I now promise you that I won’t say another word to you about your options. I won’t actively support what I think your present inclination is, but I will remain silent about it when I’m with you. I will, however, do whatever you permit me to do to help you get through this period and return to good health.
If you wish, I can begin by trying to connect your hard drive any morning next week but Monday.
Happy 2011.
Ted
* * *
—
I’D PROMISED TO stop fighting with Mom, but that didn’t mean I’d stop fighting for her. My new plan was to get through to Mom’s friends in the hope they could talk some sense into her. I wanted them to know the facts of the situation. I knew they’d been hearing only her side of the story. At every doctor’s visit I’d diligently record all the precise statistics and time frames, but as soon as we’d leave Mom would reach for one of her trusted—and untrue—claims:
“The surgery is incredibly dangerous and there are no guarantees it will help me.”
“I’ll be left with a colostomy bag for the rest of my life.”
“I’ll be subjected to chemotherapy for sure and there’s a high probability the cancer will return anyway, and by then my immune system will be shot.”
I took the opportunity to suss out David’s thoughts when Mom and I were over at his house for dinner one evening. David had the looks of Alan Alda and the pretenses of Indiana Jones. He worked in provincial politics and was always scheming up renegade power plays. “Authority is guilty until proven innocent,” he once said. It was obvious that he adored my mom. They shared a love for fine wine, travel, and subverting the system.
David and I got along well, too. The three of us would sometimes hang out together, eating good food and trading tales of our respective adventures. I especially enjoyed going over to his house for red meat and red wine. David cooked up delicious steaks on the barbecue and had a cellar full of exquisite vintages. Like Mom, he was into affordable luxuries. He was very proud of the fact that he only ever bought used Jeeps but drank like a millionaire.
While Mom was setting the table, I approached David on the back porch. I was hoping he could be an ally, but it quickly became clear that he was choosing to support her. He seemed to have just as much contempt for the doctors as she did. “Feinberg’s office is a crackpot operation!” he said, flipping a portobello mushroom on the grill for Mom. “You can’t trust the medical system.”
I was surprised he was being so one-sided. “But do you really think Mom’s herbs are going to cure her?” I asked.
“The herbs act just like chemotherapy!” he said, his finger hitting the air like a drumstick on the words “just like.”
“What do you mean?” I was trying hard to contain my disbelief.
“The compound Michael makes for your mom is made from the exact same herbs they make chemo from,” he said, once again hitting the words “exact same” with his pointer finger.
I was shocked. As if chemo is made from lemon balm, peppermint, and marsh mallow.
I understood why David needed to stand by Mom—it wouldn’t be easy to remain together if he didn’t—but I was amazed by how much he really seemed to believe in what she was doing. He was drinking the herbal Kool-Aid too. (Literally! Apparently he’d started seeing Michael for his mild arthritis.)
I wrote an email to Lola and Arei, two of Mom’s best friends and longtime members of her writing group. I explained that as much as I respected Mom’s right to make her own decisions, I didn’t think she was fully appreciating what the doctors were telling her. I shared detailed recaps of her appointments, including the exact stats quoted. “I would hate for her to die a painful early death when there’s a confident doctor who’s offering her a ