When the World Stopped Spinning for a Minute

When the World Stopped Spinning for a Minute

The phone call came, and I tried not to panic, but I knew something wasn’t right. They called me at work to tell me to come today, not next week, not tomorrow, but today. My test results were in and they want to see me today. “No Mrs. Klaxton, it cannot wait; we’d like to see you TODAY!” I said to myself: “This can’t be good,” but the nurse on the phone seemed upbeat so I focused on any little thought that would offer some sort of reasonable explanation, just to relieve my mind. And it worked for a bit, but it’s a long ride to the doctor’s office.

When I arrived, the nurse took my blood pressure and all my vitals so I thought: Gee, she wouldn’t be doing all this normal stuff if there was really anything seriously wrong, would she? And then she walks in (Dr. Cold as Ice), and looks at me with those “eyes”, you know, those same eyes you have when you’re walking in downtown Boston or in the heart of New York City and you see those homeless men standing there in the filthiest clothes, and they’re begging you for some spare change. You know, those same pathetic eyes. My mind was racing and I thought, as she was fumbling over the paperwork, that I really just imagined those eyes and that there’s really nothing to worry about, when BAM, she just blurts it out, “So the results do show that it’s cancer,” and she continues to speak as if she has just said I needed a tetanus shot or some such trivial thing, and she doesn’t even seem to notice that communication has ceased. Nothing is registering now; nothing is filtering in since that last word: cancer… cancer… cancer. No comforting words, not that any would have helped, like “Gee, I’m sorry to tell you,” or “I know this is not what we expected,” or any such preparation whatsoever, just “Alice, you have cancer.” 

So I sat there like some cold block of ice for what seems like an eternity because my mind was focused on the one noun in the English language that strikes the most incredible fear in any human being, man or women; and it just stops you right in your tracks, stops you cold. Okay, I thought, this isn’t right. I said to myself: “You can stop talking now; there’s a mistake, I’m sure. Stop. Don’t keep talking. I don’t want to hear it. Stop telling me about it. I don’t want to know what to do next. I don’t want to know where to go next. I don’t want to have anything to do with that word. You told me it was just part of getting older, just a passage, part of the change of life, nothing to worry about. Isn’t that what you said? You said I had nothing to worry about, right?”

“Just have the biopsy, Alice, but I’m sure it’s nothing serious,” you said. “It’s proven that ninety-nine percent of these tests come back negative. It’s just a precaution, just routine, nothing to worry about.”

Isn’t that what you said? Well, guess what? You lied!  It IS something to worry about and now… I have cancer.

After a while, two minutes or maybe two hours, I asked the inevitable question, “Are you sure?” I asked, as if by some miracle, she would turn and look at me and say “Oh my God, YES! This is a mistake! I’m so sorry.” But that doesn’t happen, so I asked again and again and still again, but the answer was the same. “Tests don’t lie.” And so peering into those horribly distant- looking eyes, I didn’t have to ask again. Her eyes told the whole story.

I was numb. I was dazed, and then I was nauseous. I wanted to run right out of the room, but I didn’t. Instead, I asked in the calmest voice I could muster now and say what I never thought I would: “So what happens now?”  Before she answered, she handed me a tissue because she noticed the tears running down my cheek, but I didn’t stop to take it cause if I did, I’d lose it for sure, so I asked again, “What do I do now?” And then when she spoke, I listened. Now, I hung on every word, and if she went too fast, I asked her to repeat it, and she did repeat it, two or three more times.

“There’s a specialist - the Lahey Clinic.” Then she said something about surgery.  

 “When?”

 “Soon.” 

 “How soon?”

 “Don’t know, but soon. We’ll make the appointment for you; just show up when you’re supposed to.”

It doesn’t really matter that she had the bedside manner of a coffee table; it wouldn’t sound any better coming from Albert Schweitzer or Florence Nightingale. It wouldn’t change the outcome. I had cancer.

