I remember doing a scene from The Heidi Chronicles during an acting class in college. I have no recollection of who my character was or what she said, but I do remember the play’s punch of old-school feminism jibing deeply with me. But I never really realized that Wendy Wasserstein was part of my consciousness. My first thought when I saw that she had died this morning was, “Oh, I’ll never get to meet her.” I didn’t know I wanted to.

And also, for my purposes, there’s the part of the obits (written in advance, apparently there was a Daily News report on her illness in December––erroneous, in seems; they said she had leukemia) that tell us she died of lymphoma. At Memorial Sloan Kettering. I scrambled all over the web to see what kind. What kind? What kind? Hodgkins, non-Hodgkins? Large cell? Mixed cell? Follicular? Straight up? Come on Google!

But why do I care? Why does it matter so much whether she had what I had? But of course that’s obvious. I’ll be inoculated, safe, if it was another kind. I’ll feel exposed to the chill wind of disease if it’s not.

Well, by tonight surely the AP will have picked up more details. For now, I’ll send her blessings. Because I can. Sometimes I feel guilty being touched by some people’s deaths and not others. Like, why aren’t you crying for the thousands dying in Darfur, or that little girl who was beaten to death by her dad, or Johnny Cash? But I guess we mourn who we mourn. And so because I am touched, however selfishly, I’ll send her wishes for a good beyond.

So I continue to be obsessed with what version of lymphoma Wendy Wasserstein had. I can’t find anything anywhere, other than “complications of lymphoma.”

It’s making me a little bit nuts. I thought about writing something about it myself and then having the excuse to call and ask people. Did she have the same doctor as me? When Susan Sontag died at Memorial her doctor spoke to the press. Is it the hospital where smart pioneering women go to die? Or just so many people with cancer that you can pick and find any pattern you like? So today all I can think about is trying not to die myself. Trying to stay healthy until I die of creakiness, in a sweet drift of knowing in my sleep.

The book is trudging. I have a new schedule and a new philosophy. First thing in the morning and don’t talk about it, respectively. I never realized how awful it would be to casually mention I’m working on a book only to have people ask what it’s about and if I’ve got a publisher, and a title, and a plan for the rest of my freaking life. Okay, so it’s totally understandable. But I’m just bragging. And trying to show people that I’m not “just” a freelancer. But I’m stopping. I see why writers are so secretive about their projects. It’s a damning business doing something that’s interesting. I think I’ll just say I’ve been changing printer toner or answering phones for the Department of Boring. Do I sound ungrateful and wretched? Just crabby. It’s all gray out there. And I need lunch. And I’ve got deadlines. And my mortality is glowing like ET’s chest.

all hail the good king

Latest tests = all clear (just like Mr. Pibb + Red Vine = Crazy Delicious). “Even the schmutz that was left over from before looks better,” said Dr. Z with a new, full beard. After a cosmic coincidence run-in in the waiting room, the big nurse took my vitals––weight is holding steady, blood pressure 110 over 75 ish, temp 97ish, all good. Then waited to wait for the baby Dr., the fellow, to come in. He did. He reeled off the list: Hot flashes? Gone. Rashes, fevers, nightsweats, fatigue, urine problems, bowel problems? Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. It’s sort of stunning to me now that I had all of those things at one point or another. And that I don’t now. He poked, prodded, said “Good exam.” Said my scans looked fine to him but we’d wait for Dr. Z’s final verdict. He left.

I called L. on the exam room phone, who was just pulling onto Ikea Drive. When Dr. Z walks into the room I hear trumpets, it’s weird, he has this kind of royal stature. I hung up the phone. But he’s a good, benevolent king, kind of how I imagine Atalanta’s dad in Free to Be You and Me. He poked and prodded and asked what the fellow forgot: Have you gotten your period back? The fellow fairly tittered and blushed. “Ah,” said Dr. Z more to him than me, “that’s why the hot flashes are gone.” There are downsides to a teaching hospital. He looked at a mole on my arm that’s gotten funky lately. Said he didn’t like it, that I should get it tested. Great. Great. My white cells still aren’t totally normal, but he said they’re “perfectly fine.” I asked if there was anything I can do to get them higher. And he said, “What, perfectly fine isn’t good enough?” Then he quoted his fifth grade teacher, “Better is the enemy of good.” And when someone in class would cross out his answer on a test she’d say, “First thoughts are from god, second thoughts, the devil.”

