Cancer IS NO FUCKING 'GIFT' IN MY BOOK

Next Day.
I’m back at Cedars where I spent mucho time for scans back when first diagnosed. No more confusion with the East and West Tower and which of the 82 parking lots to use. No sirree. Am revolted by my own familiarity with so many medical establishments around LA and reminds me of how my whole life revolved around these places in Melbourne as I spent four years trying to keep the enlarged heart of my father beating.
East Tower—into one of those elevators that are beyond crowded. Every floor is lit up. Could I be any more irritable? I DO NOT LIKE BEING ONE OF THE SICK PEOPLE.
3.30 Appointment with Infectious Disease dude. Doctor Sam. Like one or two of the surgeons I interviewed he insists on his female receptionist being present – so that double mastectomy patients won’t make subsequent accusations of sexual harassment or inappropriate touching. AS IF!! What jury would believe a doc hitting on the angled breasts of yours truly.
He politely asks me to ‘disrobe’ but I note rather petulantly that there are no robes to put ON and suddenly feel very modest and hideously exposed sitting on the annoying paper-covered table naked from the waist up.
Apparently, a dark red crimson-colored breast is all an experienced ID needs to see before demanding the name of my oncologist. I tell him and before you can say “WILL I LIVE?’ he’s called my esteemed oncologist Dr O on her cell and is saying
“Lyndall’s had a staph infection for 5 weeks and has only taken oral antibiotics so far. Can she come down right now to start on IV?
And so, just 35 minutes after arriving at Cedars I am forking over a mere $9 to the parking lot guy- my cheapest stay ever. How much DO they make at those Cedars Car parks in a year???
Fifteen minutes later I’m back at Tower Oncology Center, a place I hoped never to set foot in again, despite the kindness of all the nurses and nurse practitioners who pumped me full of cytoxin and taxotere - the heinous chemo drugs from March to June. I recall Buck Henry’s alarming email back at the end of February when I first announced my chemo schedule..”Welcome ! You’re in the cancer club now whether you like it or not—with all us old codgers!” And when I told him I was off to Tower he actually uttered the words “ I’m jealous”
“You’re going to love it there, he insisted. I used to look forward to it. They’re soo nice., They bring you warmed blankets, ladies come round with snacks –(or hand-knitted beanies if you’re going bald) and you can even order meals from about a dozen restaurants.” claimed thefamous fusspot enthusiastically. All true, I discovered and they bring it straight it your numbered recliner chair.
Well my fond memories didn’t match Buck’s but there were friendly familiar faces everywhere. They greet me like a long-lost buddy but also express shock that I’m back. I swipe a few candies from the giant jar they keep as if we were kids getting a shot. I prepare to go and use the machine that I know will produce foul tasting coffee but somehow can never resist but before I can even decide on hot choc or vanilla latte I am being ushered into the massive Chemo Lounge, a massive 3000 sq foot area consisting of several nurse stations and about 40 widely spaced recliner chairs - all with their own TVs and uncomfortable side chairs for the poor old friends/spouses that sit grim-faced and uncomfortable for the 4 hours that most chemo treatments take…Though in my case, the chair was usually empty as Lola found the proximity to Barney’s a tad irresistible and would sprint down there and come back to give her tethered old mum a show and tell.
I’m weighed, vitals are taken(so dull and unnecessary) and I’m down in the chair and hooked up in record time. Do they think I’m ill or something? Just a burst of pre-closing time efficiency I tell myself till my oncologist Dr O comes rushing up, aggressively pulling the hospital-like curtains shut to envelop us in our own rather claustrophobic little cubicle. No verbal greeting. Just a big hug and an uncharacteristically pointed “I cannot believe that surgeon! Why did he let it go this long?” She motions for me to lift up my tank top which I do and her eyes widen a little but before I can ask if she thinks my breast will fall off she chides me for not having come to see her earlier. I am tempted to point out that her scheduling assistant never responded to my email but fear it would sound ungracious so instead –
“Yes I wish I had too…” but here’s the weird thing. It truly had NOT occurred to me to discuss the Flaming Red Tit problem with my oncologist. I guess I thought I was done with cancer treatment, not fully comprehending that my compromised system and thus a susceptibility to infection is all part of the chemo/cancer deal and if I had a brain in my head I would have realized that but chemo has definitely dulled my brain –plus I think that in some corner of my brain I still cling top my former identity as health nut/athlete/gym junkie…and so who needs to check in with their oncologist before surgery is even over?
DR O then proceeds to inform me that –after routine post-surgery antibiotics – an ongoing infection should be treated with oral antibiotics for just 3-4 days before getting aggressive with IV antibiotics. She notes with barely-concealed contempt that I took two weeks of Tetracycline before two weeks of Augmentin followed by a week of Clindamycin.
