Wondering what to make of life before the Necessary End

One of the hardest things to accept is help. I’m not used to people helping me do day-to-day things. I’m certainly not used to having to ask for help.

And yet I’ve needed help. Before I went into hospital, I could barely eat anything because the ascites had squished up my poor little stomach so much. LB brought easy-to-eat food and Sustagen. I couldn’t drive or walk far, and HH drove me shopping and let me sit down and wait while she stood in the check out line. My aged microwave oven finally died, and JH, a young friend, helped by removing the old one, unpacking and installing the new one. And, he took the dog for a walk. In hospital, HH came every day and did my laundry. After I came out of hospital MS cleaned up half my backyard, which made more of a difference to my state of mind than I would have imagined. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

The kindness shown to me was overwhelming. But it’s not only friends who have helped. Two people in particular have been astonishing:

• By coincidence, a friend of LB’s lives a few houses down the street from me. I had met this person twice, for an aggregate of maybe 5 minutes, when I rang her and said “Hi, I’m LB’s friend from down the road. Could you come and put out my wheelie bins? I’ve had surgery and I’m not supposed to lift heavy things, and pulling out the garbage bins is more than I can manage.” She was here in an instant. She has put out the bins, and put them back, for the last several weeks. Now, she’s going away for Christmas, and has organized another woman, who lives across the road, whom I’ve never met!, to put out my bins.
• My hairdresser (a) arranged an appointment for me last week after the rest of the salon had closed, because I’d got upset the last time I was there and he figured I’d rather be there when it was quiet and (b) has said that, if I do chemo and my hair starts to fall out, he’ll come round to my house to shave it off.

Nine times out of 10, in ordinary conversation, ‘How are you?’ doesn’t mean anything. We don’t really care how the other person is. No-one takes much notice of the response. It’s just social lubrication.

But not when you’re sick.

People now say ‘How are you?’ with a tone I’ve come to dread. The voice is lowered, quiet, un-animated. It’s almost the voice you’d use in a church or maybe a court. It comes over-loaded with overtones, as if there’s this huge preface of ‘I know you’re not well, you’ve been sick, you’ve been in hospital, you’ve got The Big C‘.

I don’t know what people either want, or expect, to hear. Do you want a litany of woes? Or is it all just so much easier if I say I’m fine? Would a response of ‘I feel absolutely terrible’ constite good news or bad news?

I recently said, to someone who knows I’m sick, that it is sometimes so good to talk to someone who knows I’m sick. And, it’s sometimes so good to talk to someone who doesn’t know I’m sick.

I have a bunch of IT-ish friends, one of whom is a fabulous cook and a generous host, and he invites me round for dinner frequently. I love spending time with them because they don’t know. So I can talk to them knowing that they’re not thinking “She’s got this big, dark problem”.

On the other hand, I have a different bunch of friends who do know. I can talk to them without thinking “I’ve got this big, dark problem—and I haven’t told you about it.”

On Friday I had lunch with a former colleague. I hadn’t seen him for nearly 10 years. Even as I walked into the restaurant I wasn’t sure if I’d tell. I didn’t. Tonight I have dinner with a different old friend. I haven’t seen her for, oh, maybe 4 or 5 years. Will I tell? I’m not sure.

I don’t even know what the criteria are for telling.

But I do have a very clear list in my head of who knows what.

I think my fundamental fear in telling people is that they will no longer treat me seriously. There might never be the same belief that I can think as well now as I could before. That applies less to close friends than, say, clients. So I’ve told only 2 people related to work—and they have both (and I really owe them both for this) kept stumm.

And if you think I’m the only one thinking about who, and what, to tell, think again!

Useful site: CancerAndCareers.org.

I came across a web page identifying the Top 9 Gifts for People With Cancer.

Then I discovered there are lots of such pages!

And most of them have it wrong. Wrong. WRONG!

If you have a life-limiting illness then you’re thinking of how to get rid of stuff. Who would appreciate the martini glasses? To whom should I leave my favourite earrings? The vacuum cleaner? 16 pairs of almost identical size 7 1/2 black stilettos, 12 pairs of which (at the time of writing) are unworn?¹

So if I can’t eat it, drink it, read it or (for DVDs) watch it, then it’s just one more damned thing to think about, worry about, store, dust and add to the list of things to sort out. And it’s just one more thing that my friends will have to clean out after the necessary end.

So, no things, please!

There is maybe one exception. If illness has changed someone’s size and shape such that clothes no longer fit (eg, since this time last year I’ve been up two sizes and then down 4!), then ordinary clothes in the new size might be good. Just T-shirts and stuff. Nothing fancy.

Gifts especially for cancer patients

The worst collection of ideas I’ve seen came from CancerGifts.com. They say:

All our gift baskets offer hope, encouragement and comfort, as well as inspire healing and recovery for people going through the turmoil of cancer. These gift baskets are a great way to touch someone fighting an immense battle, and to quietly show them your love and support.

Let’s just pull that apart:

1. “our gift baskets offer hope…”. Huh? How does a basket offer hope? Hope, it seems to me, can only be generated from within. Not from wicker.
2. “…encouragement…”. Encouragement? To do what? Jump off a cliff?
3. “…comfort…”. Can you actually think of anything less comfortable than a basket? A porcupine, perhaps?
4. “inspire healing”. This is good! How can healing be “inspired”? I routinely grate some of my fingers into the parmesan. And in a day or so it heals. Healing, surely by definition, is something the body does to itself. It’s not “inspired”!
5. “fighting an immense battle”. I can’t begin to tell you how much I loathe the idea that cancer is something to be battled. Cancer comes from within you. It’s your own cells run amok. You can’t “battle” it, as you might even be said to battle an infection. And the battle isn’t immense. It’s tiny, cellular, molecular. “[I]mmense battle”, indeed. Save me!
6. “quietly show…” Enough! Stop! No more! Send chocolate.

¹ No, my name is not Imelda.