Aliza Pollack – on continuing chemotherapy.

Los Angeles, California
September 26, 2000

Dear Miriam –

Oh God, the treatment was really difficult this time. It coincided with the oddest of occurrences – me realizing I had cancer. Not just saying it, but finally, finally, despite my best efforts and my stubbornness at not admitting how frightening this all is, succumbing to it; having it hammered into my head: this is serious. Prior to that, I had been above the cancer. I had believed what my friend John, who had Hodgkin’s years ago, told me: it’s a really bad flu. That made it all manageable. With CANCER comes all the horrible, frightening cancer associations. With the flu comes slight discomfort – but you can still function, you know what I mean? You can still get things done, and I am very much a get-things-done person. I am quite incapable of thinking of myself as unproductive. But these days, productive means not waking up nauseous. I am trying hard to accept that, but implicit in that realization is the admission that I am sick.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend put me in touch with a therapist. I was thinking, I don’t need to talk about cancer. I’ve got it under control. These are a couple of months out of my life, treatable, better than what other people have, think of kids who have cancer, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I went, reluctantly, and she has been my grace. For some reason, it is the one place where I can be as scared as I really am. And the reality is that I am. Regardless of the positive prognosis, I am fucking scared. This is a scary thing and it reads scarily to other people. I don’t want to tell clients that I have cancer because I don’t think they will call back. I save it for certain people only and even then, I watch what I say so they don’t get freaked out. I don’t necessarily care if they are freaked out by it (well, slightly), but I care if they show me that they are freaked because that will freak me out. So I don’t express the full extent of my fear. I just figured this out today.

The amazing thing in dealing with cancer is that (for me, at least) fear, like hair loss, is infinite. There is always more fear to excavate and always more hair to lose. I shaved my head and thought that was it: I’ve conquered the hair-loss obstacle, this is what I look like bald, this is what I was scared of. But I still have my eyebrows, and they make a difference. Oh how they make a difference. I wash my face ever so delicately every day to make sure that the brows remain intact, that the last strands hang on as long as they can.

The actual chemo was really hard this time. For the last two treatments, I went in with energy and a bright, optimistic attitude, fully prepared to engage with the doctors and nurses and anyone else who cared to look my way. This time, I just didn’t have the resources, and that was damn scary. I left my sense of humor at the door. Actually, I think I left all my language skills there, too. It was scary going in virtually naked, without armor, and just letting those friggin’ drugs go into my body, worrying about what every sting and burning feeling was. I hated it. I felt like I was free-falling.

You know what else? It looked like everyone else at the doctor’s office was dealing with their chemo so well. I can’t help but compare myself and try to rise to their standard. No one is crying, everyone puts on his or her brave face. Across from me this woman came in, alone, with a full-course lunch. A lunch! I’m happy when I can swallow a cracker or the insides of a plain bagel, and she was having a croissant. She looked so happy-go-lucky, like she was going to drive herself home. Me, I’m lucky to get my bra off by myself.

And to top it all off, I was groggy and nauseous afterwards for much longer than before, which made me feel like something was wrong. I’m off schedule. How perverse is it to be sick because of the treatment, not the illness itself?

I am trying to get myself to go to one of the visualization/meditation classes at the Wellness Center, which is the holistic cancer center here. I know the schedules, but I have yet to get myself there. I think I have huge expectations for these alternative treatments, so I tend to cancel at the last minute because I worry that the yoga class or the meditation class can’t possibly deliver on my expectations. But also: everyone there has cancer. We will all have cancer. They will know I have cancer. That is the key – the only key – to entrance.

Regarding your friend: I don’t know if I want to speak to him yet. I don’t know what I want from other cancer people. I’m not yet settled in the club. First of all, I don’t want them to tell me the bad stuff. I really don’t want to go forward knowing any more than I absolutely need to. For me, ignorance isn’t just bliss, it is sustenance. I talked to this one guy who had lymphoma a few years ago and he started saying things like, “When it’s really bad and you don’t know how you can go on…” Whoa, bud! Red flag! Red flag! What the hell was he talking about? I had only been through my first chemo. I had thrown up a bit. A bit. I ate an ahi tuna sandwich afterwards. I was walking the next day, craving a chocolate milkshake. I still had my hair. Why the hell was he talking about “survival”? I didn’t need to hear that.

I don’t quite know if I want to talk and share with other cancer people. I feel the pressure of having to find conversation, to be a part of the group. I don’t know if I like the fact that we are supposed to like each other, confide in each other just because we all have cancer. It doesn’t feel natural. I rather prefer talking about it to people who don’t have cancer. It distances me somewhat from the reality of my situation. It feels like I am telling a story, talking in the third person. I like the distance. It is comforting.

I am afraid of the next chemo. I associate it now with discomfort, sickness, wooziness and complete and utter inactivity – can’t write, can’t read, can’t talk, can’t really watch TV or listen to the radio, can only focus on the spot on the wall that doesn’t spin.

What I want to try to do before the next chemo is find a way to think differently about my red drug. The nasty, cold one. It’s cold going into the vein. There is absolutely no denying that it is there, that it is in me. Dr. H. calls it poison in my system, and THAT vision just does NOT work for me. So I’m trying to visualize the red as pink. Maybe it’s candy, flowers, anything.

I am getting used to being stuck with needles – I wonder why I ever complained. The key to successful toleration of needles? Breathing in deeply as the needle goes in, engaging in conversation, if that is your thing, and thinking good thoughts.

Much love,

Aliza