I was going to write a post here about the fact that I was diagnosed with cancer one year ago this month, and indeed, I did manage to write something, but reading it back this morning, it seemed to me cheap and ill-suited. It felt in some way exploitative, even if the person being exploited was me. Instead, I will commemorate this grim anniversary with two images. The first is of a receipt from the Strand, dated November 13, 2019:
The day I made this purchase was a Wednesday, about an hour before a date I had with Katherine, back when dates were still possible. We met at the Daryl Roth Theatre that evening to see a new musical adaptation of Cyrano de Bergerac starring Peter Dinklage. I’d spent most of the day working at a jam-packed co-working space, also on Union Square, which has since gone out of business. A few hours earlier, on the advice of my primary care physician, I’d had my liver ultrasounded, a short procedure related to a blood test from a recent physical that didn’t remotely alarm me.
The next image is a screenshot of a text conversation I had with Katherine the following morning:
Dr. Brandeis is the name of a colorectal surgeon I’d seen at 11 a.m. for what I thought was a case of hemorrhoids. The connection between possible hemorrhoids, elevated liver enzymes, and recent physical pain was not something I had made in my mind. I thought I was going to require a minor procedure to fix the hemorrhoids. In fact, I was rather looking forward to this, as it would give me an excuse to take some time off work, which had become very stressful.
In the text exchange, you can see a couple of things. 1) Katherine making arrangements with me the previous night to meet at the theatre (the play was a lugubrious mess). 2) Acknowledgement that I had been feeling ill that week. (This had been happening with increasing frequency, and I attributed it to my work schedule and travel, though it was part of a pattern of foreshadowing. For instance, Katherine had treated me to a fancy dinner the previous Thursday at Upland where I had barely been able to touch my food. I couldn’t explain it, but I also didn’t think it was, like, an emergency or anything.) 3) An extremely mild request from me, post-doctor’s visit, to talk on the phone about what had just been divulged to me. 4) A text I sent from the train after our phone conversation, asking Katherine to meet me at our apartment.
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I guess I don’t want to mince words or pretend I can be philosophical about all of this because I know what you know, which is that I’ve been fucked, and doubly so. Getting this kind of cancer at this age is one thing. Getting it during a pandemic turns it into a kind of cosmic joke. The thing about quarantine is that it simulates the effects of illness. The problem is, when you are actually ill, it can simulate the effects of terminality. All of the conditions are there: restrictions on freedom of movement, a casting off of former pleasures, limitations on face-to-face interaction, increased hygiene vigilance, and epiphenomenal dread.
One year. I am glad that I managed to get through it. I am glad that the cancer is shrinking, that I have good health insurance, a loving family, that I am married to Katherine. But this is awful. And that, I guess, is why my previous version of this newsletter felt cheap. I can’t hit some poignant grace note when I am not feeling particularly graceful. This isn’t a movie. When something stupidly brutal happens to me, as it did this very morning at MSK, there isn’t a goopy soundtrack to make it transcendent and cinematically wistful. It just is, and that’s what you have to deal with: its harrowing, face-pounding isness. Your life on the ledge, staring into the void, while the best medical practitioners try to keep you from plummeting. I’ll write something cheerier next week.