An actor, a rabbi, and a young woman sit in a room waiting to hear whether they can move forward. A true story.
Let’s backtrack: On my way to thirty, minding my own damn business, focused on career and other items of levity (insert laugh here), I am diagnosed with cancer: Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A young person’s cancer, my oncologist says. Well, that's insider knowledge. In a blink, daily life changes: The week begins on Friday with chemo, Saturdays are spent nauseous – shuffling between toilet and bed, long hair is cut short, then boyfriend shaves it all off, mum moves cross country to take care of me, career fantasies recede as I contemplate mortality.
I walk my LA neighborhood in the crisp February air, with the life-affirming sunlight, confused, as people my age go about their regular, frenzied big-city business: moving cars to opposite streets because of street cleaning, applying makeup in rear view mirrors at stop signs, nursing coffees to slowly wake. It all feels so normal and at the same time, with a head itchy from itty bitty hairs falling out, not. Within, and outside, my grip.
Boy, do I want to deny that I have cancer. I want to fly above, and beyond it. Yet, the chemo clinic, where I spend 5-6 hours every third Friday, hooked up to an IV, becomes ever more familiar. I joke with the staff, nod to the other patients (we’d all rather be somewhere else), park myself in my recliner with my un-read New Yorkers, forced to accept that this is where I am to be.
I’m on a 3-week chemo cycle. At the end of Week 2, I get blood taken to assess whether my immune system can withstand the next scheduled chemo. I will it to be so. If not, my appointment is delayed, and so is my relief. At diagnosis, Dr. H says that this will take 6 months. I commit to that timeline. I’ll give you half a year, cancer, but no more.
For these blood taking excursions, I dress up – no sweatpants, here: You will not take my light. I walk into the small, sanitized room and am directed towards a seat by the window. The other two are taken by old men. No surprise. Typically, I’m the youngest in oncology waiting rooms and deal with many elders staring at me with pity/fear. What, you?! The nurse jabs me gently as I imagine my thin veins as robust, inviting that needle in hospitably.
To my left, I see one of the men, with his white, flowing beard, skullcap (Kippah), dark coat. An Orthodox rabbi. To my right, the other man, Don Adams, the actor from Get Smart. Yes, the man with the shoe phone. We – and all we represent – youth, faith, wisdom, ingenuity – all sit there silently, immobile, powerless, arms outstretched, waiting to be informed about whether we move forward.
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Aliza can be found on Instagram. She makes cool jewelry.