Cancer: A Memior

The following are excerpts from my journal during the first month of my brother's recent terminal cancer prognosis. These words really don't do justice, but I thought I'd share anyway simply out of historical value.

- Oct. 13th -

I was shooting a wedding that evening. I sat on the windowsill of the reception center watching the bride and groom's family busily set up the last bits of table dressing and décor. My phone buzzed. It was my dad.

“Alex's cancer is back."

Cold numbness invaded my veins with awful familiarity. 

"It's really bad... he might only have a few months to live."

My mind couldn't wrap around the news. How is that possible? He just finished chemo and the doctors said he was all clear. That was only a month ago. He was in remission. How can it be back in a month?

Time stood still and everything but the sound of my father's voice faded away. I don't really remember how our conversation ended except I know my words weren't sufficient for the situation. What is the proper reaction when you hear your brother could be dead in a few months? What was in a few months? Christmas. Christmas was in a few months. My brother could be dead by Christmas.

The first instinctive reaction is to scream, not necessarily out of sadness (that comes later), but rather to relieve the pressure cooker of indescribable emotions exploding through you, threatening to rip your body and soul into a million pieces. But I couldn't lose composure. I was at work at a job that I couldn't leave. There was no one I could call to replace me. This bride and groom hired me to do the job that I do, not just a photographer does. Instead, I silently wandered in a haze, taking pictures of table dressings and wedding guests, doing anything to fight the desperate and hallow feeling overtaking my mind. My camera felt like it weighed a million pounds.

My assistant walked in and sat next to me. I awkwardly blurted out the news about my brother. Saying it out loud, feeling the word cancer and dying form in my mouth, made it very real. There was no stopping the tears that gushed. She compassionately grabbed my cameras so I could go to the bathroom to catch my breath.

I pushed on the door to the bathroom, but someone was blocking the way. As the door cracked open, I could see the entire wedding party, with the bride, primping in front of the mirror. I tried to shuffle passed them before they could see my moist, red, face, but the bathroom was too small to hide. As I walked into a stall to grab some tissue, all of the bridesmaids turned towards me.

“Oh my gosh, are you OK?” They seemed to all chime in one form or another.

I was so embarrassed and not quite equipped to handle this situation.

“Yeah.” I slurred out a few incoherent sentences. “I just received bad new about my brother. I'm sorry. Don't worry about me. Just need a second. I'm OK. It's kind of just hitting.”

The strangers immediately threw their arms around me in the most tender of embraces. My body was way past numb, but I could feel theirs, so welcoming and kind, as they hugged me. The human touch was possibly never so important in my life as it was in that moment.  

On the happiest day of someone's life, they mourned with me for a few minutes until I found the strength and composure to finish the shoot. It is something I'll never forget.

- Oct. 14th -

Did I sleep? Is life real right now? Get out of bed and go to work.

My friend Josh created a Facebook group called "Beards of Alex". He did this act of amazing kindness without being asked or without knowing anything beyond simple status updates about Alex being back in the hospital. Another friend sent flowers. And then texts started coming in. None of these people knew the severity of the situation, but they somehow felt compelled to let me know their love on that day. 

Friendship is the brightest blessing in dark times.

- Oct. 15th -

My previously planned weekend vacation to California to visit friends couldn't have come at a worse time. I was anxious that I couldn't be with my family, my brother, but a break from school and work was needed and airfare is annoyingly un-refundable. 

It made me sad to see my married friends argue with one another and I was disappointed hear of their unhappinesses in life. I cried in solitary moments, but distracted myself as much as I could with The Walking Dead and homework. I didn't want to burden their load.

I had slightly crushed on one of my other friends for the last couple months, and I'd be lying if I didn't mention this trip had a lot to do with that. Now crushes seem silly and unimportant, but I enjoyed his company and friendship. He and I saw the movie 50/50 and talked about death over pasta. My friend had lost his father nearly a year ago and his words were candid, comforting, and without a sugar coating or salty bitterness usually added to such sad stories. He had watched someone slowly die, something I was needing to prepare myself for.

- Oct. 17th -

Seeing Alex for the first time made my emotions saturated and potent. I greeted him with a kiss on the forehead.

I want to absorb these moments. I want them fill up my entire body, every nook and cranny, every cell and follicle, spreading out into my fingertips and spilling over into the air around me. I want these moments to make up who I am, my being.

It's like Christmas. Almost all the family is here sitting, reminiscing, laughing, loving. Things are strangely perfect in the heartbreak. I'm desperately grasping on to every nuance of each passing second, cataloging them into my mind, saving them for the near future when moments like these will be extinct. I drink in the expressions, the sounds, the hidden sadness. Everything is beautiful in these precious moments and to forget them would be a devastation.

- Oct. 19th -

One of Alex's best friends, Ryan, called me this morning. Details had been left out as the news made its rounds among his group, and he had just heard the reality of it all. I could hear the pain in his voice escalate as he confirmed what he heard with what I knew. It breaks my heart to hear him, to understand the moment when your life is forever changed by a few words.

