Journal of a Living Lady #157
Nancy White Kelly
Ten people sitting in a circle, eight women, two men. The man on my left would probably be the oldest. He is bald, feeble, and appears close to eighty. The youngest, a pretty, twenty-something girl, is doing needlepoint and talking cheerfully to those sitting nearby. All are cancer patients in treatment. One of them is me. The last time I took so much aggressive chemotherapy, there was a smaller group. We became a little family.
Some of us ten have been in and out of treatment, temporarily choosing quality over quantity of life. The comment is often made that if the cancer doesn’t kill us, the treatment will. Not necessarily so, of course, but chemotherapy frequently takes you to the depth of low in its fierce battle to kill bad cancer cells. At the same time, there is collateral damage. Good cells get zapped as well. Some of us survive for another day and another battle; others don’t. It is a personal decision, one which I have wavered with off and on. There seems to always be a short-term goal to drive me on, this time the wedding of our son, Charlie, on June 29th in Warner Robins, Georgia.
The group I am in now is typical with various stages of cancer progression. Intuition tells me that some are fighting with their last ounce of energy and resources. There is a new man here today, fiftyish, a builder by trade, and totally new to anything to do with cancer. He told me he’d never been seriously ill in his life. The chemo nurses are kind and talk to him in slow, reassuring tones, explaining the whole process as if he hadn’t heard it before from his doctor. Doctors can talk fast and be intimidating, so the nurses are often the second-line of instruction. This nurse explains that he will be given chemotherapy today to begin shrinking the tumor in his lung. When that is successful, then the surgeon will remove it. Most likely he will receive more chemotherapy afterwards to kill random cancer cells. He listens closely to the nurse’s helpful monologue, but doesn’t ask questions.
The I.V. nurse slipped a needle into a protruding vein in the man’s hand rather easily, something many of us aren’t fortunate enough to experience. That is why I have a port. One time, elsewhere, it took a nurse technician, three R.N.’s, and finally a macho doctor to finally get a needle into a willing vein. He chose my jugular vein. Never again, at least while I am conscious and able to maneuver a wrestler’s headlock. The young doctor was unnecessarily rough and I will always believe he was trying to either impress or embarrass those who had tried before him.
A port is device surgically inserted under the skin, usually in the chest area. It is a rubbery disk of a sort that connects to a cardiac vein. All the nurse has to do to get blood or give chemo is to stick a short bent needed into the port-a-cath and that tedious part is over.
Cancer is a lot of things. I am not the same person I was before having it. Probably I am a better person in spite of it. Not that I like having the disease or would wish cancer on myself or anyone else. Life isn’t perfect or a respecter of person. Why not me?
Some things we don’t fully understand yet, but this I know. Many friends and loved ones are in the gallery of heaven cheering me on. The resurrection of Easter isn’t a myth. The empty tomb is my assurance that the grave is not my final home. I have it on good authority.
“In my Father’s house are many mansions: If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And, if I go, and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” John 14:2-4
nancyk@alltel.net
