Cancer on Five Dollars a Day* *(chemo not included): How Humor Got Me through the Toughest Journey of My Life (8 page)

But the philosophy behind both boot camp and chemotherapy is to push you to your limit, kick you to the edge of death, and then back away. It’s a simple plan: kill the cancer and try not to kill the patient. Curled up on the tile floor of the can, my head propped against the porcelain base of the toilet bowl, I know that if I survive the chemo, I will beat this fucking cancer. I will.

A few days before I’m scheduled for my second chemo treatment, after the vomiting has run its course, I stand at the kitchen sink, drinking a glass of juice, and I feel something burning in my mouth all the way into my throat. Later I’m in the bathroom taking a crap (well, where else would I take a crap?), and I feel the burning again, only this time it’s deeper, burning from my mouth practically all the way down my back. I call Dr. Mehldau, who tells me, with alarm in his voice, to come over to his office right away.

“Wow. You’ve got a ton of open sores in your mouth,” Dr. Mehldau says, peering inside my mouth with a penlight. He snaps off the tiny flashlight. “It’s a common side effect.” Astride a padded stool with wheels, he rolls himself over to a file cabinet and rummages through one of the drawers. “Throw away your toothbrush. And forget flossing. That’s out of the question.”

“I can’t brush my teeth?”

“Nope. With those sores, if you brush your teeth using a conventional toothbrush, your gums will definitely bleed. If you get an infection while your blood cell count is down, you’re dead.”

I’m starting to realize that everything this guy says is followed by the words
“You’re dead.”
As in:

“If you brush your teeth, you’re dead.”

“If you cut yourself, you’re dead.”

“If you catch a cold, you’re dead.”

I sigh, feeling suddenly winded. “You wouldn’t think that dental floss could be so hazardous.”

“If you floss, you’re dead.”

“Listen, Dr. Mehldau, you don’t know me, but when it comes to hygiene, I’m a little over the top. I have to keep my teeth clean.”

“I kind of figured that. Here we go.”

He pulls out a handful of small sponges attached to thin wooden sticks. They look like giant fluffy Q-Tips. “Start with these. The nurses at Mayo will keep you supplied. Now. About those sores.”

Dr. Mehldau leans forward and fixes me right in the eye. “Robert, you have to avoid all oral and anal contact. That can be very,
very
dangerous. Okay?”

Now, I know I’m pretty outrageous and everything, but at that moment all I can think is:
Do I look like an ass eater to him? Is that how people see me? I do get crazy in my act, but does he think I really do this stuff?

“Wow,” I say aloud. “What a blow. The cancer’s not bad enough. Now I can’t lick anyone’s asshole. When is the punishment gonna stop?”

Dr. Mehldau lifts both eyebrows, and then starts laughing. A fierce cartoon chuckle. Someday I’d love to fill an audience with laughers like that.

“I’m
serious,
” he says, but he’s laughing.

“I know, I know. If I eat somebody’s ass, I’m dead.”

“No anal. And no oral.”

“No licking, no eating. Got it. What about blow jobs?”

Dr. Mehldau is laughing too much to speak. He manages to shake his head and wag a finger.

“Finally some good news for my wife,” I say.

By now Dr. Mehldau’s loud scary laugh has dissolved into a kind of frightening silent spasm. I keep going. “So oral sex is out, right?”

“Right.”

“Got it,” I say. “I don’t think either one of us wants to have this conversation again. I’m sure the last thing you want to see is a mouthful of sores again in a week and have to ask me, ‘Robert, did you go down on your wife?’”

“Right,” he says again. “You can’t do that. Not during chemo. You never know what’s down there.”

I look at him. “You never know what’s down there?
I
was down there. Who do you think I’m gonna find down there? Yoda?”

He suddenly stands and waves at me in surrender. He leans briefly against the doorjamb, waves again, and without another word, leaves the room.

Wow. No oral sex. It does make you think. If you shouldn’t be doing it now, why should you ever do it? It’s like when a woman gets pregnant, the doctor always says, “Don’t eat sushi. You shouldn’t eat raw fish when you’re pregnant because if there’s a parasite in it, you’re dead.” Well, why would you ever eat raw fish?

Same thing with swordfish. Doesn’t make sense. If you’re not pregnant, you can eat all the swordfish you want. You can fuck the swordfish. But if you’re pregnant, forget it. This kind of shit makes me nervous.

That’s why when I eat swordfish, I always wear a condom.

The first chemotherapy session brings me to my knees, knocks me down, but not out. I stagger back to my feet and come back strong, ready for round two. I walk into the infusion center with a box of doughnuts and a chip on my shoulder.
Feeling a teeny bit cocky, Mr. Chemo. I can handle you. You rocked me, but you couldn’t close the deal.
Seven sessions to go. I know I can go the distance.

The nurses are all over the doughnuts. Makes me happy. I’m thrilled to be the one to provide them with their mid-morning sugar high. They’re really the unsung heroes in all this, caring for people whose bodies, minds, and emotions are being devastated on a daily basis. It takes a special type of person to work with cancer patients. I’m taking what Dr. Mehldau said to heart—I am going to try to be a little selfish—but I know I’ll feel better about myself if I can make their jobs a little easier by (a) not being the asshole patient (there’s one in every infusion center; if you don’t know who it is, it’s you), and (b) getting them to laugh.

As I wander through the heart of the room, I spot Bill, formerly the asshole patient, who’s waving frantically at me and pointing to a chair he’s saved next to him. I weave over to him and plant myself on the seat.

He smiles. “How you doing?”

