jacket, “The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.”) But I considered that skin cancer possibility more than I should have. And that was awfully stoopid of me.
But like any of the invisible baggage we all carry, dealing with the post-specter of cancer is tough at times. Like a lighthouse, like a beacon of safety (if I were, say, a ship out at sea), I look forward to a possible day, a little over three years from today, when I will be cancer-free for five years. Until then, I will assuredly have some other potential health freak-outs to navigate.
On the second or third full day I was in Peru, a few pimple-sized rashes began to sprout on my body: over my right clavicle, on my chest, and one by my right elbow (which I like to call “bebow”). As the days came and passed, more of these rashes surfaced. A few were the size of a fingertip. This had never ever happened before. They looked like pimples or hives you get from an allergy. Problem with that is that I have never been allergic to anything. And why did these rashes start up almost immediately after I set foot in Peru?
Once my mind began to produce cancer whispers (it could be skin cancer, it could be skin cancer), that fact was the strongest piece of evidence I had that the rashes were not symptomatic of, say, melanoma. If it was, why would my bodily vessel suddenly break out with them once I came to Peru? There had to be some cause to that rapid effect.
And that, in part, shows one way in which I have changed since I overcame cancer. I have had to become a lawyer of sorts, forced to periodically talk myself out of worrying about any strange thing that happens to my body. I have to consider any evidence, any symptoms, to reason myself out of believing that something bad——graveyard-bad——may be manifesting within my body. Nevertheless, about a week after I arrived to Arequipa, I lay in bed until about five in the morning, my nerve-wrecked mind racing at the possibility that I might have skin cancer. A few days before that sleepless night, I had gone online to attempt to figure out what those hive-like rashes were and what their cause could be. While I searched, typing in search terms such as “allergic reaction and high altitude” and “red bumps on skin,” I could not stop myself from looking up melanoma symptoms on Wikipedia. The article mentioned “basal cell carcinoma,” that it was the most common form of skin cancer. So I looked up images of it. (Bad idea.) Some of them looked like the rashes sprouting over the upper torso of my body. This made my stomach turn.
After that long night of little sleep, I decided to go to a pharmacy down the street from my uncle’s apartment. In Peru, there are pharmacies everywhere. In the past——since I always get a nasty stomach ailment when I’m in Peru——I have gone to a pharmacist instead of a doctor to get antibiotics. But walking down the street that night was an act I had to will myself into. I was scared. Afraid that the pharmacist might tell me, once she saw all the rashes on my arms, chest, and stomach, “Ooh, that looks bad. That might not be an allergic reaction. You should see a doctor.” But I went because I wanted some peace of mind. I needed it. I just wanted her to tell me that it looked like an allergic reaction, that it was not symptomatic of skin cancer.
Two weeks later, I visited a clinic once I was back in the good ole’ U S of A. And it turns out I somehow contracted an upper respiratory viral infection called pityriasis rosea (the medical community is unsure how the virus is contracted). The diagnosis made sense since I already knew it wasn’t contagious. The online images the nurse practitioner showed me looked exactly like the kind I had. And once I was on American soil, away from all that nasty vehicular exhaust in Arequipa, my rashes stopped spreading like I had hoped and hoped they would.
Cancer survivors——I would argue more than regular joes——have to strike a precarious balance between freaking-the-fuck-out and being carelessly lackadaisical when strange physical symptoms manifest from our bodies. We have to be vigilant over our bodies for the rest of our lives. On a prior occasion that we will never ever forget, our bodies viscerally and terrifyingly demonstrated to us that they are capable of going haywire for inexplicable reasons. Our bodies are capable of developing a mortal glitch. Finding the right balance has been hard for me since I am still somewhat new to this whole cancer-survivorship deal. And it can really fucking suck sometimes because anyone else who has never had cancer can’t really understand how understandably and rightly worried we can get about such matters.
From this pityriasis rosea episode, I have hopefully learned two things:
1) When you have a health worry, don’t ask a man for advice on what you should do. Most men will say, “Oh, it’s nothing!” then proceed to name off harmless possible explanations that you have already ruled out or make no sense (such as that the hive-like rashes are, in reality, mosquito bites).
2) Don’t cross a perilous bridge that you might not have to.
By this I mean that you shouldn’t assume the very worst from the onset. In retrospect, I should not have looked up all those skin cancer symptoms and pictures and descriptions when I had no idea what might have been the cause of my rashes. I knew this at the time but didn’t stop myself. Consequently, I ended up worrying more than I had to. Not to say that you shouldn’t worry about such matters. As cancer survivors, we kind of have to worry if we love being alive, if we want to honor the fact that we are still amongst the living (and like Private Joker said in Full Metal Jacket, “The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.”) But I considered that skin cancer possibility more than I should have. And that was awfully stoopid of me.
