Five Years Ago Today,

In the fifth week of chemo and radiation for my Stage IIb  Cervical Cancer, I landed ( for the second time in the week)  in the ER  at Gettysburg Hospital --- this time, with very blurred vision,  extreme potassium deficiency, and very serious dehydration.  All due to the side effects of the radiation; namely, non-stop diarrhea. I had “Chemo Brain” too, which kept me from wanting to eat anything, and also which prevented me from realizing I had to drink as much water as I needed to drink. I was scared to death that the blurred vision was permanent, and that I would never read again, drive again, or teach again.

After an overnight in the hospital and IV fluids, I went home. One of the blessings of my life is that we have an Infirmary in our big house, and I was put to bed there. I went out every day for the radiation, but that was about it. For the next nine weeks, I stayed there.  I was so weak that I couldn’t walk very far down the hall. My chemo brain was such that I couldn’t concentrate , even on a tv show.  My distorted thinking caused me to think many strange thoughts.  I also thought I was going to die.

Needless to say,  I got better. My blurred vision finally cleared up in May of that year. That aggressive treatment killed the cancer, and I am still cancer-free.  The five year survival rate for that type of cancer is 58%, so I really count myself blessed.

It took me more than a year to begin to write poems about this experience.  They are not “nice” poems.  Here are several:

   At the Gettysburg Cancer Center

Cozy club you don’t want to join.

Brigade which enlists you on the side

of the invaded

in a Civil War battle.

To sign up,

admit that you are bleeding,

or that you are dizzy,

or that you feel a lump.

The anteroom

welcomes and smells like coffee,

offers fruit and graham crackers.

Soon you won’t want to eat

any of them.

Door number one: Chemo-

Big easy chairs arranged

around a sunny room

with high ceilings

that looks like a hair salon

where the hair evaporates

from most heads.

Door number two: Radiation

more Star Trek than Cemetery Ridge.

The uniformed sailors leave you alone,

retreat behind leaden walls,

while the hammerhead cannon

grinds and rotates

around every side of you.

Feeling nothing

but fatigue,

you leave for another evening

of diarrhea.

Recurring depression

delusions, dehydration

accompany you home.

After six weeks

leave the clubhouse

and almost forget

what membership cost.

You wonder about the other veterans-

Are they

melting, wild cells galloping away with them?

Are they, like you, returning home,

 scarred, but breathing victory?

Marooned

The sick woman floats on a narrow mattress

on a desert island,

in an ocean of grey floor, pale green walls.

The plane has crashed.

She’s washed up

stranded here,

cast  away into a wilderness

of dehydrated silence.

Dissociated .

Her blurred eyes cast about

for signs of health,

for signs of death.

But she’s a castaway,

shipwrecked by  broken bowels,

by waterstarved heart.

Companion Radio,

The franchised station

plays in the nursing home

where she lies, melting into the bed.

Plays in her fading ear:

Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine…

As you are once a whiner

Still I’ll cling to the old rugged cross…

Drugged across

I come to the garden alone…

The guard , a lone aide

Rock of Ages, cleft for me…

Crock of angels, left for me to entertain

When we’ve been there ten thousand years…

Towels and tears

Is what she hears.

The Meaning of Radiance

Still cooking the colon

years after the machine

delivered its killing light

to the hard purple carcinoma.

Cancered cervix

cancered liver

now friable,

readily crumbled, brittle,

easily reduced to powder

like styrofoam,

sandstone,

able to be fried in the sun,

on the stove,

in the mouth of radiation.

Waves in defenseless air

through the unsuspecting neighbor.

Light of sun distilled, forced

through tunnels into funnels

dancing in the sky at Fatima,

glowing the teeth of the smile of the

child in Hiroshima.

What radiance does to the mouth…

John Chrysostom ,golden radiant mouth,

no metal fillings bouncing beams off your teeth

to burn your tongue.

Sing it:

O Radiant Light O Sun Divine

 of God the Father’s Deathless Face

O Image of the Light Sublime

 that lights the heavenly dwelling place…