A Cancer In Four Movies
All That Jazz: On June 11, 2021, I was in serious trouble. I’d had worsening swelling of lower extremities, shortness of breath, persistent stuffy nose with occasional severe mucus production, and inability to exercise, all of which I’d put down to allergies, lack of exercise, and weight gain due to COVID quarantine. Never mind my reduce appetite and the fact I was getting worse at walking around my apartment, not better. I was in denial, in terror of getting COVID on top of my shortness of breath, and in the Providence St Patrick Hospital emergency room, where I was diagnosed with lymphoma, ultimately determined to be primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma. I honestly didn’t feel terror, or horror, or grief. What I felt was a need to research the disease (quote of the evening: “Is intense research one of the stages of grief?”) and I had intrusive imaginings of Angelique, the Angel of Death, smiling down at me from various vantage points in the ER bay. I had a diagnosis, I wasn’t hiding from my illness, and I could hum Bye, Bye, Love while my oncologist decided on my treatment.
The Americanization Of Emily: A few days later, I was admitted to the hospital and in a room in Five North, the cancer ward. Since chemotherapy is delivered through a vein, and since the doctors need to draw blood and push other drugs, I was going to get a PICC, or a peripherally-inserted central catheter, or a plastic tube inserted into a vein in my left arm and threaded into a major blood vessel near my heart by a doctor watching it all live on X-ray while I lay on a cold table in a cold room thinking that if something goes wrong, they’ll very likely have the rest of my life to figure it out. James Garner was on TCM, trying desperately to avoid the guns but having to face them for lack of a better option.
The Night Of The Iguana: A week or so after that, and I feel bad. My heartrate is high, my breathing is quick and shallow, and every room I’m in feels too hot regardless of the AC setting. The film on TCM has Richard Burton sweating it out in a fever-dream of a dead-end Mexican town, regretting bad choices and feeling trapped. It’s a hot June in Missoula and I’ll have a lot to sweat out.
Lunatics: A Love Story: TCM plays some odd movies early Saturday mornings. Which is perfect if you’re up, getting death pumped into you to save your life, listening to the sounds of a hospital at night. St Pat’s plays a nice little music box lullaby (“Hush, Little Baby”) whenever someone is born within its walls, and it also announces the need for a trauma team to assemble on the same all-hospital PA system. Hearing the lullaby and the trauma team announcement back to back is enough to put one in a reflective frame of mind, especially if it’s fuck-off thirty and your IV pump has alerted due to some illusory air in the line. (They’re pumping stuff derived from chemical warfare agents into me. The bubble you thought your little electronic eye saw isn’t the hazard, here.) Anyway, the movie’s about a crazy guy who gets the courage to leave his apartment to save the woman he loves, which isn’t much of a plot for a film with so little connection to reality. It’s the realest unreal film for the realest unreal place.
To save everyone the suspense, I’ve been in complete remission for over a year. My oncologist (well, one of them) says my cancer probably isn’t coming back. I will, though, to add more stories.