But like any of the invisible baggage we all carry, dealing with the post-specter of cancer is tough at times. Like a lighthouse, like a beacon of safety (if I were, say, a ship out at sea), I look forward to a possible day, a little over three years from today, when I will be cancer-free for five years. Until then, I will assuredly have some other potential health freak-outs to navigate.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Why (The Inevitable Why)?
Here's an excerpt from my memoir, a piece I read at last year's Litcrawl:
Hodgkin’s.
Cancer.
Me?
At age 30?
After I was diagnosed, these questions inevitably plagued my mind:
Why?
How could this happen?
Hodgkin lymphoma was first described in 1832. One-hundred and seventy-nine years later, the medical field still has little idea what causes this blood cancer. Though it was comforting to know what was wrong with me after all those “non-diagnostic” biopsies, it has always been unsettling in not knowing how it happened—what caused it, so that I know what I should change in my life. Like eat more organic food. Sleep better on a consistent basis. Stop drinking alcohol altogether. Or move out of an urban center.
Though the medical community doesn’t know what causes lymphoma, this didn’t deter me from spawning a slew of theories. Could my disease have originated from the cosmetic Teflon plate that was fused with my chest plate when I was fourteen? Could the electromagnetic radiation emitted from my cell phone somehow have reacted with it in order to create a toxic environment within my chest? Was it from the marijuana I smoked the past few years? From the cigarettes I puffed on occasion? Was my body simply too sensitive to such toxins? Or did my cells go haywire from the Nalgene plastic bottle I had for years, the one that had these strange white flecks floating in the water—the same bottle the company pulled off the shelves in 2008 because of fears that BPA—a chemical used to produce them—caused cancer and increased the risks of other serious health problems? Or was it from all the car exhaust I had inhaled while cycling in the city the prior five years? From sniffing all those dry-erase markers at the workplace—something I did to make my co-workers laugh? Or was it all those years of chewing my fingernails, even my toenails? Did someone put a curse on me!?
How did this happen?
Or was my mother right—that my disease was a “test from God,” an opportunity to look up to the sky and acknowledge that He exists? This is what she thought cancer must mean—that it was some sort of divine intervention and unspoken communication in the form of a killer disease to awaken a wayward being like me. As if God’s mighty hand, his all-powerful index finger extended through the clouds and pointed down at me. ZAP! You petty mortal! You who doubt my existence! You shall have lymphoma, a rare form of cancer! Could there actually be such a sick god—male, female, hermaphrodite, or whatever—that is so greedy, so in need of my miniscule attention and belief? Am I “wrong” in my atheistic belief, as my mother said. Part of the losing team? And if there is such an insecure, spiteful God, why would I possibly want to be any part of It?
Or might my disease be a masterful concoction of my own, born of my self-destructive spirit, the “suicide impulse”—as my girlfriend at the time had called it——that she recognized early in our relationship? During the time my cells must have first mutated into cancerous ones——months before the first swollen lymph node popped up—I was getting fucked-up, I-don’t-remember-how-I-got-home drunk once or twice a week. Sometimes thrice. The troubling part is that I often bicycled to the bars, which meant my rides back home were redacted with a thick fog of memory. These were bicycle rides from the outskirts of downtown, two miles and numerous intersections from my home in the Mission. One night I rode out from North Beach, beneath the towering buildings in the Financial District, down windy Market Street, taking Valencia Street through the Mission; it was a four-mile ride in which I didn’t remember one thing when I awoke in my bed the next morning, parched and befuddled.
Throughout my young adult life, there have been times—however fleetingly—when I haven’t cared about living (which, as writer Asha Bandele pointed out in The Prisoner’s Wife, is different from wanting to die). Moments when all the destruction and suffering I read about, see, and feel from this world is too much. Moments when I have seen little point in continuing to be a part of this evolution, which feels more like a mass extinction.
Could my disease have bloomed from that bleak abyss?
Was the rest of my body too weak to fend off this act?
* * * * * * *
I still remember a shower I took a few days after I was diagnosed. Pale morning sunlight streamed through the window while I stepped into the clawfoot tub. When the warm water hit my bare chest, I coiled in slight pain. There were three red scratches, about an inch and a half long, running down my chest. I furrowed my brows while I studied them. While the shower fogged up from the hot water, the pale sunlight felt suffused with eerieness.
