I catch myself in fits of nostalgia during the final furlong of summer.
I'll be running and the wind will shift. The sweet smell of cut grass wafts over you and you are transported to the hot summer days of your youth.
I don't peruse the obituaries as a rule. I was looking for someone but I stumbled onto someone else. What caught my eye was that she was the age of 9. I'll call her Betty.
Before a run, I'll always check which directions the clouds are moving. As a boy, I'd lay in the warm grass staring up at a stark blue sky. The slight movement of a few scattered wisps of clouds was the only indication that time was passing. The silence was beautiful and humbling.
The article was brief, like Betty's life. She died of cancer in a local hospital surrounded by her family.
My son is past 8 years old. I was 6 when I was first diagnosed. I see his summer of awesome and I think of Betty's family.
Let's face it. We all want our obits to read the same. Dead at 90, after sex, with a 1/2 a glass of wine in our hand.
I think back to the sounds of the street when I was a kid. My cousin and I would walk the streets, up and down, scraping old gum with a rusted nail. We were going green before it was fashionable. No need to check in with the parents. It was sun up to sun down.
There was no i-Anything. No white earbuds keeping your bad music to yourself.
Music was shared by people blasting it from their garage or their driveways. And best part of all was that it was free.
All you needed was a t-shirt and shorts. No shoes required at Cumberland Farms.
I wondered if Betty had any beach days. Did she miss a lot of school?
In the evenings, the temperature would be 85 but 70 in the shade of a tree. The grass under there was even cooler and green just from rain, no chemicals to kill weeds and everything else.
Dinner was always at dusk and no matter how much you feigned ignorance, you mother knew you could hear her calling for you three streets away.
Betty will no longer have these memories if she had them at all.
Time will slip through your hands no matter how you may attempt to freeze it. To stay in your own personal snow globe where time stays still forever.
I am looking to run longer these days. I curse myself for not being better. But it doesn't last long. I remind myself I am breathing. I am giving it my all to go beyond what I feel is an acceptable time to leave this world.
We should all strive. One day at a time. Make a memory not just for yourself but for those around you.
You don't know when. Why would you really want to know?
Betty's obit read that she was of the age of 9. It should have read 90...
A few hours lost and your thoughts wander more than other nights.
The morning comes in like a sledgehammer. You truly are vampiric as light flows over you like safflower oil, flooding your eyelids with spikes of day walker insults.
This is when you dig deep. What is the beast that makes your breath short and your night long?
For me, it's always the same.
I go back to 6 years old. My left hand is taped to what amounts to be a 2 x 4. It still burns where the clot was flushed a few days before. If you don't know what that is, it's when your IV gets a blood blockage. Instead of a re-stick, they 'flush' the IV with more pressure till the clot breaks.
Ouch.
But that wasn't what truly flashed back.
I honestly don't know anymore.
It may have been the nine shots I needed to prevent me from catching chicken pox from the kid down the hall. Or the fact that I had to first watch my dad take a shot in the arm first to prove it didn't hurt. It 'popped' and he blinked. Years later he said it still hurt.
It could have been the sticks, re-sticks and more sticks at 3 am by someone who always asked "How are you sleeping, Dear?"
It may have been the pings, pops, hisses and moans from the machines and other patients as the quiet of night turned into a cacophony of inhuman clicks in an unnatural symphony.
Lately, sleep, no sleep, depression, anger, joy....whatever. I've made a choice.
Call it karma, positive thoughts, praying, wishful thinking or Universal speak but I have resolved to be thankful for one simple fact - I am here.
Three years ago, I was convinced I was dead. That was it. I was to be no more. I never told anyone that before really. I was simply going to die too soon, too young, too bad.
To pull out of a daily tailspin isn't easy, trust me.
It is simple really - I am just thankful.
I often do those Hallmark moment scenes where I look up and I am thankful for a blue sky.
Before a run, I am grateful for a breath.
I am thankful that I can do normal things. I can walk, run, lift, whatever...
I can drive. I can think. My muscles can hurt. My back can ache. I can be hungry. I can be happy.
I can be everything because I am alive.
