AUSTIN, Texas -- In one week and two days, I will be finished with nine
months of treatment for cancer. First they poison you; then they mutilate
you; then they burn you. I've had more fun. And when it's almost over,
you're so glad that you're grateful to absolutely everyone. And I am.
We've all done our best here; whether this thing comes back is out of all
of our hands. My wise friend Marlyn Schwartz said that those of us who
survive owe a debt -- to Carole Kneeland, Mary Sherrill, Jocelyn Gray and
all the others who didn't make it. They would have given anything they
owned, any part of their bodies, for the gift of life. We who survive have
it, and we owe it to them to cherish it -- joyfully.
The trouble is, I'm not a better person. I was in great hopes that
confronting my own mortality would make me deeper, more thoughtful. Many
lovely people sent books on how to find a deeper spiritual meaning in life.
My response was, "Oh, hell, I can't go on a spiritual journey -- I'm
constipated."
Being sick actually narrows your world, I'm afraid -- makes you focus more
on yourself. Maybe when it's over and you don't feel like crud all the time,
then your spirit soars. The chief reason to keep working is because it takes
your mind off yourself.
The main thing they tell you, over and over, is that this is different for
everyone. Everyone reacts differently to chemotherapy, to surgery, to
radiation. I even got mad at Marlyn, who simply sailed through chemo.
I vomited in the office, couldn't sleep forever, lost 50 pounds. I don't
recommend the diet. I was like, "Help, I'm flunking cancer."
Of course, I laughed a lot -- who could not laugh? There's even a
cancer-humor website called "Tarry, Black Stools." I got my first hair a few
weeks ago. It came in right next to my mouth -- that little moustache I've
always hated. That God -- what a sense of humor.
Before surgery, my friend Mercedes Pena decided that I needed to get in
touch with my emotions. I'd just as soon not hear from my emotions; I
suspect that they're largely unpleasant. A long-distance call once or twice
a year is enough for me.
But Mercy insisted. Sure enough, I was not happy about having a radical
mastectomy. I said, "Mercy, how in the world do you Latinas do this every
day, all the time in touch with the emotions?"
She said seriously, "That's why we take siestas."
Cancer is good for the priorities. Traffic, for one thing, is not worth
getting upset about. As my pal Spike Gillespie says, you look at those fools
honking, getting steamed, cutting in front of you and you just think, "Hey,
it's not a malignant tumor, you know?"
You can't get through this without a lot of help from your friends. I had a
party for all my helpers after I got through with chemo. It's hard for me to
talk about things that I care deeply about without at least trying to be
funny, but I told them how much they mean to me. The value of that
friendship is so much greater than any of the suffering caused by cancer
that it's not even remotely close. Moose McNeely said later that he thought
the most important thing was not that I got all that help, but that I let
people help me. He could be right.
Despite my request, untold numbers of people wrote wonderful cards, notes,
letters. My friends sent funny stuff by e-mail. I'd save it up, and about
once a month when I couldn't sleep at 3 a.m., I'd be sitting in front of the
computer, laughing and laughing. And I'm most grateful of all to the women
who went out and got mammograms. It's going to take me longer to write all
the thank-you notes than it took to get over cancer.
And that brings us to another great benefit of the Big C. It's the world's
greatest excuse. I've gotten out of more stuff I didn't want to do -- even
more than the stuff I missed that I did want to do.
Special thanks to my boss, Paul Harral, who has had to put up with some
shoddy work. Not even W. Bush's guy Karl Rove, who would naturally like to
cut my throat, has uttered a peep. (It's OK now, Karl -- it's almost over.)
Judith Curtis wrote me at the beginning: "I drank through the whole thing,
I smoked through the whole thing, I demanded totally uncritical love from
everyone around me, and I hated the lady from the American Cancer Society."
My role model.
The docs were great; the staff was great. And Judythe Wilbur, who went with
me for a blood draw at 2 p.m. and was still with me when I got out of the
hospital at 3 a.m., at least got to meet the male nurse with the ponytail
who plays biker-gospel-rock for prisoners. It's important to keep medical
staff amused.
Right now I'm working on stories about the love life of Clyde, the
radiation machine. On weekends, he sneaks across the hall and offers to
share electricity with the CAT scan machine. He's even hustling the office
Xerox. Clyde's a tomcat.
Cancer is not easy, it is not pleasant, and given a choice, I would just as
soon have skipped it. But I now know what all survivors know, and I am
grateful. So grateful.
Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out
more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers
and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2000 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
