Life, Magic, Awe

08/29/2020
A letter to friends and family to update them on my health.

I didn’t write, I didn’t read, I still have cancer.
It got much better in November. My hair started to grow back in February.
The cancer got worse — I started new chemo in March.
I stopped chemo in June — the cancer continued to grow.
I started immunotherapy in June and though it killed my thyroid, it did not kill the cancer.

In July my vision started deteriorating. An eye patch has been very helpful, but not comforting. I would like to be cool about it and go around saying “argh” like a champ, but it’s not that easy.

The vision and some other issues precipitated a scan this month and yes, the cancer is still growing.

I start radiation this Monday. This is the treatment I had been avoiding for a year because of its dramatic, life-changing side effects. As many of you know, I was quick to claim I preferred to die than to live with these side effects. What I hadn’t considered was that the real option wasn’t as black and white as live or die. This became more clear as symptoms from cancer kept creeping closer and I realized I could have worse symptoms from cancer than side effects from radiation.

Treatment will be 7 weeks of Monday-Friday blasts. I will decamp for NYC during that time and at least be excited about the groceries that I have not had access to since the beginning of the pandemic. I am told I will not be able to eat these groceries after the 2nd week of treatment, but a girl can still dream with visions of huge organic grapefruits dancing above her head.

The side effects will be rough. There’s no sense to hash them out in detail here. Typical recovery is 1-2 years with the worst of it 3-6 months following treatment. I’m thinking I’ll feel decent by my birthday in January, which makes me believe I have at least another year in me (Yes, I want to be efficient like Milton Glaser and die on the day I was born).

I know better than to ask for reading recommendations, since I did not read a single book last fall when I started this annual newsletter to you. And yes, I kept my word and cancelled my print sub to The New Yorker as back issues piled up then slid to the floor in a mess. Instead, I say, write me! text me! love me! while Jamie and I are cooped up in our COVID-free, visitor-free apartment.

While we’re on the subject of notes and writings and love: I owe so many of you heartfelt thank yous from this past year. Your messages, your emails, your presents, your presence. 

This is an excuse, but I mean it: 

I am slow and bad at thank you’s. And I am especially bad when I want to reply to your perfect note with the perfect note back - I get paralyzed. And then the simple note to tell you how much we loved the dozen of homemade mini quiches left on our porch - especially the ones with basil - goes by the wayside. The aquamarine necklace that I attached to the engraved necklace and wore as a talisman to every single chemo treatment last year? I thought about the two people who gave these to me every day. To those of you who sent videos and hijinx from Woodsist Festival while I was in bed feeling sick from chemo, but mostly from feeling bad for myself? Thank you for making me feel like I wasn’t missing out. The list goes on and on and I hope you know how much your thoughtfulness means to me, even when I am not good enough to tell you.
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When I was young, let’s say 5 y/o (pre-glasses and still probably really cute), I was at a birthday party and a magician pulled me on stage. I put my hands out as instructed and he filled my palms with silk scarves. He waved his wand at the pile and in one movement - splash! The scarves disappeared and in my hands was a proud fish pacing inside a fishbowl.

These days, I would like those scarves for the new hair loss that’s ahead. But at the time, walking off the stage with that goldfish was the most magical feeling I’d experienced in my life so far.

This is what I’m clinging to for the next few weeks: Magic and awe and trust in the unknown.