A True Story About My Life

   My scariest moment used to be something that happened when I was three years old and all by myself in my grandmother's home, while she was miles away visiting a neighbor. I'll describe that later.

   For now, I have to say that, for me, getting cancer trumps everything. All the scary moments of my life--with the exception of that childhood scare--if added up on the one side, could not tip the scale against the great weight of this fate.

   I have read the other posts to your question. They remind me how vulnerable and fragile we all are. My cancer, over time, has made me feel my mortality as if it were water and I were a rag soaked in it.

   Cancer has actually given me a series of scary moments, any of which would have been my scariest moment, if the scary moments had stopped there. But they kept graduating up; or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to say, they kept descending deeper.

   My first scary moment regarding cancer was when I was told that preliminary tests showed that I MIGHT have cancer. My next scary moment came when secondary tests indicated that I PROBABLY had cancer. Then I had to endure a biopsy, which I was told would definitively tell whether or not I had cancer.

   Finally, a day came that snow fell, so beautifully, in this desert area that almost never has snow; and when it does have snow, it nearly never sticks to the ground long enough to pack, or even to be briefly seen.

   On this day, the snow remained a long while, all day. It frosted the world with bright white, decorated the branches of the trees, and fell so fast it coated the parked cars with thick shining enamel. The cars in the parking lot outside. Outside of the window out of which I was looking. The window in my doctor's office, where I was waiting for him to come in and tell me the biopsy results.

   I looked out that window and saw such beautiful snow. In my heart I felt, How could there be such beuaty, in a world where I might get cancer? Where anyone gets cancer? How can I suffer and die, how can anyone suffer and die, in such a beautiful world? Am I going to be told that I have cancer? Is it possible for me to be looking at such almost incredible beauty, and then have to hear such terrible words?

   I remembered a Woody Allen movie in which he said that the ugliest word in the English language is "malignant," and that the most beautiful word is "benign." I hoped and prayed I was going to hear the word benign.

   For some crazy reason, it took the doctor forty minutes to come see me after I had been ensconced in the exam room. When he finally came in, I swiveled round from the vision of a perfect snow-bright world, and saw him holding a sheaf of papers. He said: "Well, we found cancer, and a lot of it." He handed me the papers, the biopsy results, and my eyes zeroed in on the word I had dreaded to hear or to see: malignant.

   Then I thought to myself: Woody Allen was right; this sure is the ugliest word.

   But later, I found out that there are even uglier words. I could have known it if I had given it any thought with my paralyzed mind. But I was frozen in a moment of horror, where all the horror movies I had ever seen came true, and all the monsters in those movies were coming after me.

   There is an uglier word than malignant, and I knew it the moment I heard it: metastasis. So then, when I heard that word in regards to myself, that became my scariest moment. I read it in a report later written by my oncologist: he spoke of an "extreme probability of micro-metastasis."  This meant that there very likely were millions of microscopic cancers floating around in my bloodstream, just looking for places to stop and have lunch.  And to begin to grow.

   In the pages of the biopsy report there was a black and white photocopy of a photograph of cancer cells.  They looked like little specks of "The Blob" eager to devour me.  This was near a line that said there was "evidence of lymphovascular invasion." Invasion. It sounded like the barbarian hordes sweeping down from the hills to attack Rome.

   But the name of this invasion was: metastasis.

   Surely now there could be no moment to replace that scariest moment. No word uglier and more fearful. But cancer had one more, or a few more words with essentially the same meaning, that made the final coups-de-gras: inoperable; incurable; and last, but not least of the worst: terminal. 

   I heard the word "inoperable" from the first surgeon I spoke with, literally begging him to cut the cancer out of me.  He refused, telling me that my chances of surgery getting rid of all of the cancer "asymptotically approach zero."

   I heard the word "incurable" from a second surgeon, who told me face to face: "Your cancer is probably incurable."  Later, in a letter written to my oncologist, he said of me: "He is unlikely to be cured of his cancer with any modality."

   Desperately I searched the Internet in hopes for some obscure treatment from the past that might save me, or some new promised cure; time and time again, I found my kind and stage of cancer called incurable, and referred to--yes, with that last terrible word--as terminal.

   So I finally found my life's scariest moment. At least, I sure hope so; if there is any moment waiting for me, scarier than that, please--I don't want to see it; spare me, I've had enough.

   Now, as to that childhood scary moment. When I was three years old, I one night was sitting in my grandma's rocking chair, watching TV. Grandma was off to see a neighbor, three miles away. Her little house was situated in a woods, and the woman she had gone to see was in fact her nearest neighbor.

   Suddenly, I thought I heard a noise over the sound of the TV. I went into the kitchen, where the back door was, and stood in front of it. Had I heard a noise outside? I peered at the door. I was so short, the doorknob was a few inches higher up than my eyes. I strained to hear. No more noise. A minute passed. I decided to see. I reached my tiny hand (though I did not know then it was tiny--I just thought everything else was big) toward the doorknob, to open the door and take a look outside. But my hand froze in mid-journey; for the doorknob I was looking at, began to move.

   Slowly, ever so slowly, the doorknob turned to the right. Then there was a little push. The door did not open. Was it locked? My heart was beating fast. The knob began a slow movement left. Now my heart was really racing. Was the door unlocked, and would a left turning of the knob cause a click--and would the door then open? Who--or what--was on the other side of that door?

   The doorknob completed its leftward movement with a very audible click that caused my heart to leap up into my throat. Then came the pushing. Firmer this time. Another push. The knob turned slowly back and forth a few more times. Each time followed by a push, a push that was trying to be firm enough to open the door, but quiet enough not to alert anyone.

   Something on the other side of that door sure wanted to get in. From the sound of the TV, it must have known someone was home; that's why it was trying to be so quiet. By now, I knew the door was locked; but would whatever was out there become impatient, and suddenly kick the door in? What would it turn out to be? What if it knew there was only a helpless little boy in here?

   But the turnings stopped. And I stood there for more than an hour before I dared to move.

   Now, decades later, I have cancer. I feel like I shouldn't have gotten cancer. I am not a bad person. I care about people. I try to be good and to do good. Why should I have to suffer like this? Why should I have to face the long terrible suffering I have to go through before death, from the treatments as well as the cancer; and to fear the final dying process that is still coming for me?

   As I face my fate, I know what it really is. Except for the pain and sorrow, it is the same. The fear is just the same. I have become that little boy again. I am looking at a door so much bigger than myself. The knob is turning. Only this time, the door is going to open. And I am going to find out what is waiting for me on the other side.

--Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka Mr. Poet
Written on Friday, July 31, 2009 3:25 PM PDT
106 degrees F. Winds 4 mph
Copyright © 2010 by Michael L.P.  All rights reserved