Benign / Malignant

One week after my surgery and my exhilarating benign diagnosis, my best friend from childhood called to tell me his tumor is malignant. He then explained that he still intends to graduate this June, and is hopeful that his teachers will let him record lectures or do extra assignments to make graduation a reality. We talked of plans for the future - how we can still hike in Patagonia but how that will need to be postponed while he receives a full year of chemotherapy. We have tentative plans to see the new Avengers movie this weekend if I'm sufficiently recovered to sit upright in a theater for two hours. If I have anything to say about it I damned well will be.

When I was in the hospital, a writer friend wrote a beautiful get well card that opened with, "Benign! Amazing how context can make a word about harmlessness so exciting." He is right. "Benign" means I can go back to my high-pressure law firm job next week. "Benign" means I can travel in South America this summer. "Benign" means I can go off to law school in Virginia this fall.

"Malignant" means months upon months in bed, struggling to eat enough food to stay somewhat healthy, feeling too shitty to even watch TV. "Malignant," in my friend's case, means a postponement of a young life that was poised to graduate and launch itself upon the world.

I wrote in an earlier post that illness is boring. Terrifying, but boring. I feel that even more strongly today. "Malignant" means a year of inaction. And of course, this is the best case scenario - postponing a life is still better than losing it.

I begin to have a sneaking suspicion that death will be the most boring experience of all. No more laughing, no more suffering, no more growing, no more worrying, no more hoping, no more screaming.

If I could grant wishes, I would grant my friend years and years of laughing, suffering, growing, worrying, hoping and screaming. Maybe when the boredom of death finally comes after decades upon decades of living, we will be ready for it. We are not ready now.

I am unafraid

Last night I woke up at the witching hour because my pain medicine had worn off early. It hurt too much to stand. I called for help and my groggy father groggily administered narcotics and apple sauce. He offered to sit with me but I said no; I was fine. It was both lie and truth. It takes between 20 and 30 minutes for the medicine to work so I wasn't exactly out of the woods.

The pain was bad enough that I started shaking, my knees supported by a pillow, my back by three more, my hands clutching my abdomen where they gutted me to remove an unnatural piece of my own flesh. Meditation worked for short periods. I could take in a deep breath (into my chest - no belly breathing yet), let it out, and relax my quaking legs. The pain remained but lessened in stillness. By the time I drew my next breath, the quivering resumed, but the relief in between breaths was enough.

I made it through the witching hour in silence. A warm flush crept through my limbs once the drugs kicked in, and that was how I knew I was safe. But, all through that witching hour, I was unafraid. The breaths we draw may be calming or they may be painful, but they are the vehicle which carries us through life.

For a few weeks, I thought that my allotted number of breaths might only add up to 25 years. Now, I know it will be more. If I am lucky, I may even get another 60 years or so to breathe. Even if the coming years are filled with silent, witching hour breaths of pain, I will breathe them gladly, and I will be unafraid.

On Carpe Diem and Boredom

I don't have anything to say about illness that hasn't already been said. I will write anyway because this is new to me.

Within the last month, two things happened: 1) doctors found a mass on my right ovary, probably benign, measuring 4 x 4 x 7 cm and 2) doctors found a mass pressing on the colon of my best friend from childhood, so far known to be between 7 and 10 cm on one side. 

In response, I canceled my four month trip to South America. He failed a class in his second-to-last term of college.

One thing that is subtly difficult is that the radio mostly only plays songs about love and partying. Do you know how odd it is to be told you have a mass in your abdomen, walk out of the hospital, get in the car, turn on the radio and hear, "baby I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake it off" or "if you're lips are moving then you lie, lie, lie"? (for the record I love T. Swift. and loved Meghan Trainor before she released that really sexist song about her future husband.) Even that one Tim McGraw song about cancer is too.... uplifting. Its called "Live Like You Were Dying." It's about how being terminally ill teaches you to do the crazy things you never did and forces you to follow your dreams. (Some lyrics: "I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing... I hope someday you get the chance to live like you were dying.")

The problem is I already knew all that. I had booked a four month trip to South America. My friend is wrapping up a college degree. When you’re faced with your own mortality, you’re supposed to learn how to seize the moment or some shit, the ever cliché carpe diem. But what if you already knew about carpe diem? I WAS GOING TO TRAVEL ALONE FOR FOUR MONTHS BECAUSE I ALREADY KNEW HOW TO CARPE THAT FUCKING DIEM. I guess they just wanted to confirm. GUYS LESSON LEARNED YOU CAN MAKE IT GO AWAY NOW. THANKS THOUGH. YOU’VE BEEN VERY THOROUGH.

Another thing that is subtly difficult is that it’s boring to be sick. Illness brings with it a series of mundane tasks. Sitting in waiting rooms. Transcribing voicemails from nurses. Reading a health insurance policy. By the time the doctor sees me, I’m usually too bored to be scared. I felt this when I took the LSAT, actually – we had to wait around for more than an hour before the test and so I was half asleep at my desk when the proctor said, “GO!” 

Ever since they found the mass, I’m occasionally very scared, occasionally very angry, and occasionally very sad, but usually I’m just excruciatingly bored. Being sick is stressful but it’s also boring as hell. Hiking in Patagonia would have been wayyyyy more exciting.

Before I go, one more observation: I am much more emotional about my friend’s illness than about my own. I don’t know why, necessarily. My diagnosis made me freeze up. Then I started problem solving. Must cancel flights. Must check up on health insurance. Must draft a will. His illness made me so angry I couldn’t hold the mouse at work from shaking so hard. Why? Why two months before he was supposed to graduate? Why didn’t they catch it when he first had symptoms over winter break? I don’t know if it’s a matter of perspective, that I have stronger feelings about another’s illness. Maybe I have to be calm and philosophical about my own as a form of self-preservation. Maybe I secretly think I did something wrong and karma is getting me good, while I know HE did nothing wrong and it’s just dumb luck that he’s sick. Maybe it’s scarier to watch someone you love die than it is to die yourself. 

I don’t really know. I just know I'm gonna go hiking in Patagonia someday, and he’s coming with me.