“How do you think I’m doing? I got cancer.”

Bill chuckles. The cute blonde nurse, whose name I’ve learned is Nadine, arrives and hooks me up to my IV. While she’s poking around for an available vein, Bill smiles at her, too. She’s so shocked she nearly jabs the IV into her own arm.

“Nice kid,” Bill says after she’s done. “Okay, you ready?”

“For what?”

“To laugh. I got jokes, man.”

And Bill begins peppering me with dozens of puns, jokes, and one-liners he’s collected, his face reconfigured from his previously permanent scowl to a disarming smile and a constant twinkling of his eyes. At one point, before Bill’s big fin-ish, Nadine walks by holding a jelly doughnut, her fingers dusted with powdered sugar.

“How’s your day going, Nadino?” he says. Big smile.

“Fine,” she says. “How about you, Bill? How’s your day going?”

“I’ve had worse. Probably gonna have worse, too. Hey, I got a joke for you.”

“Bring it on.”

She fastens me with a huge, thankful smile. After the punch line, she laughs and leaves and Bill polishes off his routine. Suddenly we get serious and talk about the side effects he’s suffered. His choice of topic.

“I want you to be prepared for what’s down the road,” Bill says solemnly, but without bitterness. I thank him and tell him about Dr. Mehldau warning me about the hazards of oral sex. I mention the dangers associated with eating somebody’s ass.

“He never warned me about that,” Bill says. “But then again, you look like an ass eater.”

“You know, you’re getting a little too funny,” I say. “Maybe you should go back to being a dick.”

“Too late, Robert. You cured me,” Bill says, by far the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day. Hell, almost any day.

Two nights later, my hair falls out at dinner. Just like that. No warning. Bam. Like a nuclear shower hitting a fir tree full blast and knocking every needle off, zap, leaving nothing but naked branches.

I’m poking at my food, sitting across the table from Vicki, contemplating yet again the whiplash known as my life, and while contemplating, I absently begin rubbing my chin, which, until that moment, had been covered with a neatly trimmed and manicured goatee. My fingers feel moist and scratchy. I look down and my food is completely covered in chin hair.

“Holy shit.” I’m more amazed than angry. I stare at my plate. “Wow. What’s for dinner, honey? How about a big bowl of
hair
?”

Since starting chemo, I’d been expecting to lose my hair. I just never expected it to all fall out at once, like a massive brown snowfall. I head into the bathroom to check out my face in the mirror. Sure enough, most of the hair on my chin is gone. Basically what’s left is my mustache.

I turn on the faucet, cup my hands under the water, and gently splash my face. I rub in a little soap and give my remaining facial hair a good scrub. Hair begins immediately raining into the sink, dusting the basin. I peer at myself in the mirror. I am now totally clean-shaven, not a hair on my face. I stare at myself for a full minute. My eyes seem bigger, and weirdly enough, I look younger. I’ll have to get used to this face because I won’t be wearing a beard anytime soon. It’s a face that feels exposed and vulnerable.

The next morning I wake up and my eyebrows are on my pillow. I walk into the bathroom and again stare in the mirror. I am hairless. All flesh, no fur. I look like an alien. Head, face, eyebrows as white and smooth as a baby’s butt. It’s odd staring at myself this way. I feel as if I’m at war, engaged in battle, and this new appearance is my uniform.

It’s official. I have the cancer
look.

Shaved head, clean face, eyes glassy and sunken from heart-gripping fear and lack of sleep.

The next day, I’m in the shower and, whammo, all my pubic hair falls out. Gone. Whoosh. Swirling away down the shower drain. I’m now officially and completely hairless.

There’s something about the finality of losing your pubic hair. I expected to lose my facial hair. The eyebrows were a surprise, but thinking about it for a second, losing them made sense. Looking at my face in the mirror is shocking but acceptable. I have cancer. I’m undergoing chemo. You lose your hair. Goes with the territory. I’m okay with it. I’m even okay when the hair on my arms and legs skips town. A little bit of a “Yikes!” reaction, but, again, not cause for a major freak-out.

But when the pubic hair goes?

That’s a shocker. A major wake-up call. No hair anywhere else can be a style choice. Maybe I’m trying to look like Michael Stipe or Moby. Kind of cool, kind of hairless. But if you have no hair on your dick, you look sick. That’s the capper. That’s the signal that you’re in serious trouble. Shaving a crotch can be sexy for a woman. I’ve seen photos in magazines.

But a guy without pubic hair? Looks like a plucked chicken.

After my third chemo session, I get slammed with a high fever, which goes nicely with the million brand-new open sores that sprout up in my mouth and throat. I can’t swallow at all. When I try, it feels as if someone is drilling a hole into the back of my throat. About the only comfort I get is from chewing pieces of ice. But eating nothing but ice causes me to lose weight at an alarming rate. Dr. Mehldau checks me into the hospital for a couple of days to keep me nourished with an IV and to try to clear up the open sores.

“I swear, I haven’t been near anyone’s asshole,” I say.

He snickers. “I believe you. But just in case, I want to keep an eye on you.”

The IV takes, the sores subside, and within twenty-four hours, I’m feeling better. I’m sitting up in bed, waiting for Dr. Mehldau to check me out of the hospital, when the door opens and a man in a sport coat and tie pokes his head in. He looks like an insurance salesman.

“Mr. Schimmel, do you have a moment?”

“Jesus, I hope so. Come on in.”

He bounces into the room and offers a handshake through the handles of his briefcase. “Stevie Blauner. How you doing?”

“Okay.”