by Doris Brett
Through all the months of chemotherapy, Rachel focused on reclaiming herself. In the shower, her hair came off in soft and strangely frightening clumps as if it had no anchor. Nothing whatsoever kept it where it was supposed to be, where it had always been. Her hair said more clearly than anything else that Rachel’s world had come unhinged; that her own personal physics had cut loose and were headed for parts unknown.
Rachel reacted by cutting off her hair so that all that framed her face was a shadow; then later, nothing. Her friends said it suited her, said she should keep it short. Rachel acquiesced shyly. But beneath it all, she realised afterwards, what she had always been thinking was, ‘It will come back, it will grow again.’ She had gone through the whole experience thinking that she would come back. That she would come out the other end of the tunnel and meet herself, Rachel, smiling in the sunshine.
The King of the Golden Mountain went back. The Snake Princess had grudgingly given him the magic ring that would transport him there. But on one condition: that he must never use it to wish her away to his old home.
He agreed. In his nagging, blinkered need to go back home, he would have agreed to anything. And perhaps he meant it at the time.
He went back to his old world; his home, family, friends. But they didn’t recognise him. They turned him away, denied him. He had no existence in this old world. He was dead in it, just as surely as he had been alive in the new one.
He was distraught. He broke all his promises. He sent for the Snake Princess, who came against her will, furious at being called. She disowned him too. He was doubly disowned now. He belonged neither in this world nor the other. He was alone now, stranded, desperate for his new home, for the strange palace of the King of the Golden Mountain.
Despairing and penniless, bereft of the ring that carried his magic, he met three giants, squabbling over an inheritance. He stole it away from them—a magical sword which cut off heads, a cloak of invisibility and boots which would transport the wearer instantly to wherever he wished to go. He knew where he wished to go.
He arrived at the palace of the King of the Golden Mountain on the eve of a great celebration. The Snake Princess was marrying again. He had on his cloak of invisibility. He passed by the guards, the guests, the Snake Princess. No-one saw him. He passed by like mist.
After her chemotherapy, Rachel had expected the world to be wonderful. After wrestling with the dark angel—although Rachel had always felt it was more like dancing; a strange, whirling dance where you had to concentrate on the steps—she had imagined she could rest. Her hair would grow. Her body would become strong again. The old Rachel would bloom.
Instead, it seemed that all of the usual or unusual troubles and trials that space themselves out in a life had gathered in clusters to attend Rachel that year. They came, one after another in groups and larger groups. Rachel, who was used to picking herself up, picked herself up—although more and more wearily. She went back to her old fairy stories and read them over. No-one had told her about this. And neither did the stories.
Rachel was used to being optimistic. It was not a facile optimism, it was hard-won. She had seen darkness before. But in some way that she knew could never be fully understood with language, Rachel had always reclaimed the light, reclaimed herself, reclaimed hope. But in this year after chemotherapy, for the first time since adulthood, she could feel it fading.
Rachel had read somewhere that when the body is deprived of food, it begins to cannibalise itself. When the soul is deprived of hope, does the same thing happen?
The King of the Golden Mountain was enraged. The guests were feasting, his pain meant nothing to them. The Snake Princess was supping at her wedding feast, laughing and happy; he did not exist for her.
The King made himself visible; roared out his betrayal. He took the magical sword he had stolen and ordered it to cut off the heads of all the people he had once loved and cherished. He ended up standing alone in his castle, once more and never as he had imagined it, the King of the Golden Mountain.
Rachel finished reading the story in the light of her bedside lamp. She had taken the book to bed. That was what fairytales were after all: bedtime stories to hold you through the dark. But not this one. Rachel could see why she had always been frightened of this story. It was the most terrifying story of all. It was the one without the happy ending, the one about the loss of hope.
Rachel had thought that she had done all that she was supposed to do. She had befriended the chemotherapy; she had kissed the Beast. The transformation was supposed to happen. She saw now that it had been too easy. The chemotherapy had been ugly, but it was on her side, just as the Beast had been for Beauty. What she had not embraced was the loss. Just as Beauty and the King of the Golden Mountain had wanted to go back, so had she.
But how could you embrace loss? It was like embracing absence—the unknown, the darkness. It was the letting go of all that was old and past. And how could you trust in letting go, when what you might find was a vacuum?
Rachel turned off the light. The past did not exist, she saw now. If you went back to the past, you would not exist.
Rachel lay in the dark. She had read books that talked of being transformed by the light. But Rachel understood now that that was wrong. Light was not what transformed you. Transformations took place in the dark—like Jonah in his whale; like Daniel in the lion’s den.
She thought of the King of the Golden Mountain on the third night of his test. She imagined him in pieces on the ground, waiting for the first minute after midnight. She could feel the changed interior of her body with its dark, mysterious caverns. She remembered lying in the narrow bed in hospital, the alchemist’s palace, feeling the chemicals drip in; trusting blindly in her body, in her ability to take them in, to make them part of herself, a part of her wholeness.
