They Call Us Warriors

Mid-afternoon, and the sludge rolls in like a crimson tide, froth staining the beach like toxic waste. Fatigue bears down on me like a weighted blanket; nausea roils just below the surface in my guts; a pain in the center of my chest, where the old mass used to be, aches as I breathe and hear the warning wheeze, almost a rattle, and I stumble around the house like a blind man suffering from dementia. Where am I? Where am I?

Fear wraps itself around my imagination, conjuring up allusions of cancers, real and imagined. My head is on the precipice of a headache, eye strain, or both, smothering any chance of constructive or creative thought, mired in the mud of feeling like shit. Wading through the afternoon’s marsh, the dark ooze tugging in desperation at my leaden feet like a vanquished assailant begging for the blessing of mercy. So wrapped am I in the clutches of my malaise that I have no room for empathy or compassion. A nap merely postpones the inevitable, the thought of food abhorrent, as nothing tastes good. Is it the pills, or is it the radiation that pollutes the taste buds of my mouth? Oh, what I would give for just one taste, one morsel, one soupcon of delicious flavor, a piece of chocolate, a lick of ice cream, or just a sip of sweet, unadulterated apple juice.

Fourteen more treatments, twenty more days. A mental infinity. An emotional hall of mirrors. Self-encouragement is as flaccid as submission. Meditation is like trying to find a quiet place in Grand Central Station. Exercise is as tiresome as Sisyphus's endless punishment. Silence is better than provoking well-meaning motivation. Self-pity melts in the heat of despair. The relentless sun burns through the window pane, mocking my morbidity, laughing at my inertia, goading me to step outside into the suffocating humidity and wilt like a rose under its relentless rays. “Oh God, our help in ages past...” An old hymn, branded in my memory by repetition, attempts to revive, only to flutter helplessly to the ground like the fading pages of an old love letter.

So this is survivorship. Yet, they call us warriors. Is this how ancient warriors felt after the first arrows flew after the first sword blow sliced through skin and bone? Did the word “coward” pick at their souls like carrion scavengers on a bloodied battlefield? Would they tell you that bravery is a word only onlookers use? Did fear rise like bile, burning their throats? Did they dread that sleep might never relieve the pain, or in dreams they would relive the terror again and again, or that tomorrow would never arrive or arrive too soon? As I do. As I do. 

I am a four-time cancer survivor, but this is only my second go-round with radiation. I am currently diagnosed with recurrent cancer of the prostate, the offending, cancerous gland having been surgically removed in 1990, with no subsequent radiation. Thirty-four years later, the cancer has decided to return to the scene of the crime, like the serial killer that it is. Five years ago, I was diagnosed with Stage III, inoperable, non-small cell lung cancer, for which I was successfully treated with chemotherapy, radiation, and immunotherapy. The other cancer, in 1991, was of the throat, in the early stages, which was successfully treated with laser removal.

Photo courtesy of author.