Writing Through Cancer

“Cancer  Our Words” features writing from the members of my Stanford Cancer Center writing group (Stanford Medical Center, Palo Alto, CA).  Each writer has given his or her permission for the work that appears on this site.  All rights revert to the authors.  New selections are posted periodically.

The Stanford Cancer Supportive Care Program at the Stanford Cancer Center, Palo Alto, CA, has offered “Writing Through Cancer” workshops since 2005.  We meet year round, on the first Wednesday of each month, from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m.  The workshops are open to any man or woman recently diagnosed with cancer as well as primary caretakers of a cancer patient.  If you are in the area, please join us at any of our monthly meetings.  (Sharon’s workshops are also held in the San Diego area at Scripps Green Cancer Center, La Jolla).

To learn more about the writing program at Stanford Cancer Center, contact Holly Gautier, hgautier@stanfordmed.org or http://cancer.stanfordhospital.com/forPatients/services/supportiveCareServices/actWordsThatHeal.

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DISASSEMBLED BY CANCER

By Elizabeth Lacasia

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Okay, so the Oncologist tells me I have lung cancer. POW!! …out comes the lower left lobe of my lung.  The Thoracic Surgeon says “you’re young and strong, you won’t even miss it.”   Two years later, SNICK!! …another portion of my lung disappears as a wedge resection reveals the cancer has spread throughout my lungs.  Then I’m told chemotherapy is my only option for waging this battle. BLAM!! …menopause and all of its insults descend upon my beleaguered body as chemotherapy takes its first bite. ZZZZTT!! …my nerves are sizzled as chemotherapy also deadens my sense of touch and replaces it with a low level of burning pain with its second bite.

Hey, wait a minute, I thought I was “Batgirl” poised to take on and vanquish the evil doer “Cancer” attacking my innocent but invincible body? Now I walk the path of life adorned in my handy utility belt replete with duct tape, stick pins at the ready to retrieve and salvage whatever else might fall off.

I realize the weapon I have been handed is a double edged sword; poisoning the cancer is also poisoning my cherished home. Recently I feel I am more like Monty Python’s “Knight of Nee” ineptly defending the crossroads and decrying after each limb is severed “it’s merely a flesh wound, come back here and fight.”

I hear a CLUNK!!… glance behind me, “hey, I need that,” turn aside, carefully pick up another part of myself and lovingly duct tape it back into place. I put off for another day deciding whether the “cure” is worse than the disease. I slide my sword back into its scabbard and continue down the path savoring each moment of my existence.

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CANCER

by Diane Copeland

Damn you!

Get thee behind me!

Take that grin off your face!

Repent!

Die!

Go to Hell!

Nobody

Nobody

Nobody wants you!

Take the hint

Fly away

Do not smirk

Go

We will cheer you on

As you leave this world

Nobody will miss you…

Well, maybe the drug companies

Well, maybe the radiation equipment manufacturers

Well, maybe the physicians, but maybe not

But they will recover

Goodbye!

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AFTER CANCER                                                                

 By Ali Zidel Meyers

Finally, you say, life can get back to normal.

I raise my brows.

You know, uncomplicated.

The way it used to be.

 

There is no normal now, I say.

You glare back

without saying, but saying

Jesus Christ; here we go.

I can’t blame you

for wanting cancer over–

to sweep away

the ragged days

of watching me drag

from car to clinic

tubes flopping from my skin

like siphoned irrigation hoses.

You are done bearing

the visitors’ catch phrases–

you’ll get through

you two

so strong

if anyone can handle

this, it’s you.

 

Possibly most of all

you’re done seeing me

thin and frail,

a gray shadow of the woman

I was before.

What’s next? I ask myself.

For me and us

and this life? Maybe

a broad load of long tomorrows piled to the sky,

or perhaps

the next to last

layer on a stack

of brittle leaves.

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FEAR

By Nancy Tune

I am afraid my cancer will come back. I am afraid I will not be ready for it, that I will not behave gracefully as I die. That is not exactly right. I am afraid I will behave disgracefully as I die, especially if there is a lot of pain. There are cancer patients about whom people say, “She had a lot more pain than she let on.” I am afraid they will say about me, “She just didn’t deal with pain well. Not nearly as well as —— did.”

I am afraid my husband, whose advanced Parkinson’s has robbed him of his physical and mental well-being, will die. I am afraid my husband will not die, that we’ll go on like this forever, cobbling together our days and nights into a bearable routine, sometimes stumbling and failing and finding that we cannot bear it after all. I am afraid of realizing, over and over, that there is no alternative but to act as if we can bear it.

