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

by Robert Schimmel

  Day one.

  “Vicki, I’m gonna get the mail.”

  “Are you sure? It’s hot out there.”

  “I got it. No problem.”

  Twenty minutes later I’ve made it ten feet. My lungs are burning and I’m sweating like I’ve just run a marathon. I turn around and inch back into the house.

  Day two.

  “Vicki, I’m gonna get the mail.”

  “Be careful.”

  “I will. Today’s the day. I can feel it.”

  I get about halfway to the mailbox and then I stop, desperately trying to catch my breath. I see the mailbox in the distance, a mirage on the horizon. I vow that tomorrow’s the day. Right now, I have to get back to the house before I pass out and end up back in the E.R. Man, I must be building up quite a reputation back at the ambulance shed.

  Hey, you hear about Schimmel? He passed out trying to get his mail.

  That’s nothing. The other day he passed out taking a crap.

  I just pray that I don’t die from the hemorrhoids.

  Day three.

  I do it! I make it to the mailbox! Takes me half an hour but who cares? I squint into the mid-afternoon August Arizona sun, leaning on the mailbox, as jubilant as the heavyweight champion of the world. I take a deep breath, flip open the mailbox, and reach in.

  Mail hasn’t come yet.

  “It’s all right,” I say to a cactus. “I never get anything anyway.”

  I call Vicki to pick me up in the car.

  Day four.

  Establishing a new goal.

  Walking to the mailbox and back. Literally takes me two weeks, but I finally succeed, slapping at the front door as if I’m an Olympic gold medalist crossing the finish line. Eventually I build up my stamina so that I’m strong enough to walk to and from the mailbox twice in a row. I slap the front door each time.

  Yeah, it’s true. Walking to and from my mailbox becomes the highlight of my day. But it’s not just making it to the mailbox. The walk itself and all that comes with it are the highlights. The soothing heat of the sun beating down on my face and neck. The smell of the desert flowers. The sound of a desert animal, a lizard maybe, swishing through the sand. The sky, cloudless and blue as a swimming pool.

  Taking all this in. Taking all this in slowly, because slow is the only speed I know. But you know what cancer teaches me from these walks?

  Slow is the speed at which we should live. Always.

  At a certain point during chemo, I start to lose feeling in my fingertips. Numbness descends and my hands become, for all intents and purposes, dead. I stare at my fingers as if they’re attached to someone else. I consciously tell them to move, to pick up that pen, to touch that spoon. I coax, cajole, make idle promises to my own fingers. Finally, after what seems like half an hour, they respond, moving in extra-slow motion, the fingers of a stranger.

  Certain simple tasks that I’d taken for granted, such as buttoning my shirt, become difficult, if not impossible. I have to abandon my favorite pair of jeans because they have buttons on the fly instead of a zipper. If I needed to pee, I couldn’t undo the buttons. The only upside to my finger numbness is that when I jerk off, it feels like somebody else is doing it.

  It’s crazy. The one thing I never stop thinking about is sex. No matter how weak, dizzy, nauseous, or gross I feel. Sex is always on my mind. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a guy or because I’m me. In my mind, I remain a virile, healthy, horny guy. Doesn’t matter what’s going on with my body. I can be aching all over, weak, bleary-eyed, throwing up, and have diarrhea, but if a cute woman walks by, my mind goes, Boy, would I love to have sex with her.

  And then my body sends my brain back the following message: “Good luck, pal. She’s sitting on a bench ten feet away. Have sex with her? You can’t even make it over there.”

  Then at a certain stage my body trumps my mind. I get to the point where I’m thinking, I’m so horny. I really need to masturbate, but my body’s voice will jump in and say, So, what, I gotta get up, go to the bathroom, and get the lotion? You want me to go through all that right now? Screw it. It takes too much energy. It really does.

  Walking to the mailbox one day, I start making a mental list of all the things I used to take for granted that now require superhuman effort. Stuff that I do every day but never think about. Easy, no-brainer stuff. Like putting on my shoes.

  One of the toughest, most exhausting activities of my life. Takes forty minutes on a good day. And when I finally pull on my shoes, I collapse in my chair, totally wasted. But I feel as if I’ve accomplished something incredible. What a rush. It’s like I’ve won the Olympic gold medal.

  “I did it.” I grin, staring at my sneakers all laced up and ready to roll. “I got on my shoes. Wow.”

  Then there’s the next step up. Those things that I’m afraid I’ll never do again. Like driving a car. My dad’s almost eighty but he once said, “I’ll never give up driving. If you take away my car, you might as well cut off my dick.”

  I know what he means. In our culture, driving a car is a sign of virility. I don’t happen to agree with that. I think getting laid in a car is a sign of virility. And getting a blow job while driving a car means you’re a real guy. Probably about to be a dead guy, but a real dead guy.

  I think about this because one day I arrive at the mailbox, flip it open, and find a letter addressed to me. Which is stunning because I never get any mail. Fingers fumbling, barely operational, I manage to rip open the envelope. Beautiful. I finally get a letter and what is it? A notice that I have to renew my driver’s license. Yeah. The Schimmel Touch.

  I make the trek back to the house, then after a nap, call the Department of Motor Vehicles. After only a forty-fiveminute wait, I get connected to a bored customer service representative. Here’s a question: why are the most bored, annoyed, angry people on the planet hired as customer service representatives? I wonder if they actually do hire the nicest people they can find and screen out the really nasty people.

  Hi. I have a question?

  I have an answer. Kiss my ass.

  Wow. A little hostile, don’t you think?

