Cancer

TNG is taking a much needed break from Dec 19-Jan 4. TNG will return with new content on Jan 5. Until then, please enjoy this post from the past year. Original publish date: Thursday, July 26, 2007.

I don’t want to smoke another cigarette.

As I write this I’m unsure of my ability to affect this change, but after spending 5 days at MD Anderson, the largest oncology center in the United States, I figure that increasing my chances of never visiting this place or any like it ever again requires quitting as a first step.

I don’t like Texas, and when it comes to messing with it, I rarely pass on the opportunity. If I had to pick one vile spot in this super-sized cow patty dumping ground to focus my disgust, It would be the sprawling corporate-created concrete vortex of cultural suction set spinning by capitalism and kitsch otherwise known as Houston. I also hate cancer, as everything causes it and everyone not killed by a terrorist, a freak accident, or a motor vehicle seems to die from it. The irony is therefore not lost on me that I am spending a week of vacation in Houston, Texas at a cancer clinic. I flew down from DC to drive my elderly parents here for testing, consultation and treatment of my step-father’s colon cancer.

I’ve spent much of the time pushing my step-dad’s wheel chair from one place to another, with my mom in tow. My mother gets confused and anxious and my step-dad can barely hear, so there has been some effort in taking care of them and getting them where they need to be. The stress has been mild, and the emotional fatigue that has compressed over several days is a small price to pay for spend time with them and being of service. Watching my mom manage the responsibility of taking care of my step dad and witnessing the closeness of their bond has been the most fulfilling aspect of the trip. They hold hands and are playful with one another, in spite of their last two years being defined by hurricanes, chemotherapy, chronic pain, and constantly changing colostomy bags. My mother tells me how my step-dad would often hallucinate, sometimes talking to me as though I were present. He would thrash in his sleep, and speak only in french while in his delirium. None of this has outwardly dimmed their spirit, which makes it more jolting when my mother drops bombshells without warning, such as "We visited the gravesite last week where we're going to bury him" in between talking about Alison Krauss and discussing old stories about their adventures as truckers. These moments are starkly contrasted with their usual manner. She's good at seamlessy dropping them into mundane conversation, and they always nail me.

I’ve never been in a medical complex this massive. It takes up several city blocks and most of it is connected through a series of "skybridges", as well as an underground tunnel for a city bus set on rails. It’s also the most comfortable hospital I’ve been in, with waterfalls, lazy boy recliners, aquariums, and a staff obviously indoctrinated with a philosophy of projected smiles and hope, even if staff are the only ones that practice it. They are aggresively upbeat, from the cashier in the cafeteria to workers you meet in the elevator to the attendees at every reception desk. It’s my first hospital experience where the staff seems more medicated than the patients. You walk through the halls and there are testimonials every 20 feet with the picture of some intrepid person who claims, "I endure", "I preservere", "I prepare", etc; etc. I keep looking for the one that says "I could drop dead at any moment" or "My insurance company is doing everything it can to fuck me over", but I guess there’s already enough reality to deal with.

My first day the only non-staff smile I saw was from a man eagerly waiting for his last check up before leaving the clinic after being here "22 days, 12 hours and 37 minutes", or so he told me. Every other slack face I’ve seen looks resigned to the fact that they’re fighting a losing battle. Here, the cliche "dead eyes" moves from the realm of metaphor to reality by consumate number. Sitting, standing, or moving you can tell the difference between the patients and the family accompanying them not only by dead eyes but by attitude. The families show a mix of worried support or solemn patience, while the patients just look pissed and distant. You can look at them straight in the eye and they don’t flinch, they don’t turn from your gaze. On more than one occasion I couldn’t turn mine either. You just stare at each other, and its ok. No one has the energy to be anything less than real.

The massiveness of the complex and the practical but macabre way that the type of cancer you’re suffering from is stratified by floor (I’ve spent most of my time on the 7th--the gastrointestinal wing), does allow for a sense of awe, but mostly I feel unmoved. The first few times I’ve seen a bald kid or a person who has decided to fight (I saw a proud woman on Tuesday with a handkerchief on her head and a shirt that said "Cancer is not for sissies") I’ve felt emotion, but the ubiquity of dead eyes numbs you quickly.

I saw a kid and his mother yesterday afternoon. He couldn’t have been more than 12-- fat, bald, with a swollen head and deep-set eyes and a pole replacing his amputated right leg."God is in control" in big black block lettering covered his white shirt but one look at the kid and it was obvious to me that he knew he was fucked. Mom got a shit fit from him while she wheeled him toward an appointment, and she spoke to him with a patient sing-song cadence, nervous laughter on the edge of her tone implied that she didn’t want the limited days remaining with her son to be cluttered by anything less than a mother’s nurturance. I would guess he didn’t care for God’s plan so much as his mother needed to. In spite of the many signs of his proxied presence littering waiting room tables or adorning t-shirts, I get the distinct feeling that many of the people here think that God is not only not in control, but that he doesn’t even visit Texas during the middle of summer.

In walking around this place it becomes obvious you are in a working city, and as in any city a great many services are necessary and a great effort is required to make the elements of that city function properly, so the place is always buzzing with a variety of people engaged in the process of service. The only services this place makes you crave more than having sex is eating and distracting yourself, so as a non-patient my favorite service is the cafeteria, followed by the library. To their credit, the cafeteria provides great food at cost, so you can get an amazing gourmet plate lunch for under five bucks, including desert. They even have sushi, mediterranean food, and a chick-filet. It’s just too bad you have to know someone with cancer in order to eat there.

I’m sitting in my hotel room next to Reliant Stadium waiting to drive us the hell out of here. There’s really not much more I want to say about this place except don’t come here.