Eating the Underworld

by Doris Brett

  I saw Greg yesterday and feel much better. I was still ‘Doris’ and not a disease or a prognosis. He was able to say that this experience was scary for him too. It felt good. We’re back to being real people again. There’s no infection in the drainage wound and he said the bleeding should stop in a few days.

  It’s funny how superstitious you get in situations like this. Sitting in Greg’s waiting room, I opened, at random, a poetry book I’d brought to read. The book fell open at a poem called ‘She Lived’. Yes! I thought to myself, feeling ridiculously light-hearted.

  Today, following a yen for something sweet and crunchy, I find a box of Chinese fortune cookies in the cupboard. I break one open, and in the split second before I read it, feel a sudden, totally irrational anxiety. What will it say? What it actually says is, ‘This insert has a protective coating.’ After a moment’s puzzlement, I turn it over and read, ‘Your future is as boundless as heaven.’

  It’s wig-buying time. The idea is that you buy your wig while you still have your own hair, so that you can match it. I discover that longish, curly-haired wigs that look real are thin on the ground. On your head, they become the reincarnation of eighties big-hair, mutated and gone wild, like those freak pumpkins that grow to six times their normal size. I do, however, find a cheap, spiky Tina Turner style that looks racily wild and is very flattering.

  I still can’t really imagine losing my hair; it feels so much an integral part of me. Although, as Martin points out, think of the time I’ll save in the shower and the money I’ll save on hair products. Amantha, in a similar vein—and demonstrating an uncanny knack for positive reframing—says, referring to the insurance-subsidised time I’ll be taking off for chemo: ‘Think of it as a writing grant.’

  They say your hair grows back thicker and curlier after chemo. This opens up a whole new possibility—chemo as an exquisitely expensive hair treatment. Only available in certain, selected salons.

  In truth though, I’m terrified of losing my hair. It feels like such a stripping bare of myself. When I look in the mirror, what will I see? And while I never felt that I was losing my femininity with the loss of my uterus or ovaries, I wonder if I’ll lose it with my hair—the female equivalent of Samson.

  And yet it occurs to me that this is also like one of those ancient purification rites. Hair is cut or shaved off at those ceremonies too, signifying the shift from one role to another. I like thinking of it like this; as part of a ritual where you cross—cleansed and hairless—towards renewal.

  Taxol, the drug responsible for the hair loss, comes from a tree—the Pacific yew. It grows along the rim of the Pacific Ocean in America. I look up yews and find that traditionally they have been considered among the most sacred of trees. They were associated with rebirth and planted in graveyards because of their reminder of the eternal circle.

  This comforts me. I have always liked the thought that my chemotherapy comes courtesy of a tree, with their yearly renewal—seemingly dying each winter, only to revive in spring. I feel seriously relieved too that they’ve now found a way to extract Taxol’s active ingredient without harming the tree. I hate the thought of a tree being killed.

  I alternate these thoughts, though, with feeling just plain scared of what lies ahead. Two doctors who find out I’m going to be on Taxol instead of the lighter chemo both purse their lips and make depressing little tut-tut sounds about high toxicity and whether my body will be able to take it. This, of course, is just what I need right now.

  I see Jim, my oncologist, again today. It’s much better than last time. I deliver my speech about medical ‘truths’ and positive interpretations and he listens and says he’ll be happy to do that. As I am standing by the receptionist’s desk before leaving, he passes by, touches me on the shoulder and says, ‘You’ll be alright.’ It’s a warming gesture. I am struck all over again by the power of simple, human contact.

  The wound from my drainage tube has finally stopped bleeding. It feels wonderful to be able to take the bandage off; as if it’s been the last impediment to healing. I go for daily walks and can feel myself getting stronger and fitter every day. Although, as I luxuriate in this new-found robustness, it crosses my mind that it’s a bit like fattening up a turkey for Christmas.

  We’ve organised a date for chemo to begin. It will be in March, nearly a month away, in the first weeks of autumn. It’s time to make myself an hypnotic tape for chemo. As with surgery, I know that hypnosis helps minimise the side-effects of chemotherapy.

  I’ll put in suggestions of the chemo as healing energy and focus on welcoming it in and having it work in harmony with my body.

  I calculate the dates of my six chemo sessions. If I go through them as quickly as is possible, the last session falls on the day after my birthday. That’s what I want to do. Celebrate my birthday, knowing that it also celebrates the end of chemo.

  The hypnotic tape must be working. I wake up this morning and notice that I’m feeling different. I’m thinking of the chemo as an ally, rather than something to be feared. The phrase ‘Welcome Taxol’ keeps floating through my mind, as if I am opening the door to welcome a good friend.

  I find out about an amazing website today—oncolink. As an internet moron, most websites are amazing to me, but this one is exactly what I need. It co-ordinates cancer-related information and websites, and through it I discover the ovarian cancer discussion list. ‘List’, I discover, is cyber language for group and the list’s formal title is Ovarian Problems Discussion List. I’m thrilled.

  I’d like to be part of a support group, but I’m in an odd position: any support group I joined in Melbourne would have my patients in it—difficult for them and difficult for me. An online support group for women who have ovarian cancer is ideal.