For a matter of seconds, I seriously considered if some form of demon had visited me in my sleep to leave those claw marks. Maybe I had gotten cancer because someone had laid a curse on me? After I shifted my index, middle, and ring fingers into a rake to press onto the irritating claw marks, I told myself, no, I had evidently dreamt that my disease, which I had personified as Mr. Hodgkins (a well-dressed business-type in his mid fifties with a white button-down shirt, vest, pressed black suit and a derby hat; like a Blues Brother, but mean), was perched behind my chest plate. I could feel some tightness, some discomfort there, and I had simply tried to claw him out in my sleep. There are no such things as demons! And who would put a curse on me?
But when I stepped out of the shower to finish drying off, I felt a flash of panic when I looked over at the fogged-up mirror, my smudgy reflection, and thought it might reflect a dark figure walking toward me through the fog.
Hodgkin’s.
Cancer.
Me?
At age 30?
After I was diagnosed, these questions inevitably plagued my mind:
Why?
How could this happen?
Hodgkin lymphoma was first described in 1832. One-hundred and seventy-nine years later, the medical field still has little idea what causes this blood cancer. Though it was comforting to know what was wrong with me after all those “non-diagnostic” biopsies, it has always been unsettling in not knowing how it happened—what caused it, so that I know what I should change in my life. Like eat more organic food. Sleep better on a consistent basis. Stop drinking alcohol altogether. Or move out of an urban center.
Though the medical community doesn’t know what causes lymphoma, this didn’t deter me from spawning a slew of theories. Could my disease have originated from the cosmetic Teflon plate that was fused with my chest plate when I was fourteen? Could the electromagnetic radiation emitted from my cell phone somehow have reacted with it in order to create a toxic environment within my chest? Was it from the marijuana I smoked the past few years? From the cigarettes I puffed on occasion? Was my body simply too sensitive to such toxins? Or did my cells go haywire from the Nalgene plastic bottle I had for years, the one that had these strange white flecks floating in the water—the same bottle the company pulled off the shelves in 2008 because of fears that BPA—a chemical used to produce them—caused cancer and increased the risks of other serious health problems? Or was it from all the car exhaust I had inhaled while cycling in the city the prior five years? From sniffing all those dry-erase markers at the workplace—something I did to make my co-workers laugh? Or was it all those years of chewing my fingernails, even my toenails? Did someone put a curse on me!?
How did this happen?
Or was my mother right—that my disease was a “test from God,” an opportunity to look up to the sky and acknowledge that He exists? This is what she thought cancer must mean—that it was some sort of divine intervention and unspoken communication in the form of a killer disease to awaken a wayward being like me. As if God’s mighty hand, his all-powerful index finger extended through the clouds and pointed down at me. ZAP! You petty mortal! You who doubt my existence! You shall have lymphoma, a rare form of cancer! Could there actually be such a sick god—male, female, hermaphrodite, or whatever—that is so greedy, so in need of my miniscule attention and belief? Am I “wrong” in my atheistic belief, as my mother said. Part of the losing team? And if there is such an insecure, spiteful God, why would I possibly want to be any part of It?
Or might my disease be a masterful concoction of my own, born of my self-destructive spirit, the “suicide impulse”—as my girlfriend at the time had called it——that she recognized early in our relationship? During the time my cells must have first mutated into cancerous ones——months before the first swollen lymph node popped up—I was getting fucked-up, I-don’t-remember-how-I-got-home drunk once or twice a week. Sometimes thrice. The troubling part is that I often bicycled to the bars, which meant my rides back home were redacted with a thick fog of memory. These were bicycle rides from the outskirts of downtown, two miles and numerous intersections from my home in the Mission. One night I rode out from North Beach, beneath the towering buildings in the Financial District, down windy Market Street, taking Valencia Street through the Mission; it was a four-mile ride in which I didn’t remember one thing when I awoke in my bed the next morning, parched and befuddled.
Throughout my young adult life, there have been times—however fleetingly—when I haven’t cared about living (which, as writer Asha Bandele pointed out in The Prisoner’s Wife, is different from wanting to die). Moments when all the destruction and suffering I read about, see, and feel from this world is too much. Moments when I have seen little point in continuing to be a part of this evolution, which feels more like a mass extinction.
Could my disease have bloomed from that bleak abyss?
Was the rest of my body too weak to fend off this act?
* * * * * * *
I still remember a shower I took a few days after I was diagnosed. Pale morning sunlight streamed through the window while I stepped into the clawfoot tub. When the warm water hit my bare chest, I coiled in slight pain. There were three red scratches, about an inch and a half long, running down my chest. I furrowed my brows while I studied them. While the shower fogged up from the hot water, the pale sunlight felt suffused with eerieness.
