Cancer

Cancer is a horrible word. It sticks in your mouth. It reminds me of the clicking, creeping, pinching of crabs. I prefer the word lymphoma. Lymphoma sounds like a little shrug of the shoulders or the shuffling sound of an old man’s soft shoe dance. I know two too many people with lymphoma.

I hate to have to tell people about the cancer in my life. The conversation becomes about managing their reaction. It becomes about taking them, as quickly as possible, from my first reaction to where I am now. It’s nearly impossible to help them skip all the in between. For most, the word cancer is synonymous with dying. Right now, for me, cancer is not about dying. It’s about enduring many small, bad things. The word cancer is bigger than what my brother is going through. It’s bigger than what my friend Camile is going through. And then, it’s also as bad as what they are going through. It’s about a constant low-level anxiety. It’s about strong people feeling weak all the time. It’s about too many doctors and nurses and syringes and pills and beeping machines and sagging IV bags. It’s about stomachs turning and tiny hairs dusting every surface.

I learned about cancer in school. It’s when parts of your body make too many cells. The other parts of your body are fine. They try to go about their merry way, ignoring these hysterical and misguided over-achievers. But soon, the healthy cells have to deal with the sick ones. They are obstructed by them, squeezed by them, trampled by them. Chemotherapy is like painful tear gas let loose on a crowd--it disperses both the rabble-rousers and the innocent bystanders. The cheerful, straight-talking nurses sit you in a comfortable chair, make agreeable chit-chat, and poison you over and over again for months. The best thing you can do is pretend that the movie or the crossword puzzle or the celebrity gossip mag is way more interesting than the civil unrest of your body.