On April 10, 2020, Good Friday of that year, I had surgery at MGH that got rid of a large, localized, known-to-be aggressive, sarcoma. The timing corresponded to the beginnings of the Pandemic; the still-new virus rolled through hospitals around the world, overwhelming the medical system.
The double-edged surrealness of my it-never-hurt malignant lump and those early shutdown days will be with me forever. This post starts to articulate my experience.
Those of us with this type of sarcoma don’t have the risk factors that line up with any cancer. I asked several doctors on why. The best answer: you have human DNA, and it makes a mistake once in a while. Basically, we don’t know.
Weed, Tumor, and Virus: so much in common, it’s ridiculous. If you’ve ever gotten a weed’s entire root ball out, you know the satisfaction, and you may respect its method of persisting. The enemy virus was pictured not unlike my garden trophy (black swallow wort) here, except the favored image was cartooned with bright red spikes on a round cell (image #5 in this link).
Like weeds and viruses, cancer cells are especially devious about how they blend in, covertly, with the friendlier crowd of cells; they easily escape and take hold in their own special way, through as many channels as possible.
Here is the robot that radiated me 25 days in a row. It was eerily quiet, with a click once in a while. When it turned to a different position, I knew we were close to ending the session.
Pre-operative radiation is brilliant. People good at mathematics and medical physics calculate the tumor location and program the robot so that it delivers strategic hits that micro ‘cooks’ the unwelcome resident.
Since healthy versus tumor tissue responds differently to radiation, the surgeon’s knife can be more precise. The mysterious and life-saving ‘margins’ are revealed.
Overall getting radiated was uneventful. (I was spared fatigue side effects.) It was pre-pandemic and a quiet time. We only shared the news with close ones and I got to the daily business at hand; a before-work stop during a particularly weather-mild, no-snow-storm January and February.
April 10, 2020 – Non-elective surgeries allowed only; No visitors, Alisa drops me off at the front door of Mass General Hospital, Boston at 5:30am.
MGH has implemented a huge, battle-ready plan: only 2 floors in this giant, city hospital were dedicated to non-covid. No staff crossed the line. Staff from all over the Partners healthcare network were re-assigned. The pre-op prep medicals taking care of me were well-experienced, all noticeably older.
In Bay 10 here, there was a kind of quiet in the middle of the storm; a hush and seriousness with an attentive and kind energy.
I was home by Easter Sunday, minus ‘the demon’ (as I came to think of the tumor) and one leg muscle. The quietude continued, with the tenderness of the healing space. We revamped so that the bedroom was in the downstairs dining room downstairs. It was fun in a glamping kind of way, and whole world was home with me (in lockdown), most importantly my loved ones.
This is Gracie, she’s chill but knows how to tell Alisa what to do.
It’s three years later, 2023. The economic and long-term (covid) pandemic effects still linger, but the virus has evolved to a downgraded concern. I ponder, with a touch of butterfly anxiety: how are things now?
Body-wise, I can’t complain. Scans clear. There is some right muscle tightness and clunkiness going up stairs — all very manageable. Deeper pondering, and I can witness how my inward viewpoint has shifted –been through a Reorg, with a capital ‘R’.
I see how fragile and temporary everything is. We are delicate and sensitive and easily led here and there; as easily as DNA making a mistake; as easily as a breeze moves the tiny hairs on our skin; as easily as media creates outrage; as easily as one cell, friend or foe, moves into the neighborhood.
That’s where I’m at right now. Seeing with a tad of amazement–and sometimes big fear–how easily we sway.
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I’m going to leave it here, otherwise I’ll have to go on and on. In another post, perhaps, how the master plan unfolds, holding both friend and foe. How Easter, spring, new life, and love are embedded with demons, the every-day unpleasant ones or those show-off, monstrous cancer ones. Stay wholesome in mind and in body my friends. It seems the best remedy to navigate in all currents with balance. -wb