Anger

I thought I had pretty much skipped over Anger.

Denial, yes. It was brief, but it was there, in my “let me give it a week, and if it’s still there, I’ll call the doctor.” Depression, Bargaining, Acceptance – oh yes. Been there, done all of those. But I couldn’t really summon up any anger… who or what is to blame? How can I feel anger, when I have no place for it to go?

I will own up to a heightened state of irritation - particularly towards well-meaning individuals who offer unsolicited advice. “I hear a good attitude is really important,” says one, patting me gently on the arm. “Make sure you stay away from sugar (soy, caffeine, aluminum-based deodorant, plastic bottles, etc.). It feeds cancer cells,” says another. My favorite advice was the email from my ex-husband, who forwarded a newsletter from Johns Hopkins entitled “Cancer Update.” I can’t bring myself to include the whole thing, but here are a few particular gems:

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion. When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size. READ: WE’VE ALL GOT IT, AND NO ONE IS FUCKING EVER CURED!

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract, etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, etc. READ: THOSE DRUGS ARE ACTUALLY KILLING YOU OFF, PIECE BY PIECE!

7. Radiation, while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs. READ: DITTO FOR RADIATION!

10. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites. READ: THAT LUMPECTOMY AND AXILLARY NODE DISSECTION YOU HAD JUST MADE THINGS WORSE!



11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply… Sugar is a cancer-feeder…. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc. are made with aspartame, and it is harmful…Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in color. …Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. … Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer… Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine…. Water - best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap. READ: JUST DON’T FUCKING EAT OR DRINK EVER AGAIN AND YOU’LL BE OK!

and my absolute favorite….

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

If the letter weren’t so fucking ridiculous, and it didn’t come from my ex-husband, it would have made me angry. I’m guessing it made a lot of people who received it angry (even if their anger did “put the body into a stressful and acidic environment"). As it was, I just laughed (an irritated laugh, complete with eye-roll) but decided it wasn’t worth the gift of my anger. And then I put on my favorite T-shirt, which reads, “Unless you’ve found the cure for stupid, please don’t tell me about it.”

I’m always taken aback by how my feelings take me by surprise – how they truly seem to come from nowhere. One minute, I’m reading Tina Fey’s “A Prayer for my Daughter” out loud to Larry, and laughing. The next minute I can’t finish the last paragraph because I’m choking back tears. I find these moments unsettling, as they don’t mesh with my perception that I am calm, stolid and in control. Raising five children has toughened me: you don’t survive teenagers (or divorce) without developing a pretty thick skin. Even the brutal honesty of five year olds makes me laugh. Last night Rachael looked up at me and announced, “I don’t like Mommy because she doesn’t have any hair.” Chloe looked at me, horrified, and said, “Rachael, you’re hurting Mommy’s feelings!” Rachael looked surprised, but I smiled and said, “It’s okay,” because I know five year olds like I know the back of my hand, and I knew she meant that she didn’t like the way Mommy looked without hair. I don’t like it either.

Last week was particularly miserable: the sort of week that leaves you full of crappy feelings, and no place to let them out. I was coming off Round 4 of chemo, and the cumulative effects of that round and the three previous rounds had left me pretty darn uncomfortable. I was also saddled with a pile of extra-curricular activities a mile long. Two concerts, rehearsals, a talk, plus work and kids – all while battling low-grade nausea, mouth sores, headaches, a strong metallic taste, aching bones, insomnia and a bad cough. Let’s just say my irritation and my frustration were building. Big time.

Friday afternoon I finished work, picked up some groceries, Saturday’s breakfast at the bakery and fish for dinner at Captain Marden’s. I dragged the bags into the house, put things away, and looked at the clock only to realize that it was already time to meet the twins at the bus. So I called the dog, slid my steroid-puffy, aching feet into a pair of flip-flops, and headed up the street to the bus stop.

We live halfway down a steep hill, on a dead-end road with a cul-de-sac. The bus driver has to navigate a narrow bumpy road up the hill to the mouth of the dead-end, then make a sharp turn, and floor it to get up the next steep hill. In the winter she can’t make it, and we slip and slide up our dead-end road and all the way down the hill (no sidewalks) to meet her at the main road bus stop. But it is spring, now, and we have our bus stop back.

