Cancer on Five Dollars a Day* *(chemo not included): How Humor Got Me through the Toughest Journey of My Life (12 page)

 

Derek and me.

“Embrace, the, cancer.”

Dr. Mehldau’s words.

I roll them around in my head.

It’s a weird notion, really. Counterintuitive. I’d actually like to
kill
the cancer.

But Dr. Mehldau says bring it close, make it mine, own it.

I will. I have to. Cancer is a part of my life now. No way around it. And I’m going to do whatever it takes to get through the chemo. I want to get better. I want to beat this thing. I want to
live.

I don’t know what will work so I’ll try anything. I’m open. I remember—

Montreal, 1998. I’m performing at a comedy festival. My parents are in town, visiting friends. I meet them for dinner at Gibby’s, a famous steakhouse. My parents’ choice. They love the place. It’s a pain in the ass for me because I no longer eat red meat.

We sit down and the hostess hands us our menus. My mom pores over hers, practically licking her chops.

“Robert, you have to get a steak here. It’s unbelievable.”

“Ma, I don’t eat red meat. You know that.”

“You can make an exception tonight. Because I’m telling you, this is the best steakhouse in Canada.”

“But I don’t eat steak. I haven’t had red meat in a really long time. Like seven years.”

“That’s why you don’t put any weight on.” She snaps her menu shut. Case closed.

“Ma, listen. I don’t want it. I’m going to get the salmon. You can get the steak. Enjoy.”

“I have an idea,” she says. “You get the steak,
I’ll
get the salmon, and if you don’t like the steak, we’ll switch.”

“Why don’t we just switch right now?”

The waiter appears. Guy in a tux. “Are you ready to order?”

“Yes, we are,” my mother says, opening her menu, peering at it with adoration as if she’s looking through my bar mitzvah album. “My son would like the porterhouse steak—”

I’m horrified. “
Porterhouse
steak? I can’t eat that. Even if I was eating meat, there’s no way I could eat that.”

“Robert, it’s the best of both worlds.”

“What other world are you talking about?”

She lays her menu down patiently. “You get the fillet
and
you get the strip.”

I lean over to her and whisper, “Ma, it’s just meat. Yeah, like the bone is the border and the other part is Cabo San Lucas. It’s the same thing. The bone just separates the two meat parts. The best of both worlds. Jesus.”

“And how would you like that cooked?” The waiter presses on, wanting to get away from us and on with his life.

My mother tilts her head, locks her eyes into mine. I’ve been here before. Like a billion times. I’m not winning this battle.

“Fine. The porterhouse,” I say. “Medium rare.”

“Medium
rare
?” my mom says. “Are you out of your mind? God knows what could be in there. Parasites, vermin, plus the meat companies shoot those cows up with hormones and steroids, and don’t forget mad cow disease.”

“Those are the reasons I don’t eat meat in the first place!” Now the waiter’s getting fidgety. “If you want, I can come back—”

“Stay right here,” my mother says. Never let a waiter go. Her motto.

“Ma, will you please let me get the fish and you get the steak?”

My mom glances up at the waiter with puppy eyes, defeated. “Okay,” she says. But she’s pouting.

Our meals arrive. I take a bite of my salmon, my mom attacks her steak. She falls back into her chair in ecstasy.

“Oh
myyy,
” she moans. “You’ve got to taste this steak.”

Now I’m begging. “Ma, I don’t want to taste the steak.”

“One bite. Please. One bite isn’t gonna kill you. One
bite—
”

“Okay, okay,
okay
.” There is no winning here. If I don’t choke down a tiny piece of the porterhouse, we’re never gonna get out of here. She triumphantly slashes a small rectangle of steak with her knife and fork, stabs it with her fork, and
choo-choos
it toward me as if I’m five.

“Open the tunnel, Robert.”

“Ma, I’m almost fifty years old. Please.”

“Fine. Break my heart. I only survived the Holocaust.”

“Jesus.” I roll my eyes, pop her fork into my mouth, taste the steak just to shut her up, and—

I can’t believe it. It is beyond delicious. This is the best experience I’ve had in probably fifteen years. It actually rivals my first honeymoon night.

Of course, I feel terrible. I’m awash with guilt, but that lasts only a second because I ask for another taste and another and then my mother airlifts another small rectangle of steak, which I devour like it’s the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden.

Looking back, I realize that eating that porterhouse steak in Montreal was the foundation for the attitude that will get me through my cancer treatments:

Try anything.

Something that you previously considered crazy, harmful, or forbidden just might be exactly what you need now.

And different things work for different people. You never know what will have an impact, what will be successful, what will save you.