It's not a miracle. It is this side of hokey.
Some will nod knowingly and others will roll their eyes ruefully.
I find myself laughing at the little things that would bring me down. I cherish those that make my life a treasure around me.
Sure, someone somewhere will find all of this just a tad over the top. Sometimes I catch myself as well but even that doesn't matter. It is cool to be thankful whether it is an ocean breeze, a few words on a page or a 10 minute nap.
Doesn't matter really. It's all good because I am still here.
His name was John. I had known him for almost 12 years.
He was a simple person and I mean that in the most complimentary manner.
John was always polite, knowledgeable and definitely from the midwest where people tend to scare Northerners with their friendliness.
I spoke with him about 3 weeks ago - 3 weeks before his passing from a 2 year battle with colon cancer.
I don't always know what to say when someone passes on to the great spaces. Death is a reality for most, an afterthought for some, and a non-topic for others.
As a survivor, you are measured in inches. You are measured with instruments. You are measured by stats.
It can be said that John has converted to the final stat - the stat that scares nations.
I submit to all survivors and those that have fought and lost, that the stat that is never measured is character.
Character lies in the fight. We are dragged into this. No one raises their hand and says "pick me". It's a lottery. We start the fight, Day 1.
Our struggle? Normal life.
John walked the halls with a funny gait. Arthritis took its toll on his joints but never dulled his clear blue eyes. He always kept a military cut for his hair.
In the end, his walk was a pure struggle. His khakis barely clung to his hips after losing an undeterminable amount of weight.
I would ask him how he was doing.
"Pretty good. Doctors are getting together. They will call me"
A week would go by and I'd ask the same question.
That answer was always the same. In hindsight, he didn't want anyone to know. He knew he was a walking signpost and yet people still didn't truly know.
Character to keep marching. Character to do his job until, literally, the very end. Character to ask others how their day is going when your insides are dying.
I can't say anything that will make John or generations of others come back. I can honor them for the fight they put up 24/7/365 even if they aren't given that long to begin with.
There is no Rocky theme playing.
There is no fly by overhead. No fanfare by John Williams ushering the hero to a monument.
They are just people trying to live a normal life. There should be a coronation just for that.
Dear John,
I miss you...
Signed Joe
Here's your fly by....and sign off.
Just know that some of us won't be seeing you for at least another 50 years....
I'll set the record straight - I am not a public speaker. There I said it.
Stemming back to my college days where I lost weight sweating in my oversized sport coat during a class presentation which no one had that guts to have a Q&A because they all confessed they felt bad for me, I have a fear of being in front of people.
It's not a deep seeded fear of the populace. It's not a deep rooted trauma based on being captured by aliens.
I know exactly what my issue is. I doubt I will ever get over it.
That sets the stage.
I was asked to be a part of a panel for a discussion on Cancer Survivorship. Basically, it was a conference to discuss the long term effects of treatments. We're in a sort of where are we going stage of the process.
It's a funny thing when I walk into a medical office nowadays.
"Well Mr. Mazzenga....how are things?"
"Too good"
"Excellent. Bloodwork is fine...." (Awkward silence ensues). "So. How, um, do you feel?"
Here is where I'd love to turn green and go all Hulk on the joint but alas, I don't even stick to walls. No super powers to be had. Just stunted growth, odd body parts, and something they like to call "chemo-brain". I don't like being in front of crowds. Get it?
Twenty four hours before the conference was held, I was told I was to speak. Not answer questions, but speak...walk up to a podium, hold a mic, and talk. I kept pushing this thought off for a day. I couldn't be the one who goes up there and talks. Not me. I don't do such things.
People will judge. They will see flaws. They will whisper. They did when I couldn't go to recess for months. They drew pictures during high school about it. They didn't even bother whispering. It was brought to my attention time and time again. The sick kid with the odd body.
The conference was a blur. Speaker after speaker got up and did their thing. There was a doctor, social workers, and even a priest.
Then there was an introduction. It was for me.
I couldn't be walking in front of these people could I? I don't remember any of it. The last thought I clung to was watching 3 of my survivor friends in the corner table watching me as I emotionally stumbled to the podium.