For a matter of seconds, I seriously considered if some form of demon had visited me in my sleep to leave those claw marks. Maybe I had gotten cancer because someone had laid a curse on me? After I shifted my index, middle, and ring fingers into a rake to press onto the irritating claw marks, I told myself, no, I had evidently dreamt that my disease, which I had personified as Mr. Hodgkins (a well-dressed business-type in his mid fifties with a white button-down shirt, vest, pressed black suit and a derby hat; like a Blues Brother, but mean), was perched behind my chest plate. I could feel some tightness, some discomfort there, and I had simply tried to claw him out in my sleep. There are no such things as demons! And who would put a curse on me?
But when I stepped out of the shower to finish drying off, I felt a flash of panic when I looked over at the fogged-up mirror, my smudgy reflection, and thought it might reflect a dark figure walking toward me through the fog.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Little by Little
This past Tuesday night was an unusual one for me. After a brief night out with my friend, Jonny and his boyfriend (Jonny is a fellow cancer survivor) I came home, played some Mario Kart and read an essay from The Sun magazine before turning in. I had no trouble falling asleep even though I had a regular check-up with my oncologist the following morning.
In the past year and a half since I have been cancer-free (like, normal!), these appointments have been a source of minor to moderate anxiety. Especially the night before my visit. Though my body recovered well from my Time With Lymphoma, no telltale-swollen lymph nodes on my earthly vessel, I can’t help but consider that there might be something wrong the night before my check-up. Maybe my oncologist will tell me that something looked awry with my blood tests? Or that something unusual popped up on the chest x-ray or PET scans they have done to monitor my body? Because of these worrisome thoughts, I have often had trouble falling asleep on the night before these appointments. That’s why it’s slightly momentous to me that I slept peaceably this past Tuesday. A moment I can point toward to know that Life Without Cancer is getting easier.
A year ago, I contacted a fellow young Hodgkin lymphoma survivor through The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s First Connection Program. His name is Mike. When I first contacted him, he had been lymphoma-free for three years. I was struggling with cancer survivorship at the time. I was freaking out about this tightness I felt in my chest in the area where my cancerous tumor used to be. I had grossly underestimated how difficult survivorship would be while I underwent my treatments. One of the things he told me during our long conversation that resonated with me was that survivorship would get easier with time. Though I didn’t have the personal experience to comprehend that then, I knew what he said would reveal itself to be true in time.
And it has.
Little by little.
I was smiley when I stepped out of Ward 86 after my check-up. Before I descended its front steps, I looked out over the Mission District, the Sutro Tower off in the distance. The city was aglow beneath the afternoon sun. If I had the grace, balance, and moxie, I could have performed a ditty of a dance on those steps before I walked over to my bicycle (think musical or Jeff Bridge’s dance number in The Big Lebowski). Months ago, it would have been an unfathomable notion, but I had arrived at a point where I kind of looked forward to these visits (minus all the time in the waiting room). I love receiving good news about my health. Delight from that reminder that I am alive and well.
In the past year and a half since I have been cancer-free (like, normal!), these appointments have been a source of minor to moderate anxiety. Especially the night before my visit. Though my body recovered well from my Time With Lymphoma, no telltale-swollen lymph nodes on my earthly vessel, I can’t help but consider that there might be something wrong the night before my check-up. Maybe my oncologist will tell me that something looked awry with my blood tests? Or that something unusual popped up on the chest x-ray or PET scans they have done to monitor my body? Because of these worrisome thoughts, I have often had trouble falling asleep on the night before these appointments. That’s why it’s slightly momentous to me that I slept peaceably this past Tuesday. A moment I can point toward to know that Life Without Cancer is getting easier.
A year ago, I contacted a fellow young Hodgkin lymphoma survivor through The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s First Connection Program. His name is Mike. When I first contacted him, he had been lymphoma-free for three years. I was struggling with cancer survivorship at the time. I was freaking out about this tightness I felt in my chest in the area where my cancerous tumor used to be. I had grossly underestimated how difficult survivorship would be while I underwent my treatments. One of the things he told me during our long conversation that resonated with me was that survivorship would get easier with time. Though I didn’t have the personal experience to comprehend that then, I knew what he said would reveal itself to be true in time.
And it has.
Little by little.
I was smiley when I stepped out of Ward 86 after my check-up. Before I descended its front steps, I looked out over the Mission District, the Sutro Tower off in the distance. The city was aglow beneath the afternoon sun. If I had the grace, balance, and moxie, I could have performed a ditty of a dance on those steps before I walked over to my bicycle (think musical or Jeff Bridge’s dance number in The Big Lebowski). Months ago, it would have been an unfathomable notion, but I had arrived at a point where I kind of looked forward to these visits (minus all the time in the waiting room). I love receiving good news about my health. Delight from that reminder that I am alive and well.
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