“Cancer seems a high price to pay for an innocuous-looking habit. You get into smoking and you are robbed of the last 25 years of your life. Some cocky souls will say, ‘Ah yes, but they are the worst 25 years.’ Nobody feels like that in a cancer ward. There are no cocky souls in a cancer ward. But there’s a lot of pain, not just of the excruciating physical kind that they shoot you full of morphine to smother. There are a lot of tears. All round. It is hard to say goodbye to the people you love. And it’s scary. Cancer wards have a way of knocking the cockiness out of you. And for what? Another cigarette?”
― Tony Parsons
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Dad has been having good hours and bad hours. Sometimes he complains of pain, sometimes it’s nausea. His regimen of pills already boggles my mind. We are doing our best on pain management but I wonder are we doing it right? His doctor has ok’d increased doses which has already sent me to the pharmacy for refills several times. It’s funny to head down the allergy aisle to the back of store and see the in-store informational video that I shot. Daddy called me one day when he discovered it, pushed the button to watch me no less than three times and even said he asked the pharmacist if he could take it home when they didn’t need it anymore!
I have been out in LA pursuing my acting career for almost nine years now and just this year I really hit a new level that I know my dad was proud of. Many times I would talk to his neighbors, colleagues, etc and they would say “are you the artist or the actress?” My father was not a man to constantly praise me, but it seems my sister and I were often bragged about.
Today was his appointment for some IV fluids which included some saline to get him hydrated as well as a medicine for the high calcium and a steroid to help increase his appetite. We were back at the oncologist’s office on time and walked into the chemo suite together.
A room of lazy-boy type leather chairs all facing each other. It’s filled with sunshine streaming through the big windows that look out to the oaks that surround the building. There are a few TVs around tuned to the news, but not too loud. All the colors are muted tones.
Seems really nice right? Almost … pleasant.
Then you look around and you really see it:
People sitting in chairs with IVs hooked up to them, all trying not to look at each other, all trying not to look at the poison that is being dripped into them. Everyone is trying to put on a brave face and some have even mastered the art of looking serene. But the energy in the room is that of a collective intake of breath held right before you want to cry out.
These are all people whose main goal right now is just fighting to stay alive.
It makes me feel small.
It makes me feel so ridiculously grateful for my life and where I am in it right now. It makes me want to run around and hug each person and tell them, “you are some of the bravest people I have ever seen. I wish I could help you by taking this away in any other way than this.”
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We leave dad for his hour of IV and mess around in the strip malls nearby. Mom alternately cries and wanders around with no real emotion. The shock of it all seems to be setting in. I try to take her mind off things for just a brief moment by parading around in the silliest shoes I can find on the sales rack. Her eyes light up and she grabs some sexy bedroom kitten heels in bright red. It’s good to see her smile and think of something other than this roller coaster we are all currently riding.
This is why I came home.
MDHC 