Cancer: In Our Words Writing from the Stanford Cancer Center
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. Join us at any of our monthly meetings.
Lev works fast. His little body emits electricity that charges the room. Being five is a tumble of questions, Spiderman pajamas, and frenetic energy that rarely stops. I watch as he orchestrates care for a stuffed pink piggy on the couch. Lyla looks serious, even in her pink pajamas that are covered with pictures of candy falling like rain. Her emerald eyes are determined. She’s three, but it doesn’t stop her from engaging in fierce medical triage with her brother. Plastic tools, utensils, and tea set pieces line the coffee table beside them. I ask what’s going on. Giddy, focused, and blunt, Lyla exclaims, “Piggy is very sick!” “What’s wrong with Piggy?” I ask.
“She’s got cancer,” Lev announces. “She needs chemotherapy.”
They work efficiently, hoisting a hula hoop around her body.Lev fastens pipe cleaners and plastic tubing to her arms, and Lyla tapes colored ribbons to her chest. After hooking her up, they declare the gravity of the situation with severe looks and pacing movements. She will suffer, but they will take care of Piggy. They stand by her, reassuring her in gentle voices--whispering loving words into her pink fleece ears.
I watch the situation with fear and curiosity. Piggy has cancer. Just like me.I’m amazed at the accuracy of their set up; Piggy reclines under a blanket while the medical apparatus carries the chemo to her body. They try to keep her comfortable, try to reassure her like oncology nurses in the ward. I have no idea where the idea of the hula hoop and pipe cleaners originated, since the kids have never come with me to the infusion center. But somehow they’ve gotten it just about right.
Hope By Katy Hall
Hope becomes your job And it's heavy lifting too Turning that bright face To husband, to wife, “No.It didn't hurt much at all.” “Chemo isn't so bad.” Not really lies. It's all true when faced with the choice, Live another day or not. Hope is a shining mask Lined with a dark reality. “I'll never be able to walk the dog again.” “I'll never hold a grandchild.” Rage not against that black night. Count your blessings And wring life out of every moment. They will remember you as living Not dying. Anger presides, Raging like a wildfire Consuming hillsides, barns, forests Or confined by rationality To the wood burning stove Smoldering like an old resentment Trying to escape its confines. It's looking for an answer, A culprit to blame. And fear drives the steam engine heart Racing into the night Scattering the hysterical antelope, Separating out the weak. Keep your wits about you Stay with the herd. In These Days Still Intact By Ann Emerson A queer and awkward faith is mine that blooms in darkness and solitude under the grey Pacific sky. Happiness in mid-November despite the reek of illness like black peaches on the sill. Lying in bed, watching rain skitter across the glass: a dwindling road wends through fields of sour grass towards sleep. And as for that raw olive surf, as for fright, I drift past the vanishing point into dawn. Where I awake, a nestling, crumple-legged, white petals placed on my tongue. Blackberry Quest By E. Lacasia
A sultry, warm afternoon finds me draped in old clothes as the armor against the assault of innumerable lances. The menacing, green bushes are belied by the innocent, white blooms nodding at their crowns. My head lolls back, eyes close as I drink in the heady scents of summer. Fragrant siren songs beckon from the brambles promising untold riches. Oh, the prize, the oozing yumminess of a warm, overripe, berry falling into my hand.A jealous bee follows its progress to my mouth stained with purple goodness. The black eyed berries gaze up at me from my basket lasciviously winking, whispering “perhaps just eat me now, why wait?” The wicked claws of the branches rake at me as I descend crawling, reaching and sometimes falling into the shadowed depths. A bumblebee drones by in improbable, lazy flight mesmerized by the ecstatic fragrance of my bounty. Ants steadfastly march along side gathering their booty scarring the perfection of the ultimate berry.Once again the ripest berries drop almost unbidden onto my tongue as I squeeze that treasure a little too hard in its gathering. A hopeful dog hovers at my feet plotting to steal a mouthful. Finally I emerge, stupored, fragrance drenched, bedecked with brambles and delicate, flower petals like the accolades strewn before a returning hero, my reward within my grasp.
No one can prepare you for this By Ali Zidel Meyers
Go ahead. Buy a book. Scour the web. Jiggle your networks and venture out to the world of experts and authorities.
They will all have a recipe: asparagus diet coffee cleansing berries and pomegranates broccoli binges chanting and tai chi fresh wheat grass ‘till it seeps out your ears.
As soon as you feel deluged with impossible choices Know that there is only one: live large until you die.
Ali is a mother of two and a colon cancer survivor. She wrote this poem in response to the "Traveler's Tips" exercise for the week of September 13, 2009.
Our Writers Write--and Publish!
Congratulations to Jasan Zimmerman & Ali Zidel Meyers, members of the Writers at Stanford Cancer Center, whose essays have just been published in CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL: THE CANCER BOOK!