Thanksgiving in the Post-Cancer World

It had been nearly a year since I was last there. December 4, 2009: my twelfth and final chemo treatment. If other cancer survivors are like me—at least those who also received chemotherapy—then they remember that date. Just like we will always remember the day we were diagnosed. I was going back to 4C—San Francisco General Hospital’s infusion ward—to give my nurses some love, minute tokens of gratitude for the care they gave me, for saving my life, in the form of some yummy See’s Candies boxes and a Hallmark card.

It was just after 5 pm on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I knew it would be empty at that time. The year before, I would stroll into the nurse-run ward at that time, or even later in the evening, for my bi-weekly pre-chemo ritual. “The weigh-in,” as I called it, which consisted of a blood draw and weight check two or three days before my scheduled infusion. The 4C nurses had to take it in order to assure that my blood cell counts were high enough to handle treatment; my weight was taken in order for the pharmacist to calculate—in accordance with my height—the exact chemotherapy dosage for my Friday morning treatments. If the doses were too high, it could seriously fuck me up. My chemotherapy regimen was particularly rough on the heart and lungs. That’s why two nurses conducted a “chemo check” before my infusions began, when I was already sitting in a reclining chair with an IV pricked into my arm. The chemo check was like reviewing a packing list; one nurse would sift through the large Ziploc-like bag that contained my four chemotherapy infusions, the accompanying anti-nausea drugs, and saline bags that comprised my “treatment.” She would call them out along with their measurement: “Benedryl 25,” “Anzemet, 10,” “Bleomycin, 18, push”—which meant that the drug was contained in a syringe that my nurse would have to slowly inject into my bloodstream through the IV (my nurse would do this by sitting on a stool next to me, while I was usually unconscious, woozy from the anti-nausea drugs and lack of sleep the night before). The other nurse would repeat aloud that same item from the list while crossing it off.

But back to 4C for my Thanksgiving return.

I put my shoulder bag up on a counter right next to the cold, sterile-lit waiting room where my parents used to wait through my treatments. “Purgatory” is what I’ve always thought of that room—all the weary faces sitting in those chairs. My bicycle helmet, which was tied around the bag’s strap, clanged against the plastic counter. Instead of locking it with my bicycle in the hospital lobby, I decided to bring it so the nurses could see it: to refresh their memories in case they didn’t recognize me with my thick beard and big poofy-curly hair, bundled up in my black pea coat over the gray slacks and loafers I wore to work.

Throughout the six months I visited 4C on a consistent basis, I often walked into that ward with my bicycle helmet strapped onto my backpack. The entire time I was a temporary resident of Cancer World—the oncology clinic, the infusion ward, the cancer support group I briefly attended, the radiation center at UCSF, the various hospital departments I had to go to get my body checked on (PET scans, pulmonary function tests, blood labs, etc.)—I never saw anyone else rocking a bicycle helmet. It was a tactful choice on my part. The helmet—which looks like a fighter pilot helmet ala Top Gun with red and blue stripes splitting down its middle, adorned on the sides with white stars—is a readily noticeable object that anyone: my doctors, caregivers, and fellow cancer patients could see. I wanted them all to know that although I had cancer and was receiving treatment, it wasn’t keeping me from bicycling around the city, from trying to be physically strong.

I took out the bag of See’s Candies and the card I’d tucked into a folder. I walked past the unattended registration desk where I had to check in for my treatments, verify my identity before receiving a yellow wristband with my name and medical record number stamped on it (which used to make me laugh on the occasions I was cranky. Who would want to be me at that point in my life? Who would steal my hospital ID to willingly receive chemotherapy? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)

Past the desk, I turned right toward the infusion rooms. My eyes strayed to the walls, marveled at the blue doors, at the warm blue trim at the top of the white walls. I made a mental note: the doors in 4C are blue. I had forgotten, figured this information might be handy in describing the ward in my memoir.

With the See’s Candies bag in hand, I stopped at my familiar waiting spot outside the two doors that led into the main infusion room, next to the scale where the patients are weighed. I heard someone conversing inside. After I stood there for about ten seconds without seeing any nurse step out into the hallway, I leaned to the side to peek inside. At the end of the room, by the big windows that looked out over the city, Bernal Heights in the distance, I saw a bespectacled woman in her mid to late fifties. She was sitting in a reclining chair with an IV in her arm. She appeared to be Latina, didn’t see me before I quickly ducked out of vision. After all I’d gone through the year before, I still felt like seeing someone receive chemotherapy was a big intrusion.

Moments later, staring off at the ceiling, I heard someone step out into the hallway. I turned and saw Doreen, the first 4C nurse I met a year and a half ago, when I still hadn’t been diagnosed. She’s a healthily slender white woman in her late fifties with short curly gray hair.

“Oh, I haven’t seen you in a while,” she said in a disarmingly casual manner.