Trust me - I didn't have a practiced speech. I just knew my story.
A vibrant, tough, outgoing and rumpled Italian 6 year old boy on a hot July summer day gets pulled aside by his father who notices a lump on the side of his son's neck...
I couldn't get the rest of the story out. A wave of emotion swept through me as if I was transported back to that hot day on the cement steps of my old house. I choked on my words as tears started to swell.
I don't do this. The story carried on as a 6 year old boy went through 2 years of "shock and awe" as I often put it. Three decades later, a bad stress test has the young man in for a triple bypass. Six years later, the Chief of Surgery is high fiving his people over knowing "just where to cut" my liver.
It's not a pity parade. I don't want it so don't bother. It's a reality.
I cough, stop, re-collect then choke again as my stutter through my speech.
I tell the YMCA representative.....JUST DO. Someday, some god, doctor or inner voice will tell you can do no longer.
I am done. Speech is over. People stand....at least I was told that. I stagger back to my seat and berate myself over being this way. I was exposed and I didn't like the feeling.
I have many things I need to change. I work, like most of us, on it daily. Some fail more than others.
I don't know what's next. People ask me in different ways every day.
I don't have a lot to say to them. Who would understand anyway? I am better with actions. Show them.
Sometimes what you do is infinitely more powerful than what you say.
Some days you wake up and you want to re-arrange
all of your furniture, set the cat out, get your tickets to San Fran and make
for the sunset.
Other days you try, what some may feel, a more
radical approach. Kris Carr, like others in The Biz, is a flagship spokesperson
even reaching beyond the yellow banner heights of Lance Armstrong. She lives
with cancer every day and is a devout vegan.
No, not someone who hits the redeye for Vegas. You
laugh. Someone once asked me if vegan meant just that.
Vegans are that divine group who will allow no animal product to enter
their bodies. A noble cause, and at times a difficult one.
I am not of the religion that subscribes to the fact that humans are
vegetable matter eaters and nothing more. No, I believe, sincerely that they
human body is one of the most perfect machines in nature and being a killer, a
honed, evolution developed, killer of all things.
I am not speaking about wars over crosses and temples. I am speaking
about survival. Humans eat things. We are animals. And as such we will not go
the way of the Dodo. We eat everything.
Okay commence with the eye-rolling. We would not exist at the top of the
food chain had we not made up our minds and our stomachs to eat all that
crawled, flew, charged, ran and growled. This was our legacy.
Did it go wrong? I am a firm believer that it did.
Kris Carr takes her message in the book, Crazy, Sexy, Diet. She is a
raw, vegan on a mission to save not only cancer patients but the human race.
The theory is pretty simple and, if you dig deep enough, pretty ancient.
The human body has a Ph – like your pool in the backyard, if your body is too
alkaline or too acidic, strange things grow inside you. I am making that the
Bozo Button synopsis, but it is the basic theory.
To that end, Kris illustrates what certain foods, say meat, for example
will do to the human condition.
I won’t judge a person who is living with cancer. Until you understand
that point of view, then you will never understand what it is to be desperate.
To eek out a few more moments of your life. If it means wearing clown paint and
singing the Star Spangled Banner, you will do it.
If it means buying a juicer…you will do it.
As I read through her book, I still get the nagging sensation that
everyone who contributed to the work was probably either at Woodstock or, quite
possibly, was conceived there.
Peace, love and veggies is Kris’s slogan. I might have a distorted image
of myself (ask my shrink), but I’ll probably never be confused for a hippy.
As I tell all of those who ask, take things in baby steps.
I am what some would call a pescatarian or, what seems most popular
nowadays, a flexatarian. Over 90% of the time I am a vegetarian but I do eat
fish now and then and every five or 6 months, I venture into a lean cow.
I do what I do for health reason as well. Here is the new level,
however.
Baby steps.
First. Replace coffee with juicing.
Take that beautifully organic dark roasted goodness that embraces the
spirit every morning and replace it with a torridly orange, Martian green,
thick, watery, some pasty textured drink.
