the world behind the world

You know how you get to be friends with someone or you become a neighbour of someone, and you suddenly see something? It may not apply to you, what you see or hear them say about someone or something. It might be a moment of great compassion (in an "A side" sort of person. It might be the opposite characteristic in a "B side" one). But you just know it will come your direction one day.

When you have late stage cancer it comes your way. The compassion is instant: whole-cloth, enduring, patient generosity and lovingness. You are blanketed in a top-priority care system that comes from deep in their character. Mike, Christine, Joanna, Ellen, Adrienne, Elizabeth, Hannah, Jordan, Dawn, Courtenay, Bill McLean, Monique, Allison, Leah, Amanda and Ramsey, Rose and Bill, Ing, Siobhan and Sinead, Suzanne McGee, Keith, Suzanne next door, Timmy and Doug, Cathy and Leslie, Ann and Peter Forth, Tracey Gleadhall, Jocelyne Monette, Luanne, Tim Jones, Abby, Norma, Sylvie Bedard, Penny and Shelley, and all the people who read the blog and have sent me good wishes are exactly the beautiful, compassionate people I ever thought them to be. The size and amazingness of their kindness has been a gift right from God. That I ever got to meet any one of them has been a blessing nothing could ever top. My friends from Wordscape, like Steph and LeeAnn and Neta, and Deb astound me. That I am on prayer lists for them and that I matter so much to them fills me with amazement. People's capacity for kindness is awe-inspiring.

The frightening trait you once witnessed in the B side person, however, will also beam your way. What once gave you pause,  aimed at another will come at you. Perhaps that opposite-of-compassion quality will only come at you if that person is under stress. They can't cope. In the process of their drowning they drown you too.

You have always known this about that B side person you may have sheltered and nurtured but normally you have no needs from them so you pray you never have needs and won't have to face it.

But life doesn't always hand you tough patches one at a time.

Right now my neighbours, terrified there will be a kennel opening up behind them are acting crazy. I cannot convince them otherwise, not that they give me a chance to. They are the kind of people who seem like they must listen to right-wing, old white-man, bitter a.m. talk-radio; their hearts lean towards finding fault in others, and paranoid fantasies of the peace being constantly under siege by potential malfeasance.

Jordan and Dawn and Dave and I are on the back deck with my three legal dogs and suddenly there is a breaking down of the cedars on one side of the yard. Cracking twigs drive the dogs barking at the people who are doing this. Cameras flash and shouts of "That was a good one" and "Gotcha" abound. I race towards the dogs and see this couple in their fifties snapping pics as the dogs charge them. why they are taking pics? The woman shouts "it's for the City."

The city knows we only have three dogs and are compliant with zoning laws. They have been sent by my neighbours enough times to check us out. The local community association head, however, has a bee in his bonnet about "people running businesses out of their homes who should be paying thrice the residential tax rate."

I have explained we pick up dogs and drop off and are always compliant with the laws. What he says about the tax we should be paying is not even true, according to the city. But still he has gone around to the neighbours, made up a story and asked them to take pictures of our backyard. It is harrassment of us, by people worried about their property values should we decide to become a "kennel." They've done worse to us. Lied on a review of my business, pretended to be a disgruntled client there and only removed it, coming to my door to admit what they did after I cried my eyes out for a month last year. The evening ended with the man yelling, in response to my simply cutting through and asking him to please leave me alone this year as I had just been diagnosed with stage 3b out of 4 stages of cancer, "WHO CARES? WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE ONE DAY!!!!"

I called this blog "the world behind the world" for a coupla reasons. One is that we are living among one another, shoulder to shoulder on this earth and certain absences of a compassionate attitude in people get brushed aside by us, not magnified, as we properly strive to ignore the intuitions that arise about certain people. We even sometimes joke that if "the junta came through this town" that this person or that person would be the first to line up to assist with the torture, or voluntarily pick up the phone and turn in the minority hiding in a neighbour's attic. Without being melodramatic, I can tell you that when you are poor, and very sick, the composition of people's character matters.

When I went to Christine and Mike's cottage for three days last week Dave was slack with the stanching of the dogbarking and now we are under seige again.

My hair is coming out in clumps. It  started as a few hairs on Sunday and now it is clumps. I am scared. I love my big hair. I am vain and I do not want to be bald. Bald chic is for skinny women. I, on the other hand, will look scary. I am not going to be the scarf on the head type. Scarf on the head looks good on orthodox muslims. I am so depressed about these clumps coming out I fantasize about running in front of fast-moving trucks. My scalp hurts.

The nausea was awful and lasted a week. Twice I had to call the nurse to come inject me to get rid of it. Thank God this is Canada and even poor folk like me with no drug plan get free drugs, radiation, herceptin, chemo, and home nursing visits. In the tv show, "Breaking Bad," the main character has to cook crystal meth to pay for this 90,000 dollar treatment. Even Obama can't get guys like the character on this show legal, free treatment. Why? Cos the character of the majority hearts down south of us in Canada are on the B side. Scary. Still, we aren't immune here on this side of the border. If I want the good anti-nausea drugs here, it would cost $2500.00. Not money we have.


I had a biopsy yesterday on what the radiologist thinks is a  cancerous node on my lung. Atop, not inside the lung. It hurt. Two needles, four inches long, were slid sideways into my chest and it hurt. I looked in the test tube afterwards at the culprits: red tiny dots floating in a green solution. About to be sent to the pathologist. I don't have to wait for results. I have known all along the cancer had not been contained in the flesh removed during my surgery.

Dr. Caudreliere is my radiation oncologist. I met him two days before Paul, my chemo oncologist; about a week or so before I had my first and only chemo recently. The chemo oncologist is considered your main oncologist.

I was waiting in the examining room to meet him. The door finally opened and instead of him, a woman appeared, telling me she was his resident. You may recall how hard I worked to avoid being operated on by a student. In short, I told her I had not been asked if I cared to contribute to somebody else's education at this time in my life and for some reason I didn't want to do so right now, and I said this in complete, tearful meltdown.

Later, when Dr. C. walked in, I had gotten over it and apologized to the resident, and then Dr. C. was sitting in front of me in a gorgeous, expensive shirt, talking in an accent like that of Peter Sellers in the Pink Panther movies. I half expected him to ask if I wanted a "rrrrhhhooom" to gather myself in. He is from France, near Belgium.

They told me that "all the cancer has been removed: the surgery on June 7th has taken it all out and I am cancer free." They were like first time parents with a five year old explaining about Santa. Really needing me to buy in. I pulled a face. The one where one side of your mouth smirks. He said "what is that? what are you thinking?" and I said that after reading about HER2 proteins, or accelerators riding atop the cancer cells, whipping them to spread fast, far, and wide, carrying their own blood supplies, I had zero faith that that was so.

Part of it is me protecting myself from future meltdowns. Yesterday I was lying on the ole biopsy bed, now deeply familiar, and gazing in the ole ultrasound screen, watching the black oblong mass that looked rough around the edges, where my lymph node on my lung was supposed to be, and I had a moment of "told you so."

I am dead, let's face it. Maybe a year, maybe five, but those odds that Paul told me would improve with chemo, herceptin, and radiation, do not add up to a total 100 percent turnaround in my condition. I feel weak a lot of the time, tired, faint, and my hair is coming out in clumps. After a week of nausea, I had a week of deep fatigue and constipation.

My sweet niece, Hannah, asked me how the dogs were dealing with it. Glad she asked. Jaida, who usually pummels me with her paws and licks me indiscriminately, and Simba and Poirot, too, were circumspect and respectful. Jaida put her tongue on my skin once, curled her black lips back and down with her mouth open in a frozen, hilarious grimace. She curled up with all four feet near my head in the week I spent sleeping and barfing, her pitbull face near mine. It was adorable.

Bobbi, Joanna and Ellen's dog, who lives on my bed, was even cuter. She normally gives me these rough, jokey hugs. That week, any time I was particularly sick and miserable, she came up right next to me and slept touching the sheet I was wrapped in. Very different from her bottom of the bed preference. Her eyes told it all, she has been sick enough in her life to really identify.

Eiger is hilarious. When I melted down at the neighbour, and Dave escorted me, sobbing, into the house, I lay on the bed, and Eiger came right up, all black and white Great Dane of him, and nestled down right next to me, all curled up, leaning against me. Bucky hiked his arthritic ole frame up onto the bed to join Bobbi and Eiger. (Bobbi grrrrr'd at him.) I will try not to melt down again in front of them as it is very bad for their emotional health, not to mention mine.

People tell me to shave my head before the clumps look too weird, but I say, if I can tolerate the dog hair all over the clothes and bedding, my own hair should be equally tolerated around the place.

The cottage was so amazing. I will add photos here once I get them. it was beautiful and peaceful and fun. Poirot cracked us up hanging off the dock one day as we three swam and he tried to jump in after his athletic sister, Simba. He lost heart halfway through and kind of hung there indecisively til gravity decided it for him. I am so grateful to Chris and Mike for those days of bliss.

I also am still recalling Bill McLean's incredible three day gift at a resort. It was so lovely.

Jordan and Dawn bought me and Dave tickets to Tragically Hip and it was unbelievable. We had the best night ever at Bluesfest. Equally amazing was John Fogarty's Bluesfest concert. Christine and Mike and Courtenay and I had a riot, singing all his original stuff from CCR with him, and Courtenay got me the front stage apron to watch him from, by virtue of her kamikaze crowd-infiltration tactics. A girl after my own heart.

How many nice evenings on Courtenay and Tyler's balcony, and Chris and Mike's living room sofas have I enjoyed all summer.

When it comes to good people looking after me, I am truly blessed. Hell with throwing myself in front of a truck. There is still so much loveliness to live for. Hope I don't wear out Chris and Mike. A warm long summer and autumn are predicted. Even if I can't afford the good nausea medication it is a beautiful life.

Everyone is living a hard life even in this beautiful summer. Go easy on them. Be generous if you have things to give. It will more than come back to you. How you give, whether it is care, words of love, or just an opportunity to use a pool, as Monique has given me, is the total bulwark against the darkness. Look around you at people other than me: the opportunity to give will always come back to you. In the world behind the world, we are fragile, suffering, mortal creatures having a short life, who crave the otherworldy joy that is kindness, thoughtfulness, and loyalty.