I lay on a glassine slab, gym shorts covering my ass, but the rest of me cold against the surface of the table - not table, human meat holder, that’s what it feels like. More than six feet long and just wide enough to hold my width. On the surface, like a piece of ice, a thin sheet, not covering me; I am atop it. It does not stop the cold from penetrating my back, butt and legs, a pillow tucked beneath my knees. My feet straight out and wrapped in a rubber band so I cannot move or adjust them; and absolutely never, ever cross my ankles.
My arms stretched down each side, posts exactly where my hands must grip. I am one of those stone Chinese soldiers, stiff and formed. At the top of each shoulder an arched pad pinning them into place, pressing down, not painfully, but with clarity of purpose - you will not move.
Slipped into my mouth two black rubber teeth guards for top and bottom with little pads sticking out like mini-duckbills between my lips. They choke the back of my throat and I have to do tongue contortions to reduce the gagging.
A mask is lowered over my face, not dark like the blindfold at a firing squad, but mesh I can just see through. Hands of unseen people put it into place and clamp it to the table, I cannot move my head or arms or hands or feet; cold at my back, cold at my front and mostly naked and vulnerable.
Through the mesh I barely see the three-foot thick door whisk quietly closed until I hear the suck of air signaling the room is now sealed. For 25 minutes, every day and twice on Fridays I am here, imagining this is how it feels to be dead.
I have cancer. How easy that comes out. I have cancer and I have no idea if death is right around the corner, friend or foe, ready to greet me and move me from one slab to another. Each day I know I waste away a little more. I see it in the eyes of my wife. I hear it in the sadness of my daughter’s greeting. Each day I know it, as I become one with the slab.
I try being carried away by the delicious songs and voice of Sara Bareilles or the rhythms and rock of John Mayer, which I brought with me, but transport is often absent. I try being brave, but my tongue hurts from being rubbed raw. I want to cry or scream, but can’t open my mouth or move my hands or turn my head; I can’t even cross my damn ankles.
I hear the machine warming up - those fucking technicians are outside the three-foot vault door. They are safe, but soon will be lighting me up like a fluorescent bulb. A huge radiant metronome moves like the arc of the sun across the landscape of my throat and head, rising and setting, then going back for another pass, rising-setting and back again. I feel it suck the life out of me each fucking day - twice on Fridays.
With each arc the isolates of my cancer life replay.
Arc 1 - My anniversary weekend, outside a little bodega in Bodega Bay, my wife inside buying waters - cell phone buzzes. “Yes. This is he. Who. Oh, hello. No, go ahead I hear you just fine. Yes, Yes, Oh (long pause) what does that mean? I see! I see! No, I’ll check in when we get back. My doctor will be back by then? Okay, thanks for the call. Yes, goodbye.”
The other side; Mr. Howard, Dr. Paulson; I’m your doctor’s partner. Can you hear me? Is it okay to talk? We got the results back from your biopsy. You have cancer. It appears to be the kind that could be anywhere in your body and then presents in the lymph nodes. It is impossible at the moment to predict where else it might be. You need a deeper scan to pinpoint what is affected. We should get more information on Monday. Can you check back then? Your doctor should be back from vacation by then. Are you all right? Goodbye."
Arc 2 - the tellings begins - my wife’s face, blanched, tears welling up in her eyes, hands trembling, incomprehension on her face – “this can’t be true, why, what does it mean?” I have no answers. I want to complete our anniversary weekend, not thinking about it. It taints everything - going to dinner, wandering around the bay, walking around an art fair where I buy the sharpest little knife I can wear around my neck so it is always close. Lying curled next to each other in our VRBO afraid to think, or talk, or live.
Arc 3 – I love the trip to Santa Barbara, but hate today’s long drive to the university. They want to start treatment - remove tonsils, do more biopsies, and I will have to take off work. I must tell our daughter, but what a crappy piece of news to deliver. She is in her first year and delighting at being away from home, on her own, a college student. I am going to tether her back to me, to us, to cancer - not yet 20. Her beautiful face, filled with surprise, “come to the hotel with us and will go to dinner from there; we haven’t checked in, yet. What are you doing here? We came to surprise you…I have something I need to tell you. No, what does this mean, I’m scared. Are you all right? What happens next? I’m coming home from school! No, you need to stay! I want to be home with you, school doesn’t matter. You’ll be home when I’m being treated. We’ll take it one step at a time. I love you. I love you, too.”
Arc 4 - My mother at 90; my younger brother and sister, my wife’s family, our friends. Their responses are wonderful – “can we come out; what can we do; we’ll pray for you; do you need anything; I feel so helpless I want to come and take care of my baby.” I know it is caring and loving…but in all those moments it just feels cloying. I begin separation - tell them thanks, I’m just too tired to see anyone, talk to anyone, eat anything…I can’t eat.
That first pass of radiation or flood of chemo through the system takes your taste buds and says, FUCK IT - no tastes for you, pal. From then on it’s all texture and food is like sand or mucus. Over time it was odd to get even 100 calories down and have it stay. There were foods, I thought in my head would be tasty - all fails. Yet, everyday I would watch cooking shows on cable. It sated my appetite even though my survival ration was seltzer. I went from 235 to 155 pounds, a slip of the man I was. I remembered the old joke as the radiation pierced its way through – “so skinny you have to run around in the shower to get wet.” Me, I couldn’t run anywhere.
Then it ends for the day, with a gasp-like intake of air the vault door opens. Hands release the mask, my shoulders and hands, remove the bite trays, un-band my feet and help me sit up.
“How you doing, sir”
“Doing fine, thanks”
Some people say it takes courage…Me, I am cancer and I believe it just takes perseverance – every day and twice on Fridays.