  Hey, I’m one of the nice ones. You want to talk to someone who didn’t make the cut?

  Back to the real phone call. A woman’s voice teetering on the border between annoyed and surly suddenly spits out, “Can I help you?”

  “Yes. I just got a notice that I have to renew my license—”

  A bored-as-hell sigh whistles through the phone. “You can’t do it on the phone. You have to come down to the Department of Motor Vehicles and renew your license personally.”

  “See, I can’t do that—”

  “Then you will not be allowed to operate a motor vehicle. Do you have any further questions, sir, or may I be of assistance to somebody else?”

  “Can you actually be of assistance to somebody? Because you haven’t been of any assistance to me.”

  “Sir, if you’d like to talk to my supervisor—”

  “I have cancer.” That stops her like a train. Cancer. Always a surefire attention getter. “I can’t come down there and renew my license because my immune system’s shot. I can’t be around other people.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

  “Unless you want to take my picture while I’m wearing a surgical mask and a ski beanie.”

  She actually laughs. Then her voice rises into a compassionate lilt. “You know what? Forget it. You don’t have to come down here. Just don’t get caught driving with an expired license. You take care, okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Sorry if I was rude. I’m not usually that way.”

  “Well, you probably have a pretty stressful job.”

  “Oh yeah. Some people, you know?”

  “Well, it takes a special kind of person to do your job. I can tell you’re really patient and caring.”

  Okay, yeah, I know I’m blowing smoke, but what the hell? Maybe she’ll be nicer to the next person
.

  It works. I can feel her beaming through the phone. “I don’t get that a lot,” she says. “You made my day.”

  “Hey, you made mine, too.”

  That part I mean.

  Weird thing about cancer. Sometimes it brings out the best in people. Including me.

  Without a doubt, cancer is the ultimate Get Out of Jail Free card. The first time I realized this was when Vicki was driving me to Mayo and we were late. Not her fault. Took me an extra half-hour to put on my shoes.

  Vicki is normally a cautious driver. But there are no cars on the road, no cars in sight, and she’s driving like she’s in a parade. I’m a little on edge.

  “Come on, Vicki, let’s go. I’d like to get there today.”

  “Okay, fine,” she says, and reluctantly presses the pedal to the metal.

  Out of nowhere, a highway patrol car slides in behind us, hits the siren, and flashes us.

  “Nice call,” she says to me and pulls over. A large state cop saunters over to us. Vicki rolls down her window.

  “What’s the hurry, ma’am?”

  “Officer, I know I was speeding. I’m taking my husband to chemotherapy and he’s late.”

  “Hi, officer.” I croak out a cough. I give him my pathetic, sunken-eyed look. I’m not trying for the Academy Award. It’s just the way I happen to look.

  “Oh, I, uh, see.” The poor guy doesn’t know what to say.

  I’m sure he feels like, Damn. This guy looks like shit. What if he’s dying, chemo’s his only hope, and he misses his treatment because I’m writing him a speeding ticket? I might be costing him his life. Do I want that on my head? That could send me straight to hell.

  “You people go on. Take it easy, though, okay? And good luck.”

  “Thank you, officer,” I say. Vicki smiles, waves, and pulls the car off the shoulder and back onto the highway.

  “Wow. You say the word cancer and doors open,” she says.

  And I can see her mind working—

  We walk into a crowded restaurant right in the middle of the dinner rush.

  “Hi. Two for dinner.”

  “I’m sorry. There’s a forty-five-minute wait.”

  “Forty-five minutes? My husband has cancer.”

  “You don’t think he’s gonna make it forty-five minutes?”

  “It’s a very aggressive cancer—”

  “Shit. Okay. Right this way.”

  Or I hear her on the phone with the pool repair guy. “Yes, listen, the pool pump’s broken.”

  “We can get there in about three weeks.”

  “Three weeks? My husband has cancer. He can’t wait that long. His only joy is watching the kids swim.”

  Watching the kids swim? Who does she think she’s married to, Henry Fonda?

  Bottom line? Cancer sucks 99.99 percent of the time. But if you want your pool cleaned the next day or you want to go to the head of the buffet line, cancer rocks.

  Yeah, .01 percent of the time having cancer is a real plus.

  My nurse Jody giving me my first chemo.

  After the third treatment. You can already see the changes. Jody is now a brunette and has put on about twenty pounds.

  Adriamycin, aka “red death.” I asked the nurse why she was wearing thick rubber gloves, and she said, “I can’t get this on my skin. It’s toxic.” And I thought, “Toxic? But you’re injecting it right into my vein!”

  That’s me after I found out what my co-pay was.

  Taking Neupogen shots to boost my white blood cells.

  Here’s me after getting my testicle removed. As you can see, the swelling hadn’t gone down yet.

  My dad, Jacob, and me, with one more treatment to go.

  At my favorite place, the beach, with Jacob after my last chemo.

  My manager, Lee Kernis; me; and my dad backstage at the Monte Carlo.

  On my way to the stage at the Monte Carlo.

  Vicki, Derek, Jessica, and me.

  Melissa and me.

  Max and Sam.

  Jessica and Aliyah.

  Me; my brother, Jeffrey; my mom and dad; and my sister, Sandy.

  Jessica, Aliyah, Sam, Jacob, Melissa, Max, and me, five years cancer-free.

  Derek and me.

  SESSION FOUR

  “TRYING ANYTHING”

  EMBRACE THE CANCER

  “Embrace, the, cancer.”

  Dr. Mehldau’s words.

  I roll them around in my head.

  Embrace the cancer.

  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.