She had betrayed that trust now, she realised. In the months of disappointment, in the losses, in the loss of hope, she had failed to see the real task. The real task, she now saw, was to wait in the darkness—without clocks, without signs, without indications of light. The real task was to wait in the darkness and, not knowing whether it would ever happen, trust in the first minute after midnight.
PART THREE
I WAKE UP TODAY FEELING SAD. It’s the day before chemo and it feels as if it’s my last day as my old, familiar self. I have, in my time, fairly spouted sentiments such as, ‘Change is good for you’ and ‘If you go through life unchanged, you’re not alive.’ I suspect that if I met myself now, I would smack myself in the mouth.
I brighten up by deciding that perhaps I’m just getting some of my changes in a lump sum, instead of a yearly return. I picture a peaceful decade ahead of me. This, I discover, is not quite so soothing as I had anticipated, bringing back, as it does, the possibility of not being around in five years’ time to enjoy the pay off.
But at the same time, there is something enormously interesting about this experience. A friend sends me an email wishing me luck for chemo. He ends it by saying, ‘Have a wonderful time.’ It’s an odd thing to say, but I know exactly what he means and it feels right. Even though I’m apprehensive about tomorrow, it reminds me that it’s also an adventure and I love adventures. And I remember that they can be exciting and exhilarating as well as terrifying.
I also have to spend some of today pursuing one of my least favourite occupations: getting my photo taken. Over the last few weeks, Martin has been taking a series of photos of me for the cover of my poetry book.
The series of photos was not intended to be a series. It started off with one shoot. The word that comes back from the publisher is, ‘Great photo.’ A few days later, it is amended to, ‘Great photo, but we’d like one where you can’t see the chair.’ A second series of photos is taken, with me carefully arranged to conceal any stray chair-like protuberances. The publisher sends back word, ‘Great photo.’ A few days later, this becomes, ‘Great photo, but we’d like to see your hands.’ Cut to the third photo shoot. Me, mutteri
ngly increasingly pugnaciously, draped on a chair, with hands cunningly arranged in serene pose. Word comes back from the publisher, ‘Great photo.’ A couple of days later, ‘Great photo, but we’d like you in something blue.’ So this is why, on the day before I begin chemotherapy, when I’d rather be doing almost anything else (except, possibly, be beginning chemotherapy), I am having my photo taken—hands artfully arranged, no visible signs of chair, wearing blue and attempting to wipe the irritable expression off my face.
It’s 15 March, the day I start chemo. I wake at around 3 am and can’t get back to sleep, just doze for the rest of the night. Initially, I think it must be tension keeping me awake. But it feels different, buzzier than tension. Is this my adventurous spirit surfacing, I wonder admiringly? Then I remember that last night, as part of the preparation for chemotherapy, I had to take dexamethasone, a steroid that slips you into overdrive.
I get up fairly early and pack my bag; my chemotherapy requires an overnight stay. Martin isn’t working today and drives me in. It’s not the hospital in which I had my surgery, but a newer one, closer to home. I’ve often been here to see my patients or give lectures and it feels peculiar to be walking in as a patient myself. The little overnight bag that I carry gives away my new, reduced status. I feel oddly awkward, almost embarrassed; like an employee who has been sacked, sneaking back into the office hoping not to run into any former colleagues.
This split between the professional me and the patient me continues when one of the charge nurses arrives in my room. I’m in bed already, in my nightie, and she sits down, puzzled, because she knows me but can’t think from where. ‘You’ve been in before, haven’t you?’ she asks me.
‘No,’ I say. But my confession of being a chemotherapy virgin confounds her.
‘I’m sure I’ve seen you here before,’ she says, wrinkling her brow.
We have met before, I explain. In my capacity as a psychologist, when she asked me to give a lecture here.
Her face clears up, she looks embarrassed and we laugh, somewhat awkwardly. What a difference a nightie makes.
I’ve been worried about my veins. They’re fine—as in slender—and definitely on the shy side. I wonder how they’ll stand up to chemotherapy. I’ve heard so many stories about veins collapsing, becoming corroded, painful and unable to be accessed.
The nurse comes in to have a look at them. She peers doubtfully at one on my left arm and says she supposes that might do. She goes off to do something else and says she’ll be back in half an hour. I put my tape on and focus on my veins, imagining them swelling and rising to the surface. When the nurse comes back, to her astonishment and mine, a new vein has emerged on my other arm, standing up like a rope and begging to be used.
The drip is inserted and then we run into technical difficulties: the drip is not flowing properly. The nurses are discussing taking it out and starting all over again. Luckily, Martin, god of all mechanical devices, is on hand. He works out which dials need to be twirled and how. I release my eyes from the rabbit-in-the-headlights stare, brought on by the contemplation of yet another insertion of sharp object into unwilling flesh.
The chemotherapy drugs that will be fed through the drip are carboplatin and taxol. But like rock stars, they come with assorted chemical friends and hangers-on. There are drugs to prevent allergic reactions, drugs to prevent inflammation, drugs to counteract other drugs, and so on. They are fed one by one through the drip.
