Oh, the places you’ll go if you just shut the fuck up and listen to yourself for once . . .
Early in October I got really sick.
My chemo-adjacent daily pill triggered a terrible Crohn’s flare, and
I was too stubborn to “seek immediate medical attention” because
1) I’m sick of seeing fucking doctors and
2) “in the past I’ve managed flares at home” —
but this is NOT the past, and we all need to remember that.
My body is in a shape similar to that of America: slightly underweight, fragile, pale, bags under the eyes, but well enough, still, to get out of bed and shower and sometimes walk the dog, eat a bit.
But NOT, in body or mind, who we were
in 2019 much less all the preceding years.
When it got to the point that I could not get out of bed to teach my classes,
when I was not eating (but “eliminating” in all imaginable ways) and
got my five-foot-six self down to one-hundred-and-eleven pounds,
my wife and I (mostly my wife)
decided thatI had to go to the ER.
When you have a serious, life-threatening disease (like cancer) and
you’re really, demonstrably, sick (as I was with the Crohn’s flare) and
you suspect you could very well be actually, seriously, dying
you start to think a lot about where and how you actually want to die and
one of those imagined thoughts is never,
“IN A BED IN THE LOCAL EMERGENCY ROOM.”
So I didn’t want to go.
I was not eating.
I was barfing or shitting everything I did eat or drink, and
sometimes just shitting blood because there was nothing left
in my poor guts
to shit. I could barely walk, and
so there is another reason marriage/partnering off
with someone who really loves you
is probably a good idea because
even if you’re being a ridiculous, stubborn
asshole of the highest order that person who was
crazy enough to marry/partner off with your crazy ass
will try to save your crazy life.
(Same solid argument for living near close friends/family —
they’ll, usually, not let your crazy ass get the best of you —
i.e. kill you.)
I think I’ve told this story before. I know I have.
Anyway, my potassium levels were all fucked up and so
my heartbeat was all fucked up and did you know this is
how Karen Carpenter died?
She did not have cancer or Crohn’s,
but she was severely sick with anorexia and bulimia and
She fucked up her potassium levels and
had a massive coronary; I think she was only in her 30s.
Her voice is one of my favorite singing voices.
The moral of this story is: eat bananas, potato skins, stay hydrated, and
if you have an eating disorder or an autoimmune disorder seek help sooner
rather than later or listen to the people who actually love you when they say
“You need immediate help.”
Sarah told me, later, that in the hour or so after being admitted to the ER,
I sent her a flurry of texts begging her to break me out, to get me out.
I have no recollection of this.
My phone tells her version of the story:
By a conservative estimate,
I texted her nine times over the course of ten minutes
asking her to come get me out.
Begging. Pleading.
The texts made her sad.
The texts made me sad, too:
How frightened I must have been
and confused and alone (because it was the pandemic of 2020)
and, oh, that poor, scared girl I was
way back at the start
of October 2020.
My oncologist would have been
the worst oncologist on the planet if he
did not order a PET scan over those weird ass
“lung nodules” (even the sound of that phrase is repulsive)
found on the complimentary chest x-ray
the twenty something techs gave his stage iv
breast cancer patient. I get it.
but it was really bad timing.
I just wanted to worry about ONE thing
on November 3rd: the election. Joke was on me:
PET scan results turned out fine, election results
got a little freaky. (It’s all still kind of freak, but
I think we’re going to be okay.)
(Seriously though. Why does every visit to the ER involve a chest x-ray?
Broken finger? Chest x-ray!
Weird pain in your big toe? Chest x-ray!
Puking because you ate some bad oysters? Chest x-ray! —
What’s up with that? Like, I mean, fine, whatever but
you scared the living hell out of me — and everyone who loves/cares about me —
for days upon days because of that chest x-ray which turned out to be detecting nothing. Just saying that no other “complimentary” or “standard” thing
has ever caused me quite that level of anguish. Like the complimentary pretzels on a flight, or the free wi-fi in a coffee shop, or the breakfast buffet at a Holiday Inn Express has never left me and my entire family contemplating what life will be like
when I’m gone from this earth.)
Our second rental home in Tucson fell through today.
This afternoon, my in-laws went to look at another rental home
for us. They put down some money in our stead, but
I’m not getting my hopes up. Tucson has broken my heart
with its rental properties one too many times and sometimes, I must admit,
late at night, when I can’t sleep, I find myself drifting over to Craigslist to
check rentals in Chicago/the Chicago suburbs.
I just want to go.
Know that feeling? That feeling
when your brain is already totally somewhere else
but your body and all your stuff is still where
you do not want
to be.
You know that feeling.
Never expected Tucson.
I also never expected Flagstaff or Milwaukee or
becoming a high school teacher or getting married, but
here we are and what a wonderful, strange, magical ride it’s been —
all because I’ve heeded the advice of my gut.
My gut has almost never
been wrong though it has told me
some necessary truths I didn’t want
to hear.
Trust your instinct.
Attempt to ascertain which parts
will really eat at you when you are
on your way out of this life (someday, you will be).
Like, I am NOT looking forward to the Tucson heat, but
I also know one of my life’s regrets will NEVER be,
“Gee, I wished I’d spent more time being worried
about being hot than
getting proper cancer care.”
My gut said, “Leave.”
My instinct said, “Tucson.”
My Anxious Mind said, “You’ll be so fucking hot.
And not in a good way. In a ‘i-want-to-pull-the-skin-off-my-bones’
hot. You are going to hate being hot AND
everything there is beige and you HATE beige”
and then my Healthy Mind (the one that sees
a therapist every week, and takes pills so I don’t
fling myself in to the Rio de Flag — just kidding,
no one could drown themselves in the Rio de Flag)
said, “If you stay here you will die, but
you just might get the care you need in Tucson, and
if so, will you be bent out of shape,
if you get to live another ten years because
some of that time you were
too hot?”
No.
If I get to see fifty because I moved to Tucson
at forty-four, I will not regret the heat. Shit,
if Tucson helps me see 49,
I won’t regret the heat.
For now, my gut says Tucson.
Maybe next year back to Flagstaff or Chicago.
Maybe next year another country, like Ireland or Canada,
or some awful place like Phoenix
(sorry, that was a private thought that got out of hand).
I don’t know.
And this time, it feels so exciting and wonderful
not to know.