As I flip flopped my way up the dead end road to the stop, I saw orange cones blocking the hill road. From the top, I looked down the street to see what was happening. It was difficult to see down the street because of new construction at the bottom: for several weeks the workers have been parking their badass trucks with the massive wheels carelessly in the road, making it difficult for cars to get by. But I could see orange cones on the clear side, and realized that the road was blocked at both ends, and the workers were connecting a water line.

My chemo brain works slowly these days (Item 6 in the Cancer Update – my whole body is being poisoned!), but it dawned on me that because of the dead end, there would be no way for the bus to detour and come up the hill a different route – it would not be able to turn around or get back down. In a growing panic, I began running down the hill - flip flop flip flop - with Satchel in tow, in the hope that I could reach the main stop before the bus did.

As I ran past the construction workers at the bottom I turned and yelled at them in frustration. “There’s a bus stop here – you’ve blocked the bus – how the hell is she supposed to get up the street?” They looked at me half curiously (ah yes, strange pale puffy woman with scarf on head), then to a one, shrugged and turned away. I kept running.

I got to the bus stop too late – the bus was gone, and Rachael and Chloe were still on it. I stood there, panting from my run, frantic and frustrated, wondering what to do. Would she come back? Take them back to school? Should I run home, or stay put?

And there it was, the anger - as sudden and overwhelming and surprising as my recent tears over Tina Fey. It wasn’t pure, this anger, but diluted with guilt (why didn’t I anticipate a roadblock, and leave earlier?), and frustration at my inability to solve the problem immediately. I imagined both girls sitting on the bus, looking out the window, searching the road, wondering why Mommy hadn’t come. They are unusually anxious these days, asking daily questions about where I’ll be, and who’s going to babysit them when I go to the doctor, and if I am going to die. What were they thinking as the bus drove away in the wrong direction, with no Mommy to pick them up? I.just.have.to.be.there.

I stayed there, huddled, blinking back tears, taking deep breaths, trying to think calmly. The twins’ bus driver is a sweetheart. She knows them by name and gives them candy on Fridays. She asks me how I’m feeling, and once gave Larry her phone number in case we ever need extra help. She would figure out where I was, and bring them back. I should stay put.

It was a long fifteen minutes, but the bus came back. Lisa looked relieved to see me and rolled down her window. “I didn’t know what to do with the road closed,” she shouted. “I waited up at another stop, then thought to check down here.” Rachael and Chloe looked relieved to see me, and to see familiar territory, hopping down the steps and coming over for kisses. I thanked the bus driver, apologized for missing the drop off, and took the girls’ hands to start our walk home.

But as we turned the corner and started back up the hill, my anger suddenly came flooding back. It burbled and roiled, mixed with exhaustion, anxiety, and guilt – whatever was brewing came together in a potent stew, fueled by the careless indifference of the construction workers; their shrugs and rolled eyes. As we closed in on the site, I began screaming like a fishwife.

I can’t remember what I said (though I’m sure it will come back to haunt me through the mouths of five year olds), but it involved many fucks, fuckings, fucktards and assholes. I ranted and raved about Lack of Consideration and Lack of Communication and the Safety of Small Children. I went on and on, while the majority of the men kept their heads bent over their digging and hammering, and those that watched exuded a particularly male brand of unconcern and deafness. Meanwhile, Rachael and Chloe and the dog, all excited and confused by Mommy’s theatrical performance, danced around me in increasingly wider circles.

And then, just as suddenly, I was done. I grabbed both girls’ hands, and fueled by the adrenaline rush from all that anger, was able to make it back up the hill, flip flop, flip flop.

We reached the top of the road, and there were the five cones – and a large metal DETOUR sign lying on the ground. With a final, childish flash of fury, I said, “Come on, girls, we have a job to do.” I grabbed two cones and threw them in the woods at the side of the road. Rachael and Chloe each grabbed one of the remaining cones, and the three of us quickly dispensed with all the cones and the sign before continuing on home.

Denial? Check. Anger? Check. Depression? Check. Bargaining? Check. Acceptance? Check.

So tell me, what comes next?