  When I join and introduce myself, I am struck by the warmth and vibrancy of these women. It’s definitely not an average group—they’re educated, intelligent and active in exploring treatment options. Bright, lively minds as well as hearts. And there’s a wealth of knowledge as people share the results of their research and other useful issues. I also get all my best jokes from this group.

  On learning that I’m about to start chemotherapy, group members write to tell me to drink lots of water. Kathy tells me of a relevant research paper which she found and followed. She drank increasing amounts of water for each successive chemo session and the chemo side-effects became milder and milder. She gives me guidelines as to how much to drink. I gulp when I read the amount—four litres—and think, no wonder she signs herself Kathy the Camel. But Kathy writes back to reassure me that it’s do-able. The trick, she says, is to carry a water bottle with you and take constant sips. It’s the small, practical things like this that the hospital system often doesn’t tell you, so it’s wonderful to have this sorority to journey with.

  And finally, I’ve worked out a pattern for a hat that doesn’t look like a tea cosy. Amantha has made a prototype for me which looks terrific. I immediately order a whole slew of them from my own personal cottage industrialist. Amantha looks aghast at the number. ‘Do you really need them all?’ she asks weakly. I nod ruthlessly. I want them all. I want all the colours of the rainbow. I am determined to be surrounded by colour over these months.

  The hats are brilliant. They’re light, comfortable, easy to make and they look fantastic. Every time I leave the house, I have people trailing after me to ask where I bought my hat. I feel like a glamour girl from Vogue.

  I’m still trying to imagine what it will be like to have no hair. Will I walk around the house bald, or will I feel the need to wear a hat or wig even when I’m by myself? I simply can’t get my mind around it. I was an ugly duckling as a teenager. I used to hide behind my hair. A bad haircut would give me the urge to lock myself in the cupboard for weeks, until it grew out. I used to straighten it, iron it, blowdry it and otherwise torture it with a stunning variety of sadistically conceived techniques. If my hair looked good, I felt good. If it didn’t, it was paper-bag-over-the-head t
ime. The intervening years have given me some small sense of perspective about hair—I don’t immediately head for the nearest dark, enclosed space when my hairdresser cuts my hair too short—but being bald is still going to be distinctly character-building.

  A patient whom I haven’t seen for years phones me today. She’s concerned because she needs more chemotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer. She also obviously needs to talk about how difficult the chemotherapy has been for her. She doesn’t know that I’m facing it myself. I feel a real struggle between the therapist in me, who would naturally invite her to talk, and the me who’s awaiting chemotherapy and wants to say, ‘No! Don’t tell me how bad chemotherapy is. I don’t want to know.’ The therapist wins out and I talk with her for a while about her treatment and possible strategies for the future.

  Keeping yourself separate from other people’s experiences is one of the hardest things with this illness. You hear of someone having a bad time and you automatically think: will that be me? You read an account of someone succumbing to cancer and you feel depressed; you read of someone surviving and you feel elated. It’s as if your vulnerability and uncertainty have thinned the boundaries between you and others, so that they are more permeable than usual.

  I have a long talk with Amantha today. It’s hard for her. As well as worrying about me, she has her own worries and feels they’re dwarfed by what I’m going through. She thinks she doesn’t have the right to worry about them. It’s the old comparison game, usually about as helpful as the ‘think of the starving children in Africa’ gambit when you push your plate away with uneaten food.

  Three days to go until I start chemo. Three days before everything changes and I can’t go back. I am reminded of the old Ghost Train at Luna Park. You get into the carriage. It starts to move down the track. You know that it’s going to burst through that door into darkness, as if you had smashed through a movie screen into another reality. It will jolt into different speeds, shock you with unexpected pauses, accelerations beyond breath. You veer and turn. You don’t know where you are anymore.

  But this is why you took the ride, you remember. You rock around corners, one vista flicks disconcertingly into another. You stop trying to orient yourself. And then just as you are prepared to be lost forever, in a sudden jerking swerve, you are swept through walls that turn out to be doors, into the sudden oddness of the normal world.

  THE FIRST MINUTE AFTER MIDNIGHT

  Rachel was in the crowded foyer of a theatre when she noticed someone buying a packet of sandwiches.

  Without warning, she was suddenly back in the experience of hospital. In bed, watching the arrival of the thrice-daily meal trays, their contents concealed by metal domes, rising as singularly as pulp fiction moonscapes from the dun-coloured plastic.

  Hospital food, she thought, was like airline food—magical in its packaging and arrival out of thin air. It came from a place where there were no kitchens in sight, no fry-pans, no fires, no spices; no connection to the real world outside, where bread was baked and soups simmered on stove-tops. It appeared suddenly, without warning, created whole, in the way that wishes materialised in the old stories. It was created in some underground cavern by the servants of the genie. It was a sign of the strange new world you had entered.

  One of the things that Rachel remembered afterwards was the experience of waking in hospital. What she remembered was that she couldn’t remember it. It was different from waking at home where consciousness came with a slow seeping through of awareness, like the soft, wet colours in a watercolour. It was different from waking after surgery in the recovery room, where you awoke torn by the drag and pull of two different tides—the drugged world of the unconscious behind you and the hard world of reality in front.

