I am about to go ‘off blog’ for a week or so. While I don’t like to advertise these things too much on the internet, my absence will involve a family celebration, some extraordinarily cheap middle-of-the-night plane fares and a nearby tropical location about which I will say nothing other than: “Don't mention Elizabeth Gilbert.”
To keep this baby blog a lively place I wanted to put up a new post before our departure, but I've been too distracted to write anything. Glimpsing the horrifyingly bald identity photo in my new passport reminded me that I had written something during chemotherapy. A friend had suggested that writing might be helpful during active treatment, but I felt utterly dried up and as if I had nothing whatsoever to say (this has obviously changed - ahem!). The only things that I wrote during all those months were one poem and this little piece about my first chemotherapy session. (And yes, I did make it to the end of 'The Sopranos' - I hope to reflect on that later!). Best wishes to all, and back soon...
At my first chemotherapy session I am directed to an armchair, beside which stand an IV pole and a table. After setting up my laptop and headphones, I pull series 1 of ‘The Sopranos’ out of my handbag. Somehow I have reached the age of 41 without seeing this HBO classic. Six chemo treatments, each three weeks apart, six ‘Sopranos’ series – perfect! Something good has to come of this, I say jokingly to the nurse. In truth, I need the distraction. Other patients sit alone or with a supporter, talking softly, reading, or gazing around the room, but I need diversion with heft. I am shown an instructional film about infection risk, hair loss, exhaustion, premature menopause. The nurse puts heat packs and a tourniquet on my arm, skilfully teases up a vein and tells me to stay very still. I feel stinging and a rush of coldness. At last I press ‘play’, and sink with relief into Tony Soprano’s passenger seat as he drives along the New Jersey Turnpike.
In the pilot episode we meet Tony, a mobster whose life has been thrown into turmoil by the onset of panic attacks. His line of work has no room for frailty, either real or perceived. In secrecy he starts therapy, and it is unveiled that the first attack coincided with the departure of a family of wild ducks which had made a home in his pool, bringing him an intense and uncharacteristically innocent delight.
Tony reminds me a little of Captain Ahab. Both are impatient, violent men in positions of authority. Both experience anguish due to the actions of wild creatures which symbolise things beyond their control. To me, the malevolent white whale whose existence Ahab cannot bear is the randomness of the universe; the dreadful truth that our fortunes are largely governed by luck and do not correspond to our godliness or what we may deserve. Tony’s therapist thinks the ducks represent his family, but they could also stand for love itself, or the relentless cycle of life - things he cannot bend to his will. As toxins flow into my body – to no guaranteed end – I realise the strength that it takes to fully acknowledge lack of control without having it break you; or at least without wanting to ram the next person who chirps “everything happens for a reason” with your car, Tony Soprano-style.
The IV bag is changed and episode 2 begins. An elderly man in an armchair on the other side of the room sees me flinch at the violence on screen - I almost call out to let him know I’m OK. The nurse comes to tell me I’m finished just as Tony uses a telephone to bash a strip club barman in the face. Embarrassed, I hurriedly close the screen as she hands me a bag containing five different anti-nausea medications. Tablets are to nausea as telephone is to barman. Cannula removed, I pack up my laptop, confirm my next session and walk out to wait for my lift home and then – what? Mouth ulcers? Vomiting? Forgetfulness? I have no idea what chemotherapy – or ‘The Sopranos’ – will bring, but sense that I’ll draw a twisted comfort from one while enduring the other. As I sink into a real life passenger seat, the theme song pulses in my head. Woke up this morning, the world turned upside down...