Years ago, I read a novel by C.S. Lewis in which, one by one, the ancient gods visit a household. As each takes over the spirit of the place, the inhabitants become by turn, jovial, dreamy, aroused, witty, and so on. I am in the midst of this experience now, as each chemical in turn suffuses me. They announce their individual arrivals in different ways. With one, my arm burns. With another, my legs become uncontrollably restless. Another brings instant grogginess. This is phenergan, a compound I’ve only known previously as an antihistamine for infants. It also has an interesting effect on my speech centres. Halfway through it, I suddenly realise I am horse-devouringly hungry. ‘I’m hungry,’ I announce. ‘Will someone go down to the shop and get me a packet of soldiers.’ And then as I see their puzzled looks, and realise I am talking to morons, I enunciate in the kind of slow, deliberate tones used to address a six-year-old child: ‘Get me soldiers. I’m hungry. I want a packet of soldiers.’ After a while—and more puzzled glances—I suddenly realise to my surprise that what I really mean to say is sandwiches. As it turns out, I get neither.
Jim picks that moment to pay a visit. He chats to me while I ask questions in orangutan. He appears to be able to decipher this and answers them patiently and kindly. Nothing of which I retain for more than four seconds. Now that he’s arrived in the hospital, the nurses can bring on the taxol.
There is a small risk of severe and potentially dangerous reaction to Taxol. If it’s going to happen, it’s likely to happen on the first or second sessions. An antidote will be prepared and standing by. A nurse will stay in the room with me for the first hour as it infuses, watching closely and then making frequent checks on me for the next couple of hours. My mind keeps flashing to film images of ever-vigilant FBI men flanking the president, and I realise that this is probably the closest I will ever come to having my own personal bodyguard. I attempt to enjoy the glamour, but discover that the problem with bodyguards is that they keep reminding you that there is danger.
The Taxol is carried into the room like royalty, followed by its faithful retainer, the antidote. Blurry as I am with the phenergan, I’m impressed by its entrance. Despite the prominent preparations for something going wrong, all of which shriek, ‘Beware! Beware!’ the phrase ‘Welcome Taxol’ keeps reverberating through my mind. Hypnosis works, I decide.
The Taxol takes its turn on the drip and I lie there feeling a mixture of welcome, a touch of apprehension and a lick of adrenaline. It’s like entertaining a dragon. You may know it’s friendly, but you’re never quite sure whether an accidental flick of its tail or a fiery breath in the wrong direction might set the room on fire.
The nurse checks me regularly, but I feel fine. Well—fine, given that I’m drugged to the gills and my brain has decided to retrace its evolutionary steps all the way back to primordial slime. It’s all going smoothly.
A few hours later, all of the drugs have gone through and the drip is switched to a simple saline infusion. It will run all night and then be taken off in the morning. I stagger in the direction of the bathroom, do something that resembles tooth brushing—in the way that a child’s stick figure resembles Michelangelo’s David—and then more or less accidentally find my way back to bed. I close my eyes and wake in the morning.
I open my eyes to March sunshine. Apart from the drip in my arm and some residual grogginess, I feel okay. ‘Shouldn’t I be feeling something, after having all those chemicals coursing through me?’ I think, a little suspiciously. But apart from a flushed face which gives me a drunken reprobate air, and co-ordinates nicely with my still somewhat wobbly legs, I can’t feel much difference.
The nurse gives me my going-home instructions. ‘Make sure you wash your hands very carefully and flush the toilet twice each time you go for the first couple of days.’
I look at her, puzzled.
‘It’s to make sure the toxic chemicals you’re excreting don’t get transferred to anyone else.’
I leave, feeling like an ambulant Chernobyl. I’m intrigued by the ‘flush the toilet twice’ instruction. Does the toxin’s method of world domination involve jumping up and biting people on the backsides?
Inside a Tree
(The chemotherapy agent Taxol is derived from the Pacific yew tree.)
I imagine pulling a tree over my head,
slipping into it,
over shoulders, elbows, knees,
the breathing floor.
Inside the tree, it will be dark, sap-sweet.
Daylight never enters here.
Instead there are the chemicals of
light,
from those distant messengers, the leaves,
pricking into me,
the blind, delicate fingers
talking to blood
in tongues, in words
dug up from soil at the edge of the Pacific
that speak to me, beg me to listen
to what cannot be heard,
see when light is another language.
Inside the tree,
I will be what skin is—
a door that opens and closes
the beating world.
Inside the tree, I will receive
the slow movement of water.
I will be still,
letting it move into me,
its small, cool memories
rising, seeping.
Inside the tree, I will wait quietly,
tree-wrapped,
the bark complete around me.
Inside the tree,
I will sit inside the tree’s heart
and slowly, carefully, learn
to be the dark.
Veins
Trees of my life,
dancers, branching under the skin.
Oh blue animals,
how you rise and fall for me
while the nurse takes my hand
like a white book
that she is studying under moonlight,
the pages blank or the writing indistinct.
Her head bowed, she is still,
studying, studying.
She is looking for love
like an old mystery.
She is looking for what
makes the harbour sail off
like an odd cloud on a day
when no-one is watching.
She is looking for rail lines,
for markers, for the heart
of a prime number.
She is looking, but she does not see.
She turns my hand over, touches it,