She told me to stay in the room for a while, compose myself, and think about everything that’s been said. “Take a few minutes,” she said, “and take it all in.” But the only thing that mattered then was to get to the car and get the hell out of that office. I could think better in familiar surroundings. I just wanted to get out of that antiseptic environment and get to the car. So I didn’t pass go, didn’t collect my hundred dollars, didn’t stop to chat with the receptionist about her daughter’s SAT scores, or even to pay my deductible. It was January, and it was cold. I grabbed my coat but didn’t even put it on. Did I take my purse? I didn’t remember and I didn’t care. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. I just wanted to get out of that building and get to my car. Where the hell was my car?

I don’t know how the heck I ever got the car home, never mind into the winding driveway. My mind was reeling. It all seemed so surreal. I went into the house and told my family the news. They were stunned; they were sad; but then they went about their business as usual. How could they just go about their business as usual? Didn’t they know there was no more “life as usual?” Could they not see that I was stuck in suspended animation? How could they not CARE?

I sat there for a while - a long while - because the one over-riding emotion right that minute was… GUILT. Did I do this to myself? Was there something I could have done to prevent it? What did I do wrong?

 It was hard to imagine that, just yesterday, my biggest concerns were that Eric get that B+ up to an A, and that I needed to tell the garbage man to be careful not to run over my lawn. Those ordinary, uneventful, “things” that, just yesterday, were so very important seemed so stupid and unimportant now. All that mattered now was that I could die, and that’s all I thought about.

As I came upon the Lahey Clinic, it seemed to take on a life of its own. I was convinced it had taken its spot in history as the eighth wonder of the world, this monolithic beast, looming in the distance like the Coliseum in Rome or the pyramids in Egypt, and I just knew the constant construction at its base (an effort to enlarge its girth), was really the way the beast disposed of its hapless victims. Of that, I was sure. And it seemed the only way to appease the beast was a steady supply of blood; so, for the next several weeks, I complied, made my deposits, and was sure that I was the primary donor. Nothing could be discerned until hundreds of separate vials were filled so they could rule out what I didn’t have as much as to confirm what I did have. So I made my pilgrimage to the sacrificial altar once, sometimes twice a week, to satisfy the vampire that dominated the edifice called Lahey.

I came to view the trek as my personal journey to Mecca. And if Lahey was Mecca, “Mohammed” surely took the form of Dr. Soto Wright. Just as the cold-hearted witch back home (the one who wanted me to wait twenty minutes in that sterile closet before I went home) was so lacking in everything, Dr. Soto Wright possessed everything I could hope for in a warm and compassionate caregiver. She became my anchor. Don’t get me wrong, I still had to go through that massive iron gate that guarded the beast “Lahey,” but at least I felt, that now, I wouldn’t have to go it alone. And that’s the way I felt up till then, alone. The operation that was supposed to be such a rush job was finally scheduled for three months down the road, and after questioning why this was so, I was simply told the beast had secured other victims before me and I just had to “wait my turn.”

In the meantime, life was supposed to go on as usual. I went back to work, spoke to my bosses and tried to get on as best I could, but it just didn’t work out that way. For one thing, if one more person had put their hand on my shoulder, looked at me with those sad, sick, cow eyes, and asked me how I was bearing up, I’d have screamed. The core of everything I did was dominated by a damper on every happy thought. The big “C” was the last thing I thought about before I went to sleep, and the first thing I thought about when I woke up. I wondered how far had it had spread. It was the agonizing thought that it might be in the lymph nodes that scared me even more. That was something we wouldn’t find out until the day of the surgery, no matter how good the results of the blood tests were or how positive so many other things seemed to be. That one thought kept gnawing at me. What if it’s in the lymph nodes? And there’s nothing that anybody can say or do that can make you feel any better. You simply have to wait, and it was agonizing. Even “Mohammed”, with all her profound knowledge, would try to allay my fear but the bottom line was: “I won’t know for sure, Alice, till the day of the surgery and then we’ll find out.” That, by far, was the most difficult and nerve-wracking part of it all – not knowing if it had spread, or if they would get it all, and everything would be Okay.  