‘About 21/2 weeks too long” she says and then justifies her claim by painting a very grim potential scenario. “If the infection is allowed to take hold and then really won’t budge, at some point you will have to be opened up, and all foreign objects taken out -ie both the expanders and the alloderm have to be removed. The problem is that then the breast skin tends to stick to the chest wall like superglue and when you try to pry it all apart, the resulting cosmetic effects could be ---well, less than ideal. (Code for HORRENDOUS!)The ID doc had already warned me of this. Funny how Dr Bob had never mentioned it.
“So aggressive treatment as soon as possible is the only way to go. I want you to do IV for two weeks 7 days a week. The IV antibiotics bypass your stomach. I can’t imagine how you feel after five weeks of them. It’s very bad for your system you know.”
“Well yes,” I say suddenly very close to tears as I notice a good-looking man holding his wife’s hand tightly as the nurse inserted an IV.
To think I might have avoided over a couple of weeks of the bloating, diarrhea, toxic exhaustion, depression and sleeplessness due to the oral frigging antibiotics but DIDN’T, makes me very, very sad.
“What do I say to Dr Bob ?” I ask
“Tell him I’m trying to salvage the situation. Use the word salvage.” Another hug and she’s off and I sit there, unable to stop watching the couple opposite. The lovely husband has just brought his wife another pillow and keeps smiling at her and rubbing her arm.
I dread those stomach-churning moments of clarity when both denial and one’s Pollyanna-ish belief that some criminally handsome soul mate will appear one of these fine days and make up for his tardiness by being extra heavenly and sexy come into sharp focus and one realizes it is bullshit and one is very much ALONE. Now and forever. Unless some utterly freakish seventy year-old decides he can go nuts and date someone over 40 which is darn bloody unlikely.. AND I KNOW OF WHAT I SPEAK. TWO OLD BOYFRIENDS, 70 AND 72 RESPECTIVELY, ARE BOTH DATING WOMEN UNDER 35. OKAAAAY??
The nurse returns, pulls out the IV and I’m free again. It’s now 5.45. Nick’s school ends at 6pm. I’ve already texted his math tutor to say “Please tell Nick to hit the lunch tables right after tutoring and to do his homework.. That’ll be the day! Poor child. He’s very social, a bit of a chatty Kathy and loves nothing more than a good gossip at the lunch tables after a long day.
I arrive at 6.05, five minutes after the very strict closing time and there’s my gorgeous tall teenage boy perfectly happy to be the lone student - the center of attention with the afterschool staff and dreading the sight of his dragon lady, whip cracking, homework-enforcing mean mother. I fork over the late fee and we speed off.
There’s approximately 9 minutes till the next tutor arrives at our apartment but Nick is starving so we make a pitstop at the fabulous Cactus Taqueria on Vine (no fast food Taco Bell for us) and then rush home to discover that if I’d checked my texts I’d have seen that the tutor cancelled and then realize in my hurry that I’ve left my wallet at the Taqueria. A weeping, cursing dash back, convinced it would not be there and that I deserve to be flogged or worse. But it’s there. I love Mexicans. If only Nick and I had kept up the Rosetta Stone Spanish CDs I spent a fortune on…I leave them a twenty and rush home ecstatic. My biggest kicks these days come when I find things I have just lost.
Two days later. Saturday morning.
Tower Oncology is shut at weekends…so, in order to have my IV antibiotics they send a nurse to me. In my case a 6’6’’ Russian in jeans and flip flops called Vadim – much to the surprise of Nick who seems faintly irritated by the rare sight of a male on his territory. As it is, he’s like a caged lion in our small apartment, desperate to get out and start cruising the neighborhood with friends but that’s along way off I point out. You still have science flash cards to do and reading and math and I begin my weekly sessions of bribery, begging, maybe some more bribery followed, almost always, by screaming.
“Do your flash cards and then I’ll drive you to drumming in West LA and then to the opposite side of the earth to meet your skateboarding pals ”
We both know I’m wasting my breath. I’ll end up doing the history flash cards because the ludicrous curriculum at my Aussie Church of England Girls Grammar School let me study Latin French, English, Math and Science (supposedly preparing me for a proposed career as a doctor) which means I am staggeringly ignorant and I’ve actually come to enjoy doing the flash cards and learning who folk like Kubla Khan were and what caused the Civil War and stuff like that.
But I digress. MY brain is fuzzy. To the well-known syndrome of Chemo Brain has been added the “I’m permanently buggered from antibiotics” brain.
