Cancer Diaries: Ten Years, At Best— Just Let Me Live Long Enough To Spit On Trump’s Grave

I’m 77— with pancreatic cancer. The chemotherapy has been hell for me, but worse for the tumor. I’m still very much alive; the tumor barely so. Today, when I asked one of my doctors if the next step she was suggesting, radiation, could possibly fall apart in five years instead of ten, she stifled a laugh. She said ten is the optimal survival for pancreatic cancer, best case scenario.

I actually felt good to hear it; so now I know what I get in return for the torment I’m putting myself through: ten more years, at best. It’s a strange thing to hang your hat on, especially when every day can feel like a wrestling match between my will to live and my body’s exhaustion and increasingly elaborate ways of saying no. And yet, I find myself making deals in my head, like some kind of gambler: Just let me make it to 85. Let me spit on Trump’s grave. Let me see the next election, finish the damn memoir. Let me write a few more years of posts. That’s what Joan Didion called “magical thinking”—believing that, somehow, you can out-negotiate death, or at least out-wait it. In her classic book about mourning, The Year of Magical Thinking, she wrote about keeping her dead husband’s shoes, just in case he needed them when he came back. No one is going to save my shoes, although Roland wants to keep an oil painting of me at 13. I don’t keep anyone’s shoes around. I’m not expecting resurrection— just a little extension on the lease. It’s not about fear of dying; it’s about wanting as much time as is coming to me to be. Not to cross items off a bucket list, not to parachute out of a plane, not one more trip to Paris or Thailand or Istanbul, but to keep doing the life I’ve been building. I want more time to be pissed off about injustice. More time to listen to music that cracks my heart open. More time to talk shit, tell the truth, and make a few people uncomfortable if I can.

Through all this cancer-battling, people have been saying how I’m a “fighter.” I now know what I’m fighting for— ten years. Is it worth it? The side effects of the chemo—the neuropathy, lymphedema, extreme fatigue, inability to taste, failing eyesight, loss of weight, inability to drive, swim, take hot showers, have sex, eat sushi, think clearly, go out and about— wouldn’t be a good trade-off if it meant extending my life for 10 weeks or probably not for even 10 months. 10 years, though… sounds like a pretty long time. If not for that dick Trump they would make tremendous strides in cancer cures and treatments in that period of time.

A few days ago, when a constituent at a town hall yelled, “People will die” because of her vote for Trump’s big ugly bill, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, twisted the meaning of “We’re all going die”— by implying “anyway”— to make an excuse for her party slashing the social safety net that covers health (Medicaid) and food (SNAP). Today, at the hospital, I was on my way to see the doctor whose clinic is on the second floor. I didn’t— nor do I ever— take the elevator. I walked, more slowly and carefully than I used to, up the stairs. See the message on the top left?  “Exercise… Take the stairs, burn calories, not kilowatts.” I believe in that; I’ve been doing it on that staircase for 10 years. It isn’t as easy as it used to be. Now my feet and legs hurt with every step. I get out of breath easily. I worry someone engrossed in their cell phone will come bounding down the stairs and knock me over.

At what point do I just say, “the hell with it” and start taking the elevator? I know if I ever do, I’ll do it from then on. I don’t want to surrender while I don’t have to. Roland wants me to sleep on the first floor or my house instead of in my bedroom on the second floor. I don’t want to. It’s like surrendering. But, he says, the stairs can be dangerous.

But here’s the thing: knowing there’s an expiration date— ten years, five, even one— has clarified things for me far more than it’s scared me. There’s no time for bullshit now. I’m not wasting time pretending things don’t hurt, or holding back when I want to say “I love you,” or letting fear keep me from speaking my mind. I’m not joking: mortality, as terrifying as it sounds, is also liberating.

I don't know if that’s what people mean when they say “live like you’re dying,” but I’m not trying to make the bucket list version of that phrase. I’m just trying to be here— fully. Some days, that means soaking in the pool even if I don’t feel strong enough to swim laps. Some days, it means yelling at politicians who want to turn this country into something cruel. Some days, it just means making it to the bathroom in time and without help. And all of it, I’ve decided, counts.

When I was younger, death felt like a concept. Now it’s a presence. Not in some ominous, grim reaper kind of way— but like a quiet figure in the corner of the room. Not interfering. Just watching. Waiting. And somehow, weirdly, I’ve come to accept that. Maybe not welcome it— but accept it. I’ve had a very full life; done things I’m proud of. I’ve made mistakes, and tried to learn from them. I’ve loved deeply. I’ve pissed people off. And I know on some levels I’ve mattered.

And if this fight gets me ten more years— ten more years to raise hell, to write, to feel, to love— then yeah, it's definately worth it. Even if it’s not ten. Even if it’s five. Or two... Or one. I’ll keep showing up for it.

UPDATE:

My friend David reminded me to re-read Dylan Thomas’ classic “Do not go gentle into that good night”

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.