  In hospital, each morning, Rachel would simply be awake. She had been asleep before and she was awake now. It was seamless; there was no sense of actually waking. She had tried many times to recall the experience of transition, but it was impossible. She could not. It reminded Rachel of science fiction stories where people walked through a doorway in one world straight through into the next. The barrier between the two worlds was magic. It existed to separate two worlds which could not co-exist. One was here and one was there. And there was no in-between. It was as simple as that.

  That was what it had been like in the enchanted mansion where Beauty lived. With one step, she had passed through the gate and into a different universe, into the house of the Beast, her lover, whose true face she had never seen. In this house too, meals appeared without preparation. The work of the house was done by invisible hands. A few servants might be seen here or there, going about their business; but to say that these were the forces which vitalised the house was as misleading as to say that clocks, with their little cogs and fidget wheels, controlled time.

  Beauty’s father had met the terrifying, shambling Beast while on his travels. In return for a favour, the Beast had demanded the first thing the father saw on his return home. The father had agreed. That first thing had been Beauty as she ran to greet him.

  And so, Beauty had been given up to the monster. Her father had made a bargain—inadvertently, unavoidably perhaps—but he had made a bargain with a monster. And what the monster wanted was his daughter.

  Trembling, Beauty had been spirited away to a great, distant mansion. She had come in fear. The Master of the house was horrifying in his appearance; bestial, frightening. If she had been able to run, she would have run. But she had to stay; she had entered another world.

  All through the early days of terror, she had to stay. Through the fear for her life, her physical safety, her sanity—she had to stay. Day by day, she stayed. And as she stayed, something began to happen. Through something she could not name, or even understand, she began to be embraced by love.

  And there it should have ended. And would have, but for the outside world. Beauty wanted to go home. Just for a visit, she insisted. Her family would be worrying about her. She wanted to reassure them, share her new-found joy.

  How easy it was to remember what never really was. How could you remember your old home, for instance, as filled with anything other than happiness and smiles? How could you remember that your beloved father gave you away? And not knowing how changed you were, how could you know that you could never go home again?

  That was what Beauty didn’t know. The Beast had said she could stay away for seven days; any longer and he would die. Her two sisters saw her happiness and raged with envy, persuading Beauty to stay past the magical seventh day. She did so. Almost too late, she realised that she loved the Beast and that her delay had nearly cost him his life.

  Everyone wanted to go home, thought Rachel, and a shiver suddenly rippled down her back. She had just remembered the fairytale she had always wanted to forget.

  It was ‘The King of the Golden Mountain’; the only fairy story she had been frightened by. The oven in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ had not frightened her, nor had the poisoned apple nor the wolf in the woods. But something about ‘The King of the Golden Mountain’ had left her terrified. So terrified that she could not even remember it properly.

  She had been left instead with a series of odd images: a wild, raging man; magical transportations; and a sense of foreboding and loss that closed around her like a thick feather cloak. She had gone back to read it again in the intervening years, with the same result: an inability to remember it and the lingering sense of being alone in a landscape of desolation and emptiness.

  The story rested in her bookshelf, in an old thumbed-through copy of the Collected Grimm’s Fairytales. This morning she had read it again for the third time.

  It was about a father who had lost all his money and met a black dwarf who promised to remedy his plight. In return, the dwarf wanted the first thing that rubbed against the merchant’s leg when he returned home. Thinking that it would be his dog, the merchant agreed. It was his son, however, who ran out to welcome him home.

  As a way of evading the dwarf, the
son was cast out into the river where he floated downstream to an unknown country. Here he found a magical palace, where a Princess had been bespelled into the form of a snake, coiling and writhing on the floor. She had waited twelve years for him.

  To break the enchantment, the son had to submit to twelve black men who would visit him at night to beat, torment and pierce him with instruments. He was to stand silently, to endure, to make no response. On the second night, another twelve men would come to do the same dark work and on the third night, there would be twenty-four and they would cut off his head.

  But their powers would cease at midnight, at the first moment of the new day; at Cinderella time, when all things were transformed, even though it was dark, even though there was not yet the knowledge of the light.

  If he remained stoic through this—steady, enduring without uttering a word—then the Princess would be freed from the spell. She would sprinkle him with a flask containing the Water of Life, and he would be alive and well and as whole as before.

  He agreed. He did it all. It was a bargain. He understood his part in it, understood his reward. Happiness in recompense for sacrifice.

  And so he broke the spell. The snake became the beautiful Princess, who returned with him to her kingdom of the Golden Mountain. There was joy and jubilation. Their marriage was celebrated with dancing and feasting and he became the King of the Golden Mountain.

  But after a while, it was the same old story—the hero wanting to go back, to visit the country, the father, the life he had come from; to say, ‘It’s me. I’m back.’ To be welcomed into their arms. To reclaim them. And to reclaim himself.

  He was warned of course—as they are always warned—that it was dangerous. That the past is a marshy territory, never what it seems to be; that the pathways are mischievous; that what you have lost is never what you find.