My mom has cancer and not the nice kind where unicorns bring you cake. It’s the kind that fucks you in the soul. In other words: the normal kind. And for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on, I haven’t felt like being very productive since then, but I thought I should bring you up to speed.
It started with the discovery of a quite advanced colon cancer sometime in August. It got operated on as a matter of emergency. The tumour was removed but, unfortunately, it had metastasised to the liver: multiple lesions.
The lesson here is early detection. Sure, it’s easy to say and to talk about but it’s quite another to actually go through. And in that, my mom was simply being a perfectly normal human being. After all, who isn’t reluctant to have some doctor poke around your innards? We all do it: there’s no need to check it out – It’s just a little tummy trouble – I’ll take some medicine – It’ll be fine. But sometimes it isn’t and the little delay bought the tumour just enough time to spread.
Fuck that fucking thing right in its fucking face.
But, undaunted by the metastasis, she followed through some chemo to which she responded very well and the cancer seemed to quieten down its rampage. All was good. They (my mom and my step-father) then flew off to Belgium to find some high-quality care (no offence to the South African Health workers but, comparatively, it’s chalk and cheese. I know the local guys are doing their best). They also found a surgeon, one of the best in the field, who said that they could remove the lesions in the liver.
The operation was set for 30 December 2009.
The operation did not go as planned and on 31 December, while everyone else around the world was getting plastered on champagne and eating lobster and caviar, the surgeon gave his report: the cancer had metastasised to the peritoneal membrane. It didn’t show up on the scans because the lesions were all a millimetre or less. It cannot be operated on.
The only real option now is chemo which can do nothing be delay until we find some other, more experimental procedures. Chemo, by the way and for those who are unfamiliar with all of this (as I was a few brief months ago) does not cure but merely slows things down a bit, and never without consequences on quality of life and the rest of the body. It destroys everything in its patch: good and bad cells. It’s a bitch of a thing.
Some of you know the story so far, of course, and many of you have offered your support and assistance. I thank you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now is the time for practical solutions, teamwork and support. I don’t think we, as a family, could have gotten this far without the emotional and practical support from all those around us. It is in these times that you see the strength of friends.
Danni alone took on a massive and daunting task just so that I could go and see my mom. Her effort and support is not forgotten.
It is also in these times that you get to clean house and to be finally ignored and abandoned by those people that never really gave a rat’s arse in the first place.
And, on that note, please don’t bother to tell me that you’re praying for my mom. Prayers do fuck-all. Prayers never have and never will do anything. This has been amply and repeatedly demonstrated in double-blind trials and by the billions of disappointed, broken-hearted shells of humans raising their voices to the heavens. If you’re telling me that you’re praying for us, you’re essentially telling me that you’re doing nothing. If you want to do something, tell a story of what my mom’s done for you, or just tell her how much she meant to you. We’re already knee-deep in woo-woo claptrap obscuring the essence of what it means to be human in the face of adversity. It is emotional strength, true bonds of family and friendship that we need, not more fucking guardian angels, bathing in light or prayers.
It is far too easy to avoid real human connections behind hippy phrases, glib New Age (rhymes with sewage) words. What is needed now is emotional honesty, the rest of it we can do away with. Don’t tell me it’s God’s will or that everything happens for a reason. The evidence is to the contrary: the universe is big and dumb and does not care. Shit happens to good people and bad people alike. Shit just happens. Assigning blame to some incomprehensible and mysterious force beyond our ken, or some vindictive invisible fool doesn’t change the facts one single iota.
Similarly, one of the things that has most amazed and frightened me was the enormous turd pile of “alternative” treatments on offer for cancer sufferers, from magnets to acupuncture to laying on hands. I think it’s safe to say that for every single person suffering from nature’s little “fuck you,” there are five more selling snake oil and miracle cures. These people make me so frothingly angry, I could just spit.
Alternative medicine! Ah! Alternative to what? Stuff that has a remote possibility of working?
And there’s the irony, of course: my mom is a great believer in all of this stuff. Right now she is probably sipping some strange tea, covered in magnets while someone bathes her in light. These guys are offering her “cures” and all they’re doing, in my opinion, is stealing the one thing she’s short on: time. I’ve voiced my opinions on these matters to her and my step-father, of course. But they’re adults and they will do what they want. We must also carefully consider her will, her positive attitude, her strength. Luckily, she has those in spades. If she wants to follow these treatments, I’m certainly not going to argue.
Still, it doesn’t abate my rage at these “mystics” and “enlightened hippies” who peddle their “mystical” treatments. These people will never check themselves, check their results, improve their treatments. They won’t review their processes and say “wait a minute, this doesn’t solve anything.” They’ll just chalk it up to the cosmic forces, to god or just blame my mom for not believing enough. The next day, they’ll be right there, snake oil smile on their hypocritical lips, proclaiming that they can cure anything. Fucking bastards.
Meanwhile, we will have been robbed of the one thing that makes any sense on this mudball: a little time with the people we love. And there’s so preciously little of it as it is.
But, I hear them say, modern, western medicine has failed her too. What makes their treatment any more legitimate than ours? They can’t cure her either! And I answer: western, or conventional medicine, has become a convention because it works. Sure, there are a few charlatans but most don’t do it for a quick buck. Most importantly, it isn’t base on faith. it’s based on repeated trials. The processes followed are followed because they show the best results. They’re not peddling false hope in order to make themselves feel special and spiritual. They’re offering solutions. Not perfect solutions, sure. Not guaranteed cures, obviously but something that works just a little bit.
People are quick to point out that Chinese people still use acupuncture and Eastern medicine, as they have for thousands of years, so it’s got to work, right? If that were true, why do they ship billions of dollars of medical equipment and medicine from the West? Please! The only reason all these “alternative” treatments have even had a chance to have a place in the sun is because we’ve gotten so used to being able to cure and heal that we can’t believe that there are things against which we are still powerless.
And so to those people that love to point fingers at conventional doctors from within the voluminous folds of their organic tie-dyed clothes, I say: they’re buying us time. Do you honestly think that if some guy hadn’t been hacking away in the operating room my mom would still be here? What the fuck are you doing?
After all, what more can anyone of us ask for than a little time?
I love you, mom. Fight. We are fighting with you.