Nurse Katy ushered me to Chair 14, the only chair without a window view on this grey and drizzly day. Actually, the chair was close to the entrance of the chemo room and I wondered if she stationed me there so that as a Lex Luthor doppelganger, I could scare away any intruders.
My nurse explained that she was new to the eighth floor and working here for a break. When I pressed her to explain, she related that she usually worked on the chemo unit on the third floor, a ward reserved for patients who can’t receive chemotherapy on an out-patient basis like me.
“By and large, cases on the third floor are more serious with some being palliative.” She continued, “It’s so nice to be up here for a few days. It gives me a real boost to see people like you who are doing so well.”
She inserted the IV line for my treatment rather awkwardly and blood appeared around the needle puncture.
“I’ll just clean that up for you,” she continued cheerfully.
Twenty minutes later, blood continued to pool on my arm and I wondered if she had missed the needle in-service that I was a part of back in June when I was vying to be Patient of the Year.
She took the needle out and tried a different spot for the IV line. This time a smaller amount of blood clouded the injection site on my forearm and she compensated by using extra tape to make sure the needle wouldn’t move. I wanted to volunteer an imaginary roll of duct tape for her but I thought that might be a vein attempt at humour.
She must have read my mind because that was the last time nurse Katy came to my assistance. I think we fired each other. A more senior nurse took over my care for the rest of the day and her warm and confident manner was most reassuring. She suggested a third attempt at the IV line but I declined as long as the tape was holding things together.
Terry went off to the CNIB to see if she could find a better magnifying glass for my mom who suffers from macular degeneration. As she left, she suggested I take a look at the November issue of the Reader’s Digest she had brought. I don’t usually feel like reading during the chemo procedure and I wasn’t sure why I had brought along a book that I was well into already entitled The Jesuit Guide to (almost) Everything that thoughtful friend and Brebeuf alumnus Dr. Mark Quigg had sent me.
As I flipped through the Digest looking for the jokes section, I stumbled on an article entitled “I Loved You, I Loved You, I Loved You.” Written by Derek K. Miller, the article consisted of excerpts from a blog the author wrote as he fought a losing battle with cancer. It begins rather shockingly with his last entry, which reads, “Here it is. I’m dead, and this is my last post.” The rest of the piece describes Miller’s triumphs, his setbacks and his self-discoveries as he fought the complications from metastatic colorectal cancer over a four-year period leading up to his death at age 41.
I could definitely relate to many of the emotions expressed in his blog, in particular the writer’s insistence that he wasn’t brave. I don’t think bravery has a lot to do with fighting cancer either. After all, would you consider someone who was caught in an avalanche to be brave? Miller writes for me when he says, “The way I approach each day comes not from bravery but from necessity. The real brave ones are my family…especially my wife. You want brave? She’s brave, and I love her.”
Miller claims he is not a religious person. He states, “The meaning, comfort and wonder I find comes from trying to understand people, creatures, life, the planet, the galaxy, the universe. From trying to be a good person, a good husband and father.” His search for meaning in life is noble but I think somewhat daunting and futile without the knowledge and comfort of a belief in God.
Reflexively, I turned to the Jesuit Guide book and a passage that I read just days before that also spoke to the meaning of life. It is a prayer by Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), French paleontologist and theologian asking for grace as he grows old. It can also be read as a prayer for those fighting cancer.
When the signs of age begin to mark my body
(and still more when they touch my mind);
when the ill that is to diminish me or carry me off
strikes from without or is born within me;
when the painful moment comes
in which I suddenly awaken
to the fact that I am ill or growing old;
and above all at the last moment
when I feel I am losing hold of myself
and am absolutely passive within the hands
of the great unknown forces that have formed me;
in all those dark moments, O God,
grant that I may understand that it is You
(provided only my faith is strong enough)
who are painfully parting my fibres of my being
in order to penetrate to the very marrow
of my substance and bear me away within Yourself.
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