At the end of the hall in my oncologist’s suite of offices is a large room with a fireplace and soft music piped in. Winter sun is pouring in the huge windows and flashing off the metal poles and trays for the chemo drips. There are five plush recliners, each with its pole on wheels next to it, so you can drag it along with you if you need to go to the restroom. There’s a water cooler, a small refrigerator, and a basket of snacks. We’re three blocks from Grand Traverse Bay, which was gorgeous in the morning sun when Jerry and I drove here. The oncologist is actually only a few blocks from our house. Under other conditions, I would have walked. I can also walk to the hospital if I want, for blood tests. Praise be for small towns that have what you need in them.The nurse starts the anti-nausea drug and Benadryl (to ward off any possible allergic reactions) at about 10:00. This makes me dopey and a bit incoherent. They drip in for a half hour before she starts the Taxol (wicked sounding name). Jerry comes back and brings us sandwiches at noon. About 1:00, she starts the (equally wicked) Carboplatin. She is always just a few steps away, monitoring me, taking my blood pressure. We’re done by 2:00.It comes to me at some point in my fog how deeply my spirit is affected by this. I’ve walked, ridden my bike, swum, eaten carefully and well. I have, as they say, “taken care of myself.” I’ll continue to do what I can, but now comes this time when I have to surrender, let these terrible chemicals nigh unto kill me, monitored so they only come right to the edge of killing me. I’m thinking that this is the very definition of the spiritual: surrendering (It’s a kind of dying)—not aimlessly— but surrendering to the specific accumulated wisdom-teachings of whatever calls to us: our religion, medicine, both, whatever’s needed at the time. We follow the teachings, not always understanding why, sometimes not even approving of them with our rational mind, bringing as much trust to the situation as we can.
I’ve only been able to drag a very few feeble poems out of me lately, yet I’m writing this blog in my head if I can’t sleep and at odd times during the day. I consulted Wally the Buddha cat (a miracle of joy who’s come to us in our time of need) for his take on this. Verily, he sayeth unto me: when the food dish is being filled, there is no thinking about which way to turn. One turns toward the food and prosaically eats. But when one tosses the toy mouse into the air with one paw, one turns one’s back and acts as if one could care less about it, this is poetry. It requires a gap, a once-removal from the thing-wanted. A playing, if you will, with the language of hunger. Ah, yes. Gassho, Wally.
My Wobbly Bicycle, 6
in Archive