I took a step toward her as she continued walking to me. I could feel a big smile come over me like when you see a dear friend for the first time in ages.

“Well, I just came by to say hi and drop off some stuff,” I said.

“You’re not coming back, are you?”

“No, no! Thank god I’m not!”

“Well good! It’s good to see you,” she said, opening up her arms. Her face was a bit more colored then I last remembered. It looked like she’d recently gotten some sun. Doreen was always one of the most chipper nurses at 4C but she was smiling in a way I’d never seen before.

We hugged. It was a pleasant surprise. The only nurse at 4C I ever hugged was Vilma, a short, light-skinned Filipina nurse who was my mother’s age. We only hugged on my last day of treatment when I was wobbling out of the ward, after she read the card I wrote for her and all the other nurses, thanking them for all the care they gave me, for all the difficult work they did every day.

“You’re looking good. Everything turned out all right? How are you doing?” Doreen asked.

I looked down at the ground, shook my head while I was smiling. I’m not sure if I was blushing. This was the oh-shucks expression I’ve had since I was a kid, the look I’d get when my elementary school teachers would commend me on how smart I was or how well I did something.

“I’m…doing good!” I said.

“Are you still in school?”

“I already graduated, back in May,” I said with a big grin. I felt like a proud son.

“Come on over,” Doreen said, nodding toward the nurse’s lounge, her hand on my back.

Within seconds, Connie stepped out into the hallway.

“Oh look who’s here!” she said. Consuelo’s a petite Filipina nurse who dyes her bobbed hair a platinum red color. Then Marva, the middle-aged black nurse with the vaguely Caribbean accent stepped out into the hallway. She was the nurse who took care of me for my first treatment. She was the one who loved to tell my parents, while they stood and watched over me during my treatments, that I was such a “good boy,” always reading my books.

The 4C reunion hugfest was on.

Connie and Marva didn’t hesitate to give me hugs either. Dolores, a thin Asian nurse in her late forties, walked by. She must have been looking at me quizzically because Connie said, “Don’t you remember him? He got Hodgkin lymphoma treatment last year.”

“I used to have a lot less hair, and didn’t have this,” I said to Dolores, stroking my beard.

She mumbled something on her way to the nurse’s lounge. I can’t remember what she said because I was beaming and bubbly and fuzzy-faced excited from standing in that spotlight between Doreen, Connie, and Marva. They were all smiling at me.

All I could do was smile back at them and ask, “How are you doing?” even though I’d already asked them.

“What brings you here?” Marva asked.

“Oh, you know, I just brought a card and some chocolates for all of you. Just a small, small way of saying thanks,” I said, lifting the bag.

They thanked me, told me I didn’t have to.

“So what are you doing now?” Doreen asked, all three of their eyes rapt on me.

I told them I was back to working full-time between both of my part-time jobs, still chipping away at the cancer memoir.

“I’ve written about 165 pages, and I think I’m a third of the way through. So it’s going to take a while!” I said.

“Bring us a copy when it’s out,” Doreen said, as if it was an inevitable matter.

“I will, I will,” I said. I was tempted to get mushy, tell them that my goal continued to be to get it published so I could dedicate the book to all of them, right after I dedicated it to my parents. But I’d already written that in the card I gave them on my last day of treatment, figured I didn’t have to say it again. I’d rather bottle that vow inside so it could continue to drive me.

And just like that, we knew it was time to say goodbye. I handed Doreen the card, gave the bag of chocolates to Connie. While I took turns giving each of them a goodbye hug, hearing them tell me “it was good to see you” and “keep healthy,” Connie took a step back, looked up at me with this proud look on her face and deemed me a “success story,” which almost made me laugh. It reminded me that not everyone makes it out of that ward.

“Well, I certainly don’t miss the chemo, but I miss you guys,” I said to them, just before Marva walked past me, down the hallway.

I turned to leave the ward while Doreen and Connie went back into the infusion room to take care of their patients. One or perhaps all of them would be there on Thursday. Their line of work can’t close its doors for a holiday.

On my way past the double doors that led out of 4C—the place that still felt like some sort of home—I caught up to Marva who was a few strides in front of me.

“You still reading your books?” she asked, turning her head back as she continued to walk down the hospital’s bright white hallway.

“Uh huh,” I said with a chipper tone.

“That’s good,” she said with a grin as she turned right at the hallway juncture while I headed left toward the elevators. “Always with your books.”

I complimented her short bob haircut, said “take care” before I stepped into the elevator. On the way down to the lobby, I was tempted to bust out my camera to take a picture of the elevator’s shiny metal interior, in case I needed to describe it for the memoir. But I know I’ll be back someday soon, either Mother’s Day or next Thanksgiving. This is a yearly pilgrimage I hope to keep until the day I die.