going on a bear hunt

chemo day one: an assortment of blurry glimpses through deborah’s window

first, the 7 a.m. pre-infusion consult: all that info coming at us, a deluge of side effect after possible side effect, scary, exhausting. hardly any sleep the night before. scribbling notes, tiny guideposts to keep val safe. safer.

starting the infusion: it’s a serial approach. more than 7 hours of infusion. benadryl and then saline or something and then drug 1 and then blood draws and then anti-nausea drugs and then drug 2 and then something to stop one drug from fighting with another one and then…

drip drip drip
drip
drip
dri
p

my groggy baby with her arm all strapped up with tubes
dripping toxins into her veins
toxins so toxic i am not allowed to kiss her for 48 hours
must wash off her sweat, her tears, from my skin
have to wash my hands well, after i wash her clothes
and wash the sheets after those first 2 nights
of secreting venom

this will make you puke so we’ll give you this to stop the puking but it makes this part fall off so we’ll glue it on with this drug which makes you itch and occasionally implode but call us if there’s an issue, we’ll put you on some other drugs…

kindness from the oncology staff. genuine caring and attentiveness, attention to detail. feels like they want to see us, really us. like they’ve got our backs in this fight.

it won’t help val if i sob.
three weeks ago we didn’t know this was happening. it was. but we didn’t know it.
i want to throw myself in front of her, protect her from these medical strangers with their needles full of helpful poison
but i’d be protecting her from the wrong thing.
but it’s the only thing i can see.
i hate to watch it.

it feels like such stone-age medicine. such bludgeoning tools, these destructive potions. mowing down whole fields to pluck one hidden grain.

the infusion machine makes a steady swishing noise as it dispenses the drugs. mechanical swishing, like a street sweeper. impersonal, unperturbed. dzzshp. dzzshp. dzzshp.

and she feels fine, except at first her arm burns. she feels fine, and we watch the dangerous drugs slide into her arm, steadily, 1 hour, 5 hours, 7 hours, sliding translucently and cleanly in in in, seeding disarray, preparing to halt the mechanisms that make her go.

i look at her hair, her sleek new haircut. they say it should begin falling out in a couple weeks. so soon. i hadn’t realized it would be so soon. hair gives up the ghost early. hair can be spared.

good thing she has a beautiful head.

i am trying to let go. let it in. understand that this brutal medicine can save her life, in secret savage ways i can’t see.
i hate that the road to save her is so unkind.
i hate sitting here in my chair, clean and whole so far as i know, watching her lie down and let the tanks run over her, placing all our hope in what comes after.

i hate this.
hate it.

except … the journey looks amazing from here.
it’s even fascinating, holds some good, in a jumbled, disorienting way. ways of being i never could have found without this. many good ways so far. living intensified, and community emboldened. although i fear the erosion of time and exhaustion and fear.

i think it can be a magnificent journey.
i’m willing to do it. not that anyone’s asking.
but i want to make it through, all the way through, flying free on the other side.

that’s the thing. the immovable thing:
there’s no way out but through.
this morning in the shower i remembered the kids’ rhyme Going on a Bear Hunt. it’s a call and response song/story/rhyme, so the leader sings out a line and everyone echoes it back:

going on a bear hunt (going on a bear hunt!)
gonna catch a BIG one (gonna catch a BIG one)
i’m not afraid! (i’m not afraid!)

and then the little group full of bravado comes to a series of obstacles: tall grass, deep mud, a high mountain, a rushing river; and each time they assess the situation and say:

can’t go under it.
can’t go over it.
gotta go through it.

so that’s us. we’re going on a bear hunt. with all our friends. going through it.
and out the other side.