I am afraid I will never write again, or that I will write and write and never produce anything worthwhile. I am afraid I won’t have the energy to rewrite and rethink and make decisions about what I have already written. I am afraid other people will think that what I write is silly. I am more afraid, though, that when I am done, I will think that what I write is silly.

I used to be afraid that the plane would crash. Now that seems odd. What is a plane crash but freedom from the real fears? For me, it turns out, it’s not dying that scares me; it’s what happens as you run out of time.

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THE WORST ADVICE EVER GIVEN TO ME

By T.V.

My surgeons suggested I eat hamburgers, hotdogs and ice cream to gain weight
after chemo. I protested “That’s what caused cancer in the first place!”
They just chuckled. No wonder more than half a million Americans die from
this disease every year! Alternative medicine forbids meat, dairy and sugar.
Meat is a source of free iron while conventional dairy contains
growth hormones — both of which fuel tumor growth. Sugar (especially high
fructose corn syrup) is strictly forbidden because cancer cells use it
during fermentation. Before diagnosis, I craved donuts — this was not a coincidence.
Doctors are very smart but most of them aren’t exactly specimens of good health so I always take their advice with a grain of salt. I’m 100% responsible for my own health.

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WHAT YOU REALIZE WHEN CANCER COMES

By C.A. Emerich

Pain can be borne, and when it can no longer be borne,

it can be medicated. The mind can see through

pain and medication. You know now that time is swift,

and you wonder, How will the world be without me?

You know there are places you must explore,

inner voices you put aside for later,

mysterious spaces you set aside when your life

teemed with busyness, when attention was

easily deflected. Lying in a quiet room, flattened,

depleted in body, mind wanders to once forbidden

corners of memory: How dust motes

danced in a shaft of sunlight over white sheets that

so recently had made a tent of love. The moment he

awoke beside you, blue eyes blinking languidly,

looking so tender that you glimpsed the gentle

boy he had once been. You remember you wrote a poem

about it and bound it in a tiny, ribbon-tied book,

a gift to him for Valentine’s Day. You remember

he is gone, and you accept that someday, maybe soon,

you will be gone, too. You wonder if someone will

remember, will see in his, or her, darkness your face,

your eyes, and take delight in that moment.

You are aware of the sky, painfully bright,

vaster than the sea and more mysterious,

though you can see only a scrap of it through the slip of

window the half-drawn drapes expose. You realize this

may be all of the sky you ever touch, and

watching birds gather at the feeder in their muted colors

may be all the flight you ever know.

You judge things by the day now, by the hour,

sometimes by the minute. For the moment,

there is not much pain. For the moment,

you feel peaceful. You take the moment,

smell the silence, taste the colors,

savor birds and sky as you have never done before.

Familiarity is sanctuary, but every day is new.

Here is where you go after breathing in disinfectant,

lying on cold metal tables, feeling needles pierce your flesh.

Here. Home. Inside, where you can keep sun flecks,

birdsongs, and flight inside you,

inside looking out, outside, flowing in.

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THE STORY OF MY LIFE AFTER CANCER

By Diane Copeland

Four years ago I began to have stomach pains. Before then I was fit as a fiddle. I ate only organic produce. Fish had to be wild. Poultry had to gad about. I rarely ate beef. I worked out almost every day at a gym. I did not think that anything serious was happening health-wise, nor did my doctor. But my stomach pains became worse and I started to have other symptoms such as night sweats and leg swelling. Then it was time for tests. Not good. The CT scan revealed lymphoma. An ugly story of medical hits and misses ensued.

I ended up in the emergency room at the hospital in critical condition with a hemorrhaging lymphoma tumor in my abdominal cavity. The attending physician told me that I was going to die. She had my friend call both daughters to come “say goodbye” to their mother. Meg was in grad school on the East Coast. Kate lives in Australia, not an easy trip. They both made it somehow. I was in terrible shape to say the least. Then the treatment started. The treatment had many side effects, lingering-effects, and late-arriving permanent ones, but I was saved. Why I continued with cancer treatments for 2 years is a “too-bad-about-that” story.

I was being treated for cancer for a while when what I had was a  fungal infection following my bone marrow transplant. I had major back surgery because my spine was deteriorating. At that time the surgeon extracted some of the “cancer” that the labs determined was actually “fungus.” The back surgery failed and I had a major reconstruction of my spine in July 2009.

I am still recovering from chemotherapy, other medication, radiation and cyber-knife radiation. I fatigue easily. I have neuropathy in my feet. When I “catch” something I suffered longer and more seriously than my peers. But I am alive!  The doctors did not expect that I would be 4 years ago.

My daughters are wonderful. I treasure their love and care. My younger daughter lives with me. I know that she would prefer to worry less about her mother, but that is the hand she was dealt. My older daughter still lives in Australia. I talk with her often. I know how much she cares about my health and about me. I wonder if I would know how blessed I am to have two wonderful daughters had it not been for cancer?

My friends have been incredibly supportive during my treatment and still are. I show them that I care by communicating with them, treating them to lunches and giving them small gifts. Would I have done this if I had not been sick?

I try to show caring whenever I have an opportunity. I might call someone who has a newly diagnosed cancer to talk with them. I send honest, thoughtful notes to people who have learned that they have cancer. I may not have done this before my cancer.

My goal is to appreciate each day and every person who touches my life. Maybe I am not ready to say “thank you cancer,” but I am grateful for my new more compassionate state. I remember Plato’s advice: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” I am not alone in this fight.

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KINDNESS

By Kalpana Shyam

Kindness to a sick person is like a lifeline.  When someone reaches out to me to talk, to listen, to take a meal, to provide rides, to give comfortable clothes, or any other numerous forms of support, I immediately feel some of the burden lightening.  Very soon, when several people reach out, the embrace of the community buoys me along my journey to recovery.  I no longer feel alone in my sickness and that very knowledge boosts my confidence, urging me to take the path of positive thoughts and actions so I can also help myself to heal and become strong.

Quite often, people don’t know how to offer support to a sick person.  They do not realize that just calling them and telling them exactly that, “I am sorry to hear…, I would like to help very much but I just cannot think how to help.  Please tell me how you are managing…” will unfold many situations from the sick friend’s perspective that are apt opportunities for helping.  It doesn’t have to be material help, or help requiring a lot of time, some times, the help can be in the form of advice or information based on past experiences, or in the form of kind words.  One day I was horribly late for my appointment, but the receptionist simply smiled and said “No worries, we will take care of you” in a genuinely understanding tone.  Those kind words lifted the immense tension, guilt, worry and every negative emotion possible under the circumstances and my heart came back to a normal rhythm.   I am forever grateful to him.

While being kind gives a good feeling, receiving kindness also evokes kindness towards others even less fortunate.  The circle of kindness continues, forming another kind of embrace in the community in the form of a chain.  When I first learned about my cancer, one of my very first emotions was that my most important values, “always be in a position to give rather than to receive,” was shattered in an instant, even though I had done nothing wrong.  I felt that I would only be on the receiving end forever.  Now that it has been a few months, I am realizing that there are many ways for me to give because I am still fortunate in many ways.  There is much to be thankful for and much that I can do to help and uphold my value of giving.  The difference is that now I am giving with much humility, knowing that I myself am the recipient of many lifelines.

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ABOUT DR. G.

By Ann Emerson

He goes out of his way every time to ask how

I’m doing.  He is the tree whispering through

the cracked hospital window, the shiver of white

narcissus, the breeze lifting the skirt of the nurse

opening my door. He is the song in my head that

doesn’t stop at night, the way curious medicine

wanders my blood–I no longer go out of my way to

picture the mound of earth dug just my size.

Sometimes someone touches your hand in an

unexpected room and you close your eyes

like the lid of a music box that’s been wanting

quiet for years.  When I start to die, this is

how it will be:  no terrible music, no one taking

my place, his footsteps in silence carrying on.

For Jason Gotlib, Stanford

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“If you don’t look back, the future never happens.”

If you don’t wake up to a second (or third) chance you will never do what you’re born to do–paint the picture with that set of paints you bought but didn’t open–sew the fabrics for the gifts you wanted to make–bind the books described in all the books you collected.

For me the wakeup call sent me back to the art store to buy two bottles of fabric paint–turquoise gold and violet- gold. Just looking at the bottles and shaking them a little let the gold flakes sparkle.

I took out my books of fabric painting: fantastic cats, cats with gold dots and even sea horses. Laurel Burch,
he artist who painted all these animals, died of a crippling disease, but she left wonderful books showing
others how to paint on fabric.

What am I waiting for? permission? Permission to let the paints flow and mix, to make rivers of color and skies
full of birds.

Take out the glitter–silver and gold–take out the unused brushes and go see what happens when
you dip them in color and just go.

Feel the papers again–the rice papers, the origami papers, the tisues, the leaf
papers Just do whatever seems beautiful and deep.

Sit down at the piano and feel the hands of Scarlatti and Mendelssohn in your hands. Let the melodies flow like
paint. What have you go to lose?

Today is all you have for now, for love, for making things, for all you’ve let get locked up by a cancer diagnosis.

Break through the ice–do it and don’t look back or forward. We make our own prisons, don’t we….

Just open the door and GO!

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