There are no more long shots. Common sense is off the table. Everything and anything is worth a bet.

Because I have nothing to lose.

One of the first things I try is Reiki, a Japanese method of stress reduction and healing. A friend of mine swears by it. Says he knows a Reiki master, someone who he claims can take away the bulk of my pain and kick out most of my cancer just by laying hands on me. I’m game. What do I have to lose?

The Reiki master shows up one afternoon when I’m lying in my hospital bed, checked in because of a worrisome fever and a serious world of hurt. The master is a wispy woman who looks a lot like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Thin, pasty face, shlumpy floor-length sundress, plunging neckline, and a gazillion beads around her throat and wrists that keep clanging, sounding like wind chimes. Right before the Reiki treatment, she removes the beads (keeps on the dress, damn it) and starts moving her hands all over my body. I think I hear her chanting or humming or murmuring, but I can’t be sure. Then she murmurs something about either giving me her energy or taking my money.

Through it all, I’m trying to allow the Reiki
in.
I want the Reiki to penetrate. I jam my eyes shut and try to go with the flow, letting her run her hands over me, Reiking me all over the place. I want this nutty shit to work. I really do. If Reiki takes away some pain, I’ll become a Reiki convert and sell it in airports. I don’t care. So I try. I close my eyes and surrender.

Right in the middle of my Reiki treatment, Dr. Lugo, one of the oncologists on the floor, walks in. He stops dead in his tracks. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Reiki,” I mutter.

“Oh,” he says. “Uh-huh.”

“She’s almost done,” I say.

“I’ll come back,” he says. “Reiki on.”

“He broke my rhythm,” Elvira says. “You want me to start over?”

“Is it the same price?”

“Well, no, I’d have to charge you for a whole new session.”

“Can’t afford that. Pick up where you left off.”

“Do you feel anything?”

The comic in me wants to say, “My wallet feels lighter,” but I just say, “Yeah. Something. I don’t know. I feel a little lightheaded.”

“That’s good, Robert,” Elvira says. “Very positive. You can’t get all the benefits of Reiki after only one treatment.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I figured.”

Elvira steps back, assesses me with what appears to be a look of genuine surprise. “You know, a lot of people are skeptical. You have a really good attitude. Thank you.”

“No,” I say. “Thank you.”

Later, after the Reiki lady leaves, Dr. Lugo comes back in, carrying with him a slightly superior air. He swivels his head toward the door as if Elvira’s still standing behind him and says, “You don’t really believe in that stuff, do you?”

The truth is, I don’t know. Yeah, Reiki seems a little off the beaten track, that’s fair to say. But just because Dr. Lugo thinks it’s a bunch of mumbo jumbo doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. A lot of Western medical practitioners barely know anything about nutrition. I’ve often asked my doctors, “What if I eat this food and eliminate that one, will that help?” They shrug, admit ignorance. In my experience, they are, for example, much more comfortable prescribing antibiotics than touting antioxidants.

So I just say, “You know what? I’m not sure what I believe. I don’t know if Reiki helps. I do know that it doesn’t hurt. It’s just hard for me to dismiss it and say it’s baloney.”

Dr. Lugo’s not going to let this go. Guy’s a tad intractable. “I’m just saying that in purely medical terms—”

“Here’s the thing.” I exhale deeply. Catch my breath.

“What Reiki does for that hour while Elvira is humming and floating her hands all over my body is give me some
peace.
If that’s all I get out of it, one hour of peace, then it’s worth it.”

“Well, okay, if that’s what—”

Abruptly I sit up and, without realizing it, clamp my hand onto Lugo’s wrist like a handcuff. “Dr. Lugo, you can’t go twenty-four hours a day, each and every day, obsessing about your cancer. Nobody can. You need a break. It cannot be in your face nonstop. I can’t continually remind myself that if this doesn’t go away, I’m gonna die and I’m never gonna see my kids again. So if nothing else, Reiki distracts me. And that is worth everything.”

Lugo swallows and nods. “I’m sorry.”

“A lot of people believe in Reiki. I’m just saying,
What the hell? Why not?
But don’t worry. I draw the line. I’m not gonna waste my time having somebody do a rain dance in my bedroom. The stuff’s gotta make
some
sense.”

He grins. “Well, that’s good to hear.”

“Yeah. Rest assured. I’m not gonna sacrifice a goat in here or anything.”

I release his wrist and fall back onto the bed. “She was kind of cute, the Reiki lady, in a stoned-out-sixties-acid-flash-back-mushroom-eating sort of way,” I say.

“I guess so. I wasn’t born until 1970.”

“You’re a child.”

“Yeah. I got a lot to learn.”

I drift off to sleep.