FOR ELIZABETH EDWARDS AND ALL OF US

Word was all over the country yesterday that Elizabeth Edwards has been diagnosed with breast cancer. I think everyone’s hearts went out to her and to her family. To have this kind of news on the very same day that the Kerry-Edwards team had to concede must have been unimaginably difficult. (It occurred to me that maybe the silver lining to the cloud of not winning the election was that John Edwards will have much more time to attend to his wife and children in the next four years).

Cancer. I am a cancer survivor. My mother is a long-time cancer survivor. My brother-in-law has just been diagnosed. My father had it. My grandmother and grandfather had it. Our sweet little cat Natasha just died of cancer. It seems like every time you turn around, there it is. We all know someone, either in our family or in our sphere of friends who has dealt with some form of cancer.

Today I have to go for my six-month follow-up CAT-scan to make sure the cancer has not returned. (It’s been two and a half years since the recurrence). Part of me is very anxious. As this day approached, I found myself sleeping less deeply, waking more frequently, and palpating my own stomach trying to discern if anything had changed. There’s a whole deep, dark world in there beneath the skin – a whole universe that we don’t fully understand. I want to believe that I’ll be fine. I want to believe that I am cured. I want to believe that I’ll live to be a centenarian with the minimal health problems. And I do my best to insure that outcome. I take vitamins and supplements and Tamoxifen and all that good stuff. I exercise. I eat lots of good fruits and vegetables. I drink soy milk. I live a pretty unstressful life. I have a terrific support network. I feel connected with the spiritual. So . . .?

So – Last week I got a doozy of a cold. I mean I had a low-grade fever, chills, runny nose, sore throat, congestion, headaches, swollen glands – classic cold. Of course I ran to the drug store for my homeopathic remedy, as well as Tylenol Cold (you have to hedge your bets), made myself a steaming pot of vegetable soup, ate a slew of fresh oranges, sucked on zinc lozenges, used sinus rinse (don’t ask), even took a few Chinese herbs (not my favorite thing to do). I allowed myself to loll in bed for hours every day. I allowed my husband to bring me dinner in bed. The outcome is that one week later, I am slowly getting over my cold. (Would the outcome have been any different if I had just ignored the whole thing? We’ll never know).

And so it is with all diseases, I suppose. You do the best you can. You use every weapon in your arsenal to battle the malady. You use common sense, intuition, medical science, and whatever hocus pocus makes sense to you – and then you have to accept that there are some things we simply can’t control. It’s a balance between fight and acceptance, very much like the A.A. prayer, “. . . to change the things I can not accept, to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference”. And then you just figure – as I said to my sister this morning – “Well, I’m gonna live till I die!” My sister (a miraculous survivor of a brain aneurysm) said “Amen” to that one. It’s all any of us can do.

For those of you who are fearful of cancer and want to duck out of the room just hearing the word, I have one small bit of advice. Allow yourself to become desensitized to the word. Instead of thinking of cancer as being synonymous with death, think of it the way you think of the word “cold” or “flu”. Not something you would choose for yourself, certainly – potentially dangerous – but absolutely survivable under most circumstances. Think of Lance Armstrong – (I always do). And remember, if it’s your time, it’s your time. You could slip on a banana peel, too, but few of us worry about such things.

And Mrs. Edwards, know that our hearts are with you.

GOD LAUGHS

A couple of days ago we were at the hospital visiting my brother-in-law, who had undergone surgery two days before. He was having a tough time, as the surgery was extensive, and they had him on a lot of medications. We were there to give him moral support and comfort.

I was sitting in a chair at the foot of the hospital bed, engaging in light conversation. All of a sudden, I got a stomach cramp. I told myself firmly, “Not now!”. I shifted in my chair to get more comfortable. Then I began to feel nauseous. I began to count backward from 100, trying to get into a meditative state. As I was counting backwards, I looked around the stark hospital room. My brother-in-law, Eddie, dressed in the ubiquitous hospital gown with the blue pattern on white, was hooked up to all kinds of I.V. tubes – Saline solution, morphine drip, catheters – he looked like the bionic man. I felt at that moment somewhat divided from him, as is always the case when the relatively well come face-to-face with the relatively unwell.

Now the nausea was beginning to get more intense. I began to feel very warm. I began to sweat profusely. I bent down in my chair, once again trying to find out how best to get comfortable. I vaguely heard my husband, Art, ask if I was okay. I mumbled, “I don’t feel very good”. Someone said, “Put your head between your knees”, which I did. Meanwhile, Art went out to the hallway to get a nurse.

Next thing I knew, a couple of nurses were in my face, telling me to sit up and asking me questions. I began to vomit. Someone put a bed pan in front of me. Once I had vomited, I began to feel a little better. I heard myself say, “I’m okay.” But the nurse said, “We’d better send you down to emergency so they can take a look at you.” I kept apologizing – to Eddie, to my husband, to my mother-in-law, to my father-in-law. It had not been my intention that day to add to everyone’s troubles. Had I had any inkling that I was at all under the weather, I never would have come to the hospital. And I was embarrassed. I mean – here I was making a scene, when Eddie was the one who truly needed attention.

Well, they put me on a gurney and wheeled me down to Emergency. Art stayed with me. A reasonable facsimile of Doogie Howser, a very nice young man, came in and questioned me. It seems they were afraid I was having a heart attack. Someone asked me if I was pregnant, which was the comic relief of the day. I had to take off my sweater and replace it with a hospital gown. As it turned out, they took some blood from me (they had trouble getting me to bleed, and I thought I would have another episode just from all the prodding). They took a chest X-ray. They gave me an EKG. Then, they decided to give me some I.V. fluids. Finally, I could see my reflection in the glass of the double emergency doors. I was a patient. There was no mistaking it – the hospital gown, the I.V. It had all happened so fast, so unexpectedly. For several hours I lay there, dextrose or saline solution dripping in to my veins, my name written on a big chalkboard. Nurses and technicians and Doogie dropping by every so often to reassure me that they were just waiting for results of all the tests.

Finally, at about 7:30 in the evening, the results came back. All was within normal limits. I could dress and go home. The I.V. was taken out. The official diagnosis was a “pre-syncopal episode”. The reason, basically, “who knows?”. The hospital gown came off and my sweater was returned to me. I got down off the gurney and walked out with my husband and my in-laws. For me, this time, it had been a five-hour ordeal, but it was over. Eddie was still up there on the sixth floor.

Sometimes odd things occur in our lives, and we are left to make sense out of them. I think maybe I was over-identifying with Eddie, and maybe that was the beginning of my feeling woozy. Or maybe I ate something that wasn’t quite right. Or maybe it was the smell of disinfectant in the hospital. Or maybe it was a combination of everything. But this time, I was okay.

It was a reminder to me that our lives can turn on a dime. Here we are, planning for our futures. Putting money aside for our “golden years”. We can’t help but see the future stretched out before us like a long, unending road, dotted with pleasant memories, holidays, grandchildren, perhaps travel, retirement, gray hair, learning a new language, hard-won recognition of our accomplishments, and the list could go on endlessly. But there is a Yiddish expression that translates to, “Man plans. God laughs”. We are allowed the illusion of having control over our lives, and within the larger framework, to some extent, we do. But the Big Picture is beyond our mortal control. And a little reminder such as I had the other day is a blessing. It forces me to remember that every day is precious. Every breath is precious. Our time here is limited, and we are definitely not in charge. Someone or something else is running the show. And whoever or whatever It is – It’s got a great sense of humor.