You can think about all this just so much and then something has to give. I desperately tried not to bring everybody down; I didn’t want to keep talking about it. I wished I could have forgotten all about it, but it dragged me down and was an anchor around my neck that just wouldn’t let me move on. Nothing interested me. All of the fun things and the little ordinary things that used to give me such pleasure simply didn’t interest me anymore. Facing my own mortality, for however brief a period of time, put a whole new perspective on things. It was a crime, a kind of a robbery of sorts. It didn’t allow me to be me, and that’s a shame because that’s the time when I really needed to be me the most. I concentrated on all the things that I wouldn’t be able to do, and on all the what ifs, and all the negatives. That kind of fear can do a lot of damage. The very worst thing I did was to take it upon myself to check out all of the medical information about my cancer online. That will scare the hell out of anyone, too many statistics, and I possessed too little medical knowledge. Taking that route didn’t help and just depressed me even more. To say that things just weren’t the same was an understatement. Alice just didn’t live there anymore.

When the day of the surgery came at last, it was all of the best and all of the worst at the same time. I was in incredible pain, and the surgery was extensive. I was scared, but felt tremendous relief when they found it was not in the lymph nodes. I wouldn’t need chemo. I wouldn’t lose my hair, and the prognosis was good.

So, I should have been happy, right? Well, along with the good news came the precaution that now because of this cancer, I was now predisposed to several other cancers, and I had to be tested regularly to monitor and make sure all was well everywhere else in my body. So I was relieved, but at the same time, a little apprehensive, and that is something that never goes away. “Once bitten, twice shy,” and once you’ve faced the “C” Beast for real, you tend to see the Beast everywhere. Every new sensation, every pain that seemed unfamiliar, I thought: “It surely must be cancer.” It became a chore not to overreact, yet I needed to be vigilant and be aware, just in case. It was a fine line I treaded.

For the next eighteen months I was scared of my own shadow. I lived in fear that the cancer would erupt somewhere else in my body. All the things I said I wanted to do “later on, when I had the time,” I decided to do NOW.

 In July, I decided to go to Europe. I had always wanted to see Paris and I figured I wasn’t going to die and not do this ONE THING for myself. I went to see a play on Broadway, all the while thinking: “Is this the last time I’ll be able to do this?” A terrific sense of malaise came over me. I just felt so abnormal. Surely no one else feels like this, I thought. I felt so isolated. I’d walk along the street and think that all these people seem so happy. They’re smiling and they are all fine, but not me. I’m not fine, I thought. It was becoming emotionally draining. I was tired, and I remember thinking how terribly, horribly, unfair it all was. I thought about all the things I wasn’t doing that I used to love to do. Instead, I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Soon, six months went by, then nine months, then a whole year and I was still here. They found no new cancers. Maybe I’ll be one of the good statistics, one who will make it after all, I dreamed.

 At that time, the one measure of hope for me was to read about all the other women who had my type of cancer and who were in my position, that is, the place of the great unknown. Talking it over with someone else who was going through the same thing I was, either in person or online, seemed to make it less of a nightmare and more of a normal thing (if cancer can be considered a “normal thing.”) Concentrating on the good statistics instead of dwelling on the postmortems gave me a ray of hope that I might just be around to see Eric’s graduation and be there on Chris’s wedding day.

 I’m sure it’s different for different people, but after that, I just didn’t want to be sad anymore. I worked very hard at surrounding myself with the things that made me the happiest, and slowly but surely, getting up in the morning wasn’t such a terrible chore. 

It’s been two years, a long two years, and after five, I’ll breathe a bigger sigh of relief, but so far, so good. I had to make the pilgrimage to Mecca every three months for a while and then “Mohammed” said every six months. The cancer I had predisposes me to several other cancers which need to be checked regularly, but as I said, “So far, so good.” Do I still get scared and nervous? Sure, if I let myself dwell on it. The vampire beast at the Lahey gate still requires a toll, but I no longer feel like the primary donor.

 I now realize that no one dodges the bullet forever. Sooner or later, everybody’s got something they’re going to have to deal with. I’ve decided that it’s not what that something is, but rather it’s how you let that something dominate your life. For a year and a half, I let that happen. It permeated not only my mood but my very core. Then one morning, I got up, gave my son hell, told him to pick up his pants because I was tired of looking at his underwear. Then I went outside and told the garbage man to be careful not to ride over the lawn. How cool is that?