Okay I am being melodramatic but this is trauma for me. First it was
just for one day in the week. I won’t go into what sort of zombie with orange
lips I was that day.
Next, 2 days juicing, no coffee. I decided to use my juices for
breakfast. That’s right, you read that correctly – no chewing for me. No way.
For 2 days, no organic oatmeal, organic omega-3 eggs (blasphemy) or egg whites.
No apple juice infused cranberries or wild blueberries.
Just me, a concoction and a straw.
The funny thing about baby steps however, is that you wake up and the
change is already upon you.
I don’t know how far I’ll take the body cleanse. I’ll restate that I do
what I do for my own health. That’s not to say I wouldn’t take out a cub scout
carrying a devil dog or knock over a Dunkin for a Boston cream. Trust me, the
spirit is there. I just choose to not listen – much.
Next week, 3 days juicing. Wish me luck.
Crazy? To some, yes. Sexy? I’ll leave that to you…
*The following is a harsh account of a post-chemo episode. Some images may be disturbing. If you are sensitive to such images, please discontinue reading. - JM
Saturday morning.
The night was rough. My ribs ached. My mouth was sandpaper. My throat was full of razorblades.
I would begin to get queasy a few days before. It was always right on schedule. Every three weeks.
Friday would start in the clinic. Drab grays and dusty tile. Old, throwaway toys littered the corners. The same old nurse who I figured out years later must have been a chronic smoker always welcomed me in. She always had a candy in her mouth and her hair was ridiculously red even though she was probably closing in on 60.
The long narrow hallways was a waiting area. I would be with other kids - all of us waiting our turn.
One by one the children in the clinic all disappeared into the single rooms. You had to wait for the call. Someone would poke their head out and yell your name, and like a prisoner to the gallows, you trudged into a small antechamber before hitting the brightly lit, still all gray, patient room.
There was always another unfortunate, usually a younger child, screaming somewhere in some closed doored room. It was definitely unsettling. A mass of nurses and doctors would head in the general direction of the screeches. It was a common symphony but one I didn't dwell on. All that mattered was when the door opened to the inner clinic. It was showtime then.
The doctors knew who you were. The schedule dictated everything. Every three weeks. Mazzenga.
Typically a doctor would poke, prod, and question. It was the preface to the sonnet. He or she would disappear behind the door and once again, I would have long moments to ponder the inevitable.
One of my parents was always with me, usually my mother, but conversation was minimal. There just wasn't much to say - this was business.
The door would push open finally and one or two nurses followed by the same doctor would come in. I don't remember anyone ever smiling.
A plastic spit tray held a syringe and an IV pole rolled in with a few bags of magic Drano ready to be poured into my veins. My stomach would lurch at this point. I couldn't help it.
I learned during my chemo trials that it didn't matter whether I ate or not the day of treatment. I was just as nauseous from not eating than I was from having a full day of food. It all came out later, literally.
The struggle to find a vein was hard to deal with. One. Three. Six sticks later the Drano begins to flow. I feel a small burn and the bile in my throat begins to well up. I learned to 'disconnect' from pain this way. Just cut your arm from the rest of your body, mentally. Let it go. Let them do their damage.
The whole process lasted an hour or more. I was usually one of the last to leave the clinic and I always remember the walk back to the parking lot. I always felt 'changed'. Like some sort of poison was inching its way through my body.
Queasiness took over with sudden quickness. Sometimes I wouldn't even make it home. My mother learned early on to have bags and small containers ready in case I vomited before getting to the house.
If I survived the ride, I was met with what should have been sweet smells of dinner cooking. I would simply walk to the couch. That was my home for the night. I rarely made it to my bed.
The couch was a shrine for the evening. 6 pm and my dad would be arriving from work soon.
I would just lay there. I would shun sudden movements. Anything to avoid the unavoidable. I was so nauseous that after a short time, I avoided swallowing my own saliva. I would slowly spit into a large bucket.
My head would begin to swim and headaches were commonplace. The rush would come and no matter how much I steeled myself it was always more savage than I could expect.
The vomiting, itself, was violent. Whatever food was in my system would simply not exist within me any longer. There was a putrid acrid odor that would swirl around me as the hollow sounds of a bucket filling up with my insides resounded through my skull. My ears would be plugged and my nose would often fill with body fluids cascading into a container of mess.
I would imagine I was a monster, transforming each time my innards exploded. My parents worked tirelessly to empty the bucket only to be filled with material that wasn't even food after a point.
After the first hour, my body would convulse. Nothing left to come out but nonetheless, the convulsions continued.
My ribs would squeeze and I could only gulp for air just enough to dry heave again.
Funny enough, I remember the television in the background. I threw up past the evening news and then the Friday night Prime Time shows would start their run. I just kept my eyes shut through it all. Light sensitive. Smell sensitive. Just plain over sensitive.
It was usually around 10 pm or so when the tide began to ebb. I was toast. It was a bad college party for a 7 year old. Sometimes I simply slept on the couch for the night. Others, I actually made it to bed.
It was the morning after that was most sobering. My stomach roiled still - scared to touch anything to do with food. Breathing was killer. My ribs and stomach muscles were shot. I would be hunched over for the day, dehydrated. The taste of bile lingered. To this day I still get flashbacks with certain foods and aromas from the day after episodes.
Yeah I thought I was still tripping once the cartoons began.
It would take most of the weekend to return to 'normal'. Summer weekends meant back to baseball, and winters, spoke of playing football in the middle of the street.
I still remember, and sometimes feel, the recovery. My ball of twine that I eat for breakfast now pales to the Cocoa Pebbles I eventually gulped down during those recovery mornings.
I had weathered the storm. In a few weeks, I would be a mess again. I don't remember how long the trial went on but it was long enough. It defined me and at times, I resent that. I still live with the scars.
And I still remember the day after. With luck, I'll remember many days after this as well.
When I am in there. If I see anything bad in there, I am just going to close you up. It will get pretty rough from there.
I had just skated off the ice. Something isn’t right. Breathing hurts. Being a goalie you learn quickly that the normal aches aren’t, well, normal. Tonight was no different. I had landed like a rock on cement. My sternum took the brunt of the fall.
Could be bile duct. Could be colon cancer. We don’t know. Once we open you up, we will know a lot more.
I set the shower water to incinerate. My toes are white with lack of circulation. A price to pay for cold nights and even colder ice rinks. The sensation is always the same – first there is a burning like my digits are on fire. Then there are the inevitable pins and needles followed by a warm rush of sensation. The pain from the sternum radiates over the left ribs. I turn up the heated water to a point where I can stand it any longer. The theory being I’ll burn the pain away.
If you want more morphine, just push the button.
After the shower, I stare at the scar. It runs over the sternum and down over my stomach. It is raging pink from the hot water. I am thinking Harry Potter ain’t got nothing on me. It still hurts to breathe.
The tube will stay in your side for a few more days. It’s draining fluid. It may be uncomfortable. Do you need something to sleep?
Rotating my torso doesn’t help. Doing side bends is a negative as well. I just choose to deep breathe to see how far I can go. I even hold my breath feeling my heart pound against the ache with a dull thud.
We checked with your cardiologist. He’s okay with the operation. Shouldn’t be a problem.
I hang up my mask and set my equipment to dry. Still hurting. The night is going to be tough, I think. Work beckons in the morning and no one will care about you injuring yourself in your personal hobby.
We will need you to keep breathing through this tube. It keeps your lungs from gathering fluid.
I think I am going to take a rest day. I’ve learned that injuries can derail a regimen for days and weeks at a time. Not a good thing when you are in training.
What you had hasn’t been found in more than 10 people in the entire world. It’s quite amazing actually.
We lost our game. In the past, I would have lamented for days. Losing hurts. Scalpels hurt more.
Whatever bruise I have garnered will manifest itself over the next few days. It really won’t slow me down. I can tell already. It will nag for a bit then go away. I keep deep breathing. This is a hurt I can deal with.
We don’t need to do anything. We took it out and now we will watch.
The game is over. Aches and pains just remind me that my life isn’t. Not by a long shot.