So here we are in a charming street right next to the 405 where Nick takes drum lessons in some random warehouse and I am on the cell phone in the sweltering heat probably getting brain cancer according to Dr Mercola who inundates me and many other nuts with his medical newsletter just about every day and No, I can’t find my ear device and so my ear will just have to suck up the radiation as I give breast surgeon Dr Peg an update and she says I should just dump Dr Bob and offers to call him on the spot and tell him he’s fired.
“He SHOULD have put you on an IV weeks ago!”
But I hate to hurt anyone’s feelings and what if he’s still the best surgeon in town but just skipped the “How To Treat A Staph infection” classes.
“I’ll call him now. You don’t have to ever speak to him again.” Says Dr Peg very matter-of-factly. They’re a tough breed, these surgeons.
Whoaah! It’s like getting a friend to break up with your boyfriend for you. Not quite. But I tell her to hold off. I need to digest all this. I quickly hang up because I can see that Dr Bob is calling in. Well blow me down if he doesn’t sound all hurt and offended that I have cancelled Monday’s appointment. (This is after both Dr Peg and Dr Sam have called him to tell him about the unanimous decision to put me on much stronger IV antibiotics).
I explain that I will be seeing the Infectious Disease doc again to see how the IV drugs are working.
“Well you need to come in on Tuesday or Wednesday and if the redness is still there I’ll open you up and wash you out and take out the expanders for a day or two and then put them back.”
Well that’s a winning suggestion. Ignore the fact that I am now on IV antibiotics and just hit me with two general anaesthetics and slice me open twice in three days. Wow, who could resist the thrill of being unconscious and then fighting one’s way back out of that lovely anesthesia fog twice in three days.
And by the wayI don’t even understand –nor do I care to frankly- the logistics of how he manages to drag out through a small incision around my aureola a huge whacking great thing called an expander (which can be inflated or deflated by injecting a section of it with liquid through my breast) as well as cutting out all the Alloderm, the dead people’s skin which may or may not be the cause of the infection?
That would leave me with crumpled up skin for a couple of days.
And then, three days later, cutting me open again around my nipple he somehow manages to shove a nice fresh expander back in there. As well as another fresh gob of Alloderm to strengthen my now paper-thin skin?
I know—don’t ask. Talk about a can of worms. My head is spinning and I can barely hear Doctor Bob who is at his son’s baseball game and so I just say
“Well I’ll have to think about that” not daring to even hint that I’m being told to give him the old heave-ho. I politely promise we’ll speak soon even as I feel shocked that he’s so cavalier in the way he talks about cutting me open. I click the phone off as he is still speaking . I CAN NO LONGER COPE. My son and his drumming teacher have been standing outside the car in the sweltering heat. Feeling completely frazzled I open the window and we discuss Nick’s drumming. As he lingers I realize he needs his $60 cash for the lesson-oh and another $60 for last week’s missed lesson. Great. Is it any wonder I am still toting the $20 handbag from Forever 21 that I bought for my 23 year-old daughter who refused to be seen dead anywhere near it on the grounds of it being cheap and nasty. So mumsey sports the cheap bag while daughter dearest has snatched the vintage but divine Prada bag I was keeping for best.
Here’s the rest of my day—as if I needed any further confirmation that I now officially have NO LIFE. I drive Nick from West LA halfway to downtown where they skateboard at Lafayette Park. It’s a big scene. Everyone there looks like a scary gangbanger but it’s broad daylight and he’s 14, nearly 5’ 10’ and has size 13 shoes. I watch through the wire fence for a while and then rush home to sleep. As my head hits the pillow, my phone, always close enough to keep radiating my brain, rings and it’s the teen calling in the sweet, kind, loving totally MANIPULATIVE voice that I am powerless to resist explaining that his friend’s brother can’t make it and would I come now to pick them up and drop off his friend in the Hollywood Hills and then take him to Toluca Lake to spend the night with my ex-husband. Not Nick’s father but the father of my daughter. I adopted Nick and he has no father but occasionally my ex, who likes him a lot, has him for the night and he and his third wife, take him to the Smokehouse, Bob Hope’s favorite where ribs and meat a plenty are devoured.. Wife Number three is twenty years younger than me. Of course. Nick and she have a blast together.
It’s Thursday.
What a fun day. I’ve just had my eighth intravenous antibiotic session at Tower Oncology and been to see my third reconstructive surgeon in hopes of finding someone who ‘feels right’ to replace Dr Bob. And I’ve yet to even fire Dr Bob on account of I’m a pathetic, guilt-ridden moron and also because I want to keep my options open. What if I don’t find anyone better who takes insurance who I feel is ‘right’ for me?