He and I went to 50/50 with our friend Ali that evening. We sat in the theater for a while after the movie, sobbing. Ryan was quiet and angry as we left the movie and immediately turned on Radiohead, Alex's favorite band, as we drove home. There was nothing I could say or do to take their hurt away, and watching them shredded my heart into tiny pieces.

Mourn with those that mourn.

- Oct. 20th - 

I ask my professors for more time on my midterm tests and papers, as I've been unable to focus for the last couple of days. Most of them reject my plead and won't negotiate. I don't know what to do. Don't they understand how unimportant their classes are in my life right now?

I can't help but think of C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed as I try to navigate myself through normal day to day responsibilities:

"And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief. Except at my job - where the machine seems to run on much as usual - I loathe the slightest effort. Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much. Even shaving. What does it matter now whether my cheek is rough or smooth? They say an unhappy man wants distractions — something to take him out of himself. Only as a dog-tired man wants an extra blanket on a cold night; he’d rather lie there shivering than get up and find one. It’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy; finally, dirty and disgusting."

- Oct. 22nd -

My older brother, Caleb, had a concert at WingNutz. The large table we sat at fell completely silent and our tears fell during his song written about Alex.

"We're going to miss you when you're gone. We're going to miss you when you're gone."

I wrapped my arms around Ali and I felt her gasps and sobs on my shoulder. The rest of the restaurant carried on in laughter and chaos. They didn't care. The world spins madly on.

- Oct. 23rd -

The bishop of Alex and mine's ward arranged to have Elder Ballard give him a blessing. Everyone in my family was in town, except for one sister and her family. What a sacred moment to have nearly everyone there to hear the blessing of an Apostle. We weren't looking for a miracle, just some guidance and peace.

In the blessing, Elder Ballard asked the Lord that Alex's cancer should be taken away if it was His will, and promised that if the cancer overcomes Alex, that will be the day that his work is done and not a day earlier.

Peace.

The plan of salvation is amazing. I don't care if you believe in God or not, the concept of an afterlife is beautiful. 

Later in the afternoon we had a family and friend meeting to talk about Alex's options. Should he continue with chemo to prolong the short time he has even though chemo is hell? Should he "be made comfortable" for the next couple of weeks or months? The treatments have been all but exhausted, but maybe there are more? It's one thing to accept death, it's another to choose the painful way in which you want to live the rest of your short life. One is never prepared for these sorts of horrific conversations with a loved one.

I have a profound send of sadness for my step-mom during our family meeting. I can tell she is tired and worn from the indescribable work she's put into helping Alex. She's been his champion above anyone else, but rarely gets the praise for it. I can see in her face she's done.

Alex decides to try chemo again, just for a little more time.

- Oct. 31st -

Chemo day. 

We get the OK from his doctor, so Alex and I decide to plan a Europe trip over Christmas break. This means I won't be able to afford to study in Namibia over the summer, but it's worth it. This Europe trip is truly going to be a once in a lifetime chance. Africa can wait a few more years.

- Nov. 2nd thru Nov. 6th -
His hair is falling out, a new side effect not experienced with his last chemo. It's getting more real.

Alex and I watch movies and Planet Earth during his bad chemo week (Malick's Tree of Life was an exceptionally moving experience this time, watching it with these new eyes). I sleep on the couch next to his bed just in case he needs anything in the night. I wake up an infinite amount of times, making sure I hear him breathing before I allow myself back to sleep. I empty throw-up buckets, make midnight grilled cheese and soup, and wonder what it was like before all of this. 

Helping Alex during his bad weeks gives me something to do, something that, perhaps selfishly, makes me feel less helpless. But watching my brother deteriorate is enough to break my mind sometimes. I want nothing more to take this pain away from him.

- Nov. 7th - 

I have sickeningly huge amounts of homework and editing to do, but it's impossible to do anything beyond show up to life and halfheartedly exist. Everything else can wait, can't it? What is more important than this? Why don't people understand? I thrive on loving and serving others right now, but the world doesn't care about that. I'm so disconnected, displaced.

Other's expectations are cruel.

- Nov. 8th -

I'm impressed with my family's ability to talk about death openly. It's comforting. We didn't make it a monster, never to be spoken of aloud, always controlling us. Death, along with birth, shouldn't be taboo. It happens to everyone. Nothing is a more human than these two experiences.

Much to people's surprise (or horror), we actually joke quite a bit about Alex's cancer, the best jokes coming from Alex himself. He promises us that he's coming back to haunt us if we want to do wrong things, he apologizes for his dangerous farts by saying they're "only temporary", and he says he wants a funeral like in Lord of the Rings (that wasn't a joke actually...). Being able to laugh about something as terrible as terminal cancer is a blessing.

- Nov. 16th - 

It's Alex's birthday, probably his last. 23 years old. 

To make him well enough for our upcoming Thanksgiving trip, this was the only day he could get chemo. We all gathered in the cancer center, eating breakfast brought by former chemo patients (a service they volunteer to provide every week), and cupcakes made by a mother of seven with terminal cancer spreading to her brain. Alex receives visits and gifts throughout the afternoon from this family of warriors, and I can't help but be in awe at their support and love. 

These people, cancer battlers and cancer survivors, are incredible. I'm so blessed to know them.

- To Be Continued - 

peace,
k.