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I have stage 4 cancer. Neck and head. Mostly neck. You know how people talk about the Big C? Trust me when I tell you something:
There’s no Little C.
When I visit Sam’s office, I sometimes imagine her as aprofessor about to tell me I’m flunking my major, and the final is just around the corner.
I’ve just gone through my second round of chemo. Against all odds, I’ve still got my hair. And don’t plan to give it up without a fight.
I’m not giving up without a fight, period.
“Good news first, or bad?” Sam says.
“Surprise me.”
“The good news is that your numbers haven’t gotten any worse.”
I go blood test to blood test. All cancer patients know the drill, labeled day-to-day like some injured athlete. It doesn’t feel like living.
“Wait for it,” I say.
“The bad news, unfortunately, is that they haven’t improved to the extent that I’d hoped they would after two rounds of chemo. Or might.”
Sometimes I feel as if the last really good news I received is when the jury foreman in Rob Jacobson’s trial said, “Not guilty.”
“So what do we do?”
“We keep doing what we’re doing,” she says. “At least we’ve slowed its progress, which ain’t nothing, pal.”
“You’ve talked about this with Dr. Gellis.”
Who is my oncologist.
“I have started to feel, since the patient is my friend Jane Smith, that I talk to Mike Gellis more than I talk to my husband these days.”
She then patiently explains to me, not for the first time, the confidence she has in Gellis. She hasn’t changed very much since we went to school together and she was the smartest girl in our class. Even smarter than me. Not that I was going to admit that to her, then or now or ever.
“We both know what great physical condition you were in before this,” she says, “when you were still training for those no-snow biathlons. And you’re still young.”
“Define young.”
I thought that might get a smile out of her. It doesn’t. Tough room.
“I’m not even classifying today’s numbers as a setback,” she says. “Just part of the process.”
I smile at her now.
“You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had,” I say. “So please don’t bullshit me. Remember, we’ve got a deal about you not bullshitting me. So promise me again that you won’t.”
Her voice is suddenly small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.
“I promise,” she says.
Then, just like that, she starts to cry.
Reallycry. Chest heaving. Sobbing-type crying. Trying to get air into her and failing. Losing it.
Maybe I’m too stubborn, even now, to break down in front of her. There have been times, plenty of times, when I’ve lost it in the privacy of my own home. Or with Dr. Ben. Or on a beach walk with my dog, Rip.
Just never in front of her.