Anyway, they all have different plans of attack but on one thing they agree. If we can’t get the Flaming Red Infected Tit to calm down and the expander and the alloderm have to come out, ‘tis not a good thing. Because to be on the safe side, they would have to stay out for a month, at which point the crumpled skin would shrink and shrivel and almost certainly not recover. Thereupon, best bet might be to lop everything off and do skin grafts with skin taken from my back. Although Surgeon Number two, a woman, did suggest the radical and universally rejected plan of waiting a week, taking out the expanders and in one feel swoop, popping in the permanent implants, sewing me back up and ‘hoping for the best”. My oncologist – and the Infectious Disease doc were not amused by that scenario.
This third plastic surgeon, Dr Keith – let’s see –young , unsmiling, serious, kept me waiting an hour and a half in a frigid overly-chilled Cedars consult room and having already googled him and found out he was someone who excelled in sewing back arms and hands and fingers, I couldn’t help but think he will be somehow less intrigued by my old tit than a chopped off leg needing to be stitched back on….
And yet and yet…I feel so utterly and completely confused, at the end of my rope, sick to death of weighing up my options and basically at my wit’s end that within about three minutes of rather theatrically opening my paper gown to reveal the tragic rack, I have let him have his way with me---which is to say I am letting him deflate my poor, POOR bosom’s expander so that there is ’less stress and trauma” on what is clearly already a traumatized area.
I am squeezing my eyes shut as the doc injects me with a big old needle and the nurse gently pats my balled-up fist. Suddenly, I am outside my body and watching this little scene and it truly is SO surreal that this is what it has come to—virtual strangers injecting a breast within minutes of meeting you. I even feel disloyal to Dr Bob.
And although the look is not good, think deflated balloon where the surface is crinkly and sad, the deflation does produce some relief. Like other surgeons I’ve seen he’d like to see what happens after another week or two of antibiotics and then, yes, he’s all for opening me up and taking out the expander. But is he the doctor for me ?? Is he the surgeon I will dump Dr Bob for? So hard to tell in one quick consultation that began an hour and a half late and that lasted only fifteen minutes. But at least everyone’s on the same page. Things have GONE HORRIBLY WRONG AND UNLESS THERE’S SOME KIND OF MIRACLE, the surgery will basically have to be undone and the crap that’s been put in will have to be taken out. “You will have to be device free for a couple of months.” He insists.
Titless on one side for two months? Excuse me?
He did suggest that smooth expanders were the way to go rather than the ones with a rough surface. The tiny little crevices are a breeding ground for bacteria he says but when I mention it to daughter dearest Lola later she recalls that Dr Bob said the rougher expander meant the skin did not adhere to them in some demented unhealthy way. When I sneakily ask Dr Bob about the smooth ones, he says he has never heard of them. What does this mean? Every last tedious detail takes on more meaning.
I BORE MYSELF TO DEATH AND DON’T CALL BACK THE FRIENDS I have because I am dull and self-obsessed and have little good news but some of them are even more boring than me –especially when they tell me “Well you sound FANTASTIC ” Oh yeah?? or “I’m sure it’s all going to work out really well.”
Oh really??
“In six months you’ll be good as new.”
Is that a FACT?
or this one today…”You know, I haven’t called but I really do have your back cos whenever I pray, I pray for you.” OH JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP. And if I ever read about one more jerk saying that CANCER WAS A GIFT, I will personally punch them.
WHAT SORT OF FUCKING GIFT IS IT, PRAY TELL. I’ll tell you what a gift is… a gift is a new Prada bag, a $10,000 gift certificate to Barney’s, a gift certificate for a massage, a lovely orchid, very expensive perfume or something of that goddamn nature. NOT CANCER. And for what’s it worth, I am no different, certainly not gentler, nicer, kinder--I am already nice!!! And my priorities?? Well yes, they may BE A LITTLE DIFFERENT...now I think I may put more emphasis on being BITTER AND TWISTED. (Ah, feel better now).
But of course I am nothing but polite to all these deeply irritating souls who just don’t get that a simple, mundane expression of sympathy would be so appreciated …like ”You poor old thing’ or I’m going to be dropping by with some goodies/groceries….but it’s okay. Folk get nervous to be around sick dopes going through surgeries and think that instead of dropping off the Greenblatt’s Chicken and Vegie Soup, (which they’ve promised about 8 times) they can just substitute it with an email about Kathy Freston’s Reasons To Be A Vegan post…You know, I could be as happy and glowing and healthy looking as Kathy Freston if I was married to a zillionaire and had my own fucking chef to cook tasty, anti-oxidant packed grub. Kathy Freston bugs me. Entire world bugs me. And moments later I am filled with monumental self-loathing for being such a ninny. I’m not blind, deaf or paralyzed so clearly am just whining ungrateful jerk. And those penetratingly negative feelings have probably just proved enough of a catalyst for new cancer tumor to have formed. I CAN’T WIN.