Oh and he told me I was “too skinny.” Hardly. But he meant that on CAT scans fat pushes everything apart making organs and abnormalities easier to see. On “skinny people’s” scans, it all just looks flat and the same. And he talked about my Orphan Annie curls: “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

And that was it. It took two hours, but that was it. When it’s really empty at night like it was, and I’m feeling pretty good, I have to remember to have a sort of reverence for where I am. I’m in a cancer hospital, I say to myself. People are very sick. Some of them are dying. And I think of Susan Sontag, who died here. But it feels surprisingly peaceful, unhaunted. Maybe because the people who do die know what they’re facing. Though I guess denial is possible until the very bitter end even in a cancer hospital, it’s less likely, I think. Assuming, as I am, that awareness leads to peacefulness and acceptance. Which seems faulty. But I’m tired. And I’m trying to account for peacefulness in the midst of death and suffering and so much pain. Maybe that’s not possible.

Anyway. T is sitting across from me finishing our jigsaw puzzle. It’s of New Mexico on hot air balloon day. All sorts of reds and tans and oranges. And I’m here, blogging, trying to figure out how I’m going to make room for book proposal and work. Hm. Thanks for reading. Love, Me.

talking cat scans, heroes, and an “anxiety-filled week”

Yesterday I went to the hospital for my latest check-up. Drank the raspberry Crystal Light, with stuff in it, changed into a burgundy gown (they gave me a blanket for my shoulders), had an IV put in. T came with me and in the waiting room there was a guy my age, with a friend also my age, who was also chugging the berry radiation drink. He’s only done this three times. I couldn’t count when he asked me, and he said, “wow, that many?” It was like seeing someone at the playground you want to play with because they’ve got the same toy or book and you’re insanely relieved and curious to see there’s someone else like you. There are so few people my age there, even in nine floors of cancer. Not to mention someone I could imagine meeting at a dinner party of smart hipsterati.

Then I went into the CAT room with the radiation technician, who’s got sort of a modest pompadour, who had me drink more of my make-my-insides-glow drink. He left and came back, gestured to my waxed paper cup (with Flexi-straw) and said, “Good?” Meaning finished. But I said to be funny (It’s like there’s a brick wall and spotlight when I’m there for some reason; I crack jokes like gum), “Well, not good, but done.” He said “Sorry, I’m sorry.” “That’s okay, I was just kidding,” I said. “No,” he said, “you’re the second person today to say that to me.” Made me feel unoriginal and him insensitive. Made me laugh today when I read William Safire’s column on this usage of the word “good” today.

So I lay on my back for a while, heard someone yell in another room, a woman. Heard someone ask her “what’s going on?” then a doctor I couldn’t see injected the contrast dye in my IV, the stuff that will interact with the glowy stuff I just drank. I felt warm all over, especially in my nethers (at my first CAT they told me this always happens). But I felt a little extra warm, extra woozy. The scan is short (ten minutes) and you’re only moving through a donut, not at all like an MRI. And the machines there tell you “Hold your breath.” And then it scans you for a bit and then the same male computer voice yells, “Breathe!” Again and again until it’s gotten a complete picture of your pelvis chest and abdomen.

After, I told him I felt weird, funnier than usual. He said that happens sometimes when you’ve had a lot of these. “It’s a cumulative effect?” I asked, alarmed. “Yeah,” he said. Shit. And then I said, “Are you allowed to tell me how the scans look?” “No.” I told him my doctor’s appointment wasn’t for another week. “Well,” he said, “It’s going to be a real anxiety filled week.” Jesus Christmas.

So I wobble out, T’s there and I get back into my normal clothes and then it’s on to Urgent Care to get them to look up my file for the blood work I’m supposed to have done (their computer system is stoneage). After some delay they find the order for lab work and I get my second “pinch” aka needle shot of the day. Does everyone do this thing I do? When I’m getting a shot I drive the nail of my index finger into my thumb, hard. To offset pain I don’t control with pain I do, I guess.

Then we had lunch at the Candle Café, where I had some green juice in the hopes of countering isotopes with chlorophyll and I made sure to drink an entire gallon of water over the rest of the day.

Oh and then we came home and watched Battlestar. Starbuck is my hero. While we were in the waiting room yesterday, T said I was his. Which was nice. Because I forget to stop and be nice to myself about all of this, I forget that it’s a big deal and just get on my case for not working hard enough, for not drinking enough water, for not exercising enough. For not being proactive enough about keeping this away. But maybe this is just my figurative way of driving my fingernail into my hand. You know?