Saying “I Love You”

Since the diagnosis i feel like i have an increased capacity to love people, and for people to love me.  or, put another way, i’m more likely to tell people i love them, and they to tell me.  people whom i very close to (but never said it), but also people whom this ordeal brought me closer to.

I don’t think it is the fear that i might not get the chance to say it b/c i might die, but rather that the possibility that i may die spurs me to do things I really wanted to do anyway.  its not that the diagnosis has me backed into a corner, but rather that it has become an opportunity to take advantage of.

I guess I became much more comfortable with the idea of loving platonically in the last few years.  I’m not sure when it happened, but it did.  I became much more comfortable with saying it, even to my parents.  I mean, of course, I love my parents, but I think that in the last few years something changed about the way I related to the phrase that allowed me to really mean it.  Or to recognize that emotion as love, though a different kind of love than romantic love.

So I got more used to saying it, and the idea of it.

Correspondingly, my cancer caused my friends to tell me they loved me.  I could speculate on causes: that it was the fear that I might die and they might never be able to tell me, or that the *realness* of the cancer allowed them to break out of their fear, or soomething else equally speculative.  But I will simply say that it has happened, and it is comforting.

Just how hot the subway ride is

Subway platforms have been the bane of my return to NYC.  They are so hot.  They compelled me to go get the ice vest.  Today, the NYTimes writes on the heat on the platform:

This week, I bought a thermometer, hopped on the F, and rode back to Second Avenue, where the temperature on the platforms ranged from 97 all the way up to 101 degrees — all while it was only a relatively mild 86 degrees above ground.

The thing missing from the story is that it is always really humid down there.  Probably from all the sweat evaporating off of the heat struck riders standing around waiting for the next train to arrive.

What’s in a word OR Eating the Cancer

Yesterday I went to a Naturopathic Doctor who works at the Complementary Medicine center at the Cancer hospital I’m getting treatment at.  My mother pushed for it.  I didn’t really care, though felt like I should do my due dilligence.  My father was not consulted.

There are a few strong memories I have about my father when I was young, especially discussing medicine.

My favorite was when my father was drinking a coca-cola while driving, and in all earnestness I told him not to drink and drive.  I really thought that was what all those advertisements were telling me.  He thought that was a hoot.  I’m smiling writing this.

I also remember asking him what a “shrink” was, and he explained that a psychologist was someone who talked to people about their emotions, that a psychiatrist was someone who went to medical school and proscribed drugs for people, and a psychoanalyst was for people who believed in some out of fashion ideas that someone named Freud believed in.  He didn’t tell me what those ideas were, for fear I would kill him and run off w/ mom (LOL); I didn’t hear about them until we read Oedipus Tyrannos in 9th grade and our teacher had to explain to our dumbfounded class of 15 year olds that this Freud guy really did think everyone wanted to off their dad to get their mom.  And some other stuff…

Anyway, the real story here is when I asked him what a Naturopath was.  Or maybe I asked what a Chiropractor was.  Either way, the answer was pretty definitive: A Dentist is someone who did not get into Medical School, a Podiatrist is someone who did not get into Dental Schoool, a Chiropractor is someone who did not get into Podiatry school, and a Naturopath…  don’t get me started.  It was something like that.  So typical of an MD.  To be fair, I think my father has mellowed out a little bit about these issues over the past 20 years, but he is still an MD.

So we went to see the Naturopath yesterday morning.  His only availability was at 8:30.  One of the first things he said was “you look shell shocked.”  True, true.  He was kind of funny, and personable.  He asked me to give him the history of my cancer.  Then he told me about his experience with cancer: he was a 32 year old filmmaker and he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.  His experience beating cancer and dealing with the MD world inspired him to go back and become a Naturopathic Doctor to help people make it through cancer treatment.

He gave me a couple of supplements: some “pro-biotic” that replaces all the good stuff in my digestive tract that the drugs remove, so I can have “good poops” as he said. (grinning.)  And he gave me some flower essence drops that supposedly help reduce anxiety.

But what he really gave me were a couple of ideas.  Pointing at his head, he said “Its all up here.  Either you eat the Cancer or it eats you.”  He said several variations of that idea.

What really made it click was when he said “You know, if it makes it easier for you to think about it this way, Interferon isn’t really chemo; it is an immune system stimulant.  It works on completely different principles.”

So here we were again, back at the is it or isn’t it chemo.  But this time I found that thinking of it as NOT chemo made it something I could digest and move on.  I’ve been feeling better since then; emotionally and physically.  Maybe it is just that point in the treatment where I have built up enough tolerance for the drug that I can deal.  Maybe I am beginning to learn how to eat the cancer.

Hello World: Melanarrative

I am a 30 year old Brooklynite who was diagnosed with Stage III Melanoma in February 2008. Today, I was meditating through my second session of chemotherapy, and came to the conclusion I should be blogging all of this experience.  I have been sending emails out to my close friends, but it all forms a coherent narrative.  A Melanarrative, so to speak.  It all came to me.  Meditating to Brian Eno’s Music For Airports.

There have been a lot of changes in the last four months.  A lot.  Like meditating.  I only started that two weeks ago.  At the insistence of of the Psychiatrist when he proscribed me Klonopin. He told me how aggressive he was about treating things with drugs, but three times told me I needed to learn how to meditate.

I have been writing emails to my friends and family from the beginning.  I will continue to do that, and post much of that here.  I will also return to those emails and post them here as necessary.

I am a creative person who does things kind of like this blog for a practice, but I feel strongly that this remain an anonymous endeavor.  Some of you reading this know who I am.  I put my trust in you to keep it anonymous.  Not because I am ashamed of what has happened to me.  But because I do not want that to become *who* I am.  It is something I have.  And experience I have had.  But not *who* I am.

I am writing this because it is a way for me to work out my thoughts and feelings.  And maybe someone else out there will find it useful, or interesting, or similar, or different from their experience.

I am writing this because I have already forgotten what it felt like the day before I found out my diagnosis.  I am writing this to preserve my own memory.