the conference calls must take place, the bills must be paid.
Despite my nonchalance, I was sad, and Josh saw through my bravado. I had gotten used to Josh being around for my chemo days, just as he’d been around for all the days and nights when I was in the hospital and for the many weeks afterward, while I physically recovered and we together struggled to come to terms with our new reality.
So on that Monday I was alone when my blood was drawn for the usual tests. Lunch—mediocre Thai food from somewhere down on Third Avenue—I ordered and ate by myself as the oxaliplatin and leucovorin raced through my veins. I was alone when the nurse told me that my CEA results were back. I sat in my recliner by myself as the sick feeling in my stomach dissipated, and processed alone the information that it was 19.8, barely a one-point drop from last month. “Are you okay?” the nurse asked, concerned, since I’m sure the disappointment and anxiety were painted all over my face. “Yeah…Yeah…I’m fine,” I weakly reassured her as a million thoughts ran through my head. Six-point drop in the first month, but only one point in the second—what does this mean? Is the chemo becoming less effective? Maybe I’ve deviated too much from my diet, too much sugar consumption. Maybe I’m not meditating or working out enough. Maybe the spots on my liver have become cancerous.
Josh called to check in at some point, and I told him. Maybe I shouldn’t have, since he had a big conference call within minutes, but I know I would want to know if our roles were reversed. “What are the doctors saying? Get them on the phone and demand some answers!” he ordered me. He called me ten minutes later and informed me that based on his quick research we shouldn’t be so concerned, that effectiveness of chemo is not necessarily reflected in the proportionate downward progression of the CEA.
I was sad that that Josh wasn’t there with me, but I think it was actually good for me. Being alone reinforced something I had been feeling—and denying—for quite some time now. As terrifying as it is, battling cancer is an individual journey, and the individuality of it is what I must come to embrace. Indeed, each of us as we walk through the journey of our life does so alone. Sure, there are parents, siblings, cousins, friends, lovers, children, co-workers, and many other people who fill our lives, and sometimes their presence and chatter can make us forget that our journey is solely our own to make of as we will. But the truth is that we each enter and leave this life alone, that the experience of birth and death and all the living in between is ultimately a solitary one. While Josh may understand to some degree the distress over a CEA count that isn’t dropping fast enough, he cannot know the depth and breadth of what I felt when I heard the news, nor what I feel on an ongoing basis (nor can I truly understand his emotions). A couple of weeks earlier, when the oxaliplatin brought on an episode in which I couldn’t breathe while pushing Belle to school in her stroller, I endured the panic alone and found by my own will the calm within to get Belle to school and safety, and then myself to the doctor. Similarly, while I may be able to relate to some degree to other young mothers as they attempt to cope with their cancer diagnoses, our emotions are somewhat different because they have been informed by vastly different life experiences. I try to share my cancer-fighting journey with the best words I can think of to convey the complexity and nuance of the onslaught of emotions, but words have their limits. No matter how much I would like to take Josh and all who support me on this journey, I simply cannot. And I confess—I am afraid of making this journey alone.
That’s hard for me to admit. I have always prided myself on being good at being alone and felt that I was one of those few people (not troubled by social disorders) who found deep joy in being alone. I thought I’d mastered the art of being alone through my solitary travels throughout the world. It’s the memory of those solitary wanderings that I am now turning to in order to quell the fear