Survival

[DISCLAIMER: I am a cancer patient. While I may not have any active cancer/cancers in my body at present (that I know of), I'm very cognizant that it could return. I am in no way attempting to say that all cancer experiences are like my own. Each person's cancer journey is like a fingerprint given that each is different. While they may have some commonalities, each persons fight with this affliction differers just as each person differs. Some cancers are more aggressive than others, and not all of us who battle this son of a bitch will prevail. This is a long, and ugly road and I pray for my brothers and sisters who trod this road with me. I remember those who trod it before me like my late grandmother, three of my uncles and five of my aunts.  My heart especially goes out to all the children who suffer with it who were diagnosed before they began to live and all who will walk on this road in the future. My purpose in writing this is to give insight to my battle with something which I'll loathe until the day I draw my last breath and hopefully which won't be the cause of my demise. While I can't and won't attempt to speak for all cancer patients I will say to those NOT on this road who would tell those of us on it how to walk, shut the hell up.] 

 I've had friends who met the SOB whose name I won't mention whose stories need to be told. Out of respect for their families privacy I won't give their full names.

Arturo: He was a big, gregarious Latino musician & bartender who always seemed to be surrounded by a bevy of beautiful women. I met him through a friend and he and I got to be close after I found out that he and I were born in same week. I was born 20 hours before he was and both too close to Christmas. We'd periodically get together on our birthday and get delightfully hammered. One day he reached out to me and informed me that he discovered he was in "the club" (what I call having the c-word) He had been diagnosed with liver and stomach cancer. Like most men, he didn't like going to doctors. He was having abdominal pains and initially thought them indigestion and ignored it. When it became more severe, he took antacids but when it became too much to bear  he finally went to a doctor and learned of his prognosis. A week later he called to tell me that his cancer has spread to his lymph nodes. If they attempted either radiation OR chemo therapy he would have gone into renal failure.  Two weeks later he was dead. We were born in the same year, in the same week and nearly on the same day and were diagnosed in the same year. 

Courtney: She was a redheaded firecracker from San Diego who always had a cigarette between those pouty lips. She had been a Jaguar saleswoman when there WERE no women selling high performance cars and she made a great living doing it. When I met her she was an adorable hippie living in the Montrose surrounded by crystals who supported her self by teaching Reiki and as one of Dione Warwick's "psychic friends". We drifted apart and I learned of her diagnosis after reading her obituary and reaching out to her daughter.

Bonnie: Bon-Bon was a free spirited blonde who said to hell with it in her 20s and ran off to Puerto Rico where she perfected her Spanish and later went to nursing school there. When I met her she was an avid golfer who lived life with a big L and boasted she had the body of a 30 year old. She was 20. years my senior and occasionally called me on Friday and Saturday nights and simply said: "I feel like going to ____. Meet me there."  We went on a few "dates" that weren't dates and she admitted that she liked looking at me, and my presence kept the men her age who would normally be flirting with her at bay. At one point at the House of Blues a gent her age was flirting with her while I was sitting next to her and she crushed him by putting her arm around me, smiling at him and telling him he was "too old" for her. I reminded her she wasn't an actual "cougar" and she told me "Shut up and be pretty." She had survived a bout of cancer but hers came back and she didn't tell me until a week before the bastard took her.  There was a celebration for her at the country club to which she belonged. She had conditions for attending, guests couldn't wear black, had to have happy memories of her and couldn't be "sad" that she was gone but rather happy they'd know her. I was dressed and ready to go but couldn't stop crying so I wound up not going. 

Al: He was one of the toughest guys and one of the kindest men I've ever met. A native of Detroit and career Army NCO I met him through his lovely daughter who is a friend of mine.  I periodically spent Thanksgiving with him and his lovely wife & daughters. He occasionally mockingly called me "princess" (he was an ex drill sergeant) and gave me a hard time about the length of my hair and various other things but, that was his way of saying he cared. He'd fended off the c-word once before but it returned and took him. I attended his funeral and wore the darkest sun glasses I own. I simply couldn't stop crying. He was a great man who had a beautiful family and I always felt welcome in his presence and in his home.

Donita: A tall, silver haired, blue eyed woman from Arizona with whom I bonded because we laughed that she was the ONLY white woman on the planet named "Donita". She lived near the airport and would invite me over to watch animated, Pixar movies and drink wine. She moved back to Arizona and we occasionally talked. One day I called and she sounded weak when she answered the phone. She told me that she had lung cancer and was in the hospital. I could hear how happy she was in her voice. She told me that she was tired and needed some rest but to call her in the morning. I called at 10 the next morning and her daughter answered the phone. She asked: "Is this Jesse?" I said yes and she told me how her mother had died minutes after my call, but that in the time she was caring for her, she'd never seen her so happy. She thanked me for calling and said that I'd made Donita's final moments happy ones. 

Amy: Amy stood about six foot one and looked like a big cupie doll. She had a short blonde bob cut, drank like a fish and swore like the 7th fleet on shore leave. I jokingly called her the female Bacchus and she laughed and embraced the moniker.  She was a Special Education teacher who became one because she hated practicing law. Once when someone stole my identity and a huge company with whom this person had debts which they were paying with my money refused to simply refund me she simply said: "Oh for F--k's sake." she wrote down one sentence and said "in your next email to them, send this at the end." I did and they asked me if I wanted them to cut me a check OR to wire me my money. She fought three different cancers in her life and the last one took her.  Her daughters remember her as both mom AND the life of the party. 

These are the friends I've lost. I won't mention the family members, but with each of their passings I found myself asking why them? I'm oft told of how high a survival rate my specific cancer has. It's almost as if they're telling me that if cancer is a sport those of us with mine are 2nd string Junior Varsity and shouldn't act like "real" cancer patients, but we read about men like the Martin Luther King Jr.'s son Dexter died of it as have countless black men. With the passing of each of these people especially after my diagnosis (Courtney & Bonnie died before I was diagnosed )  I found myself asking why them and not me? Why did people with so much, charm, talent & charisma die while I'm still here? I've never been married. I don't have any children and think my passing would make little difference, but these men and women loved life and their absences left holes in the lives of many. Moreover, there are small children with types of cancer far more severe than mine who are either gone or not long for this world. Why am I here while they were taken? Do I have some mission of which I haven't been made privy or simply don't understand? Am I wrong for feeling guilty that I'm still here and they aren't?  Why am I here when a man with a loving wife, two daughters and three grand daughters has gone on? Why do I get to go on long pointless walks while a gorgeous nurse doesn't get to save people's lives?

       My friend Leah once told me: "there's no way of doing cancer wrong" but there are times since she's told me that when I've felt as if I am doing it wrong.  A shrink I talked to called it "survivor's guilt" I don't know how to deal with it and truthfully the fact that I don't bothers me even more. I have friends (and family) who are also fighting this bastard. Sometimes we talk about what we're going through, sometimes we simply talk about other things. But as Leah told me, there's no way of doing this wrong, I'm just going to have to tell my subconscious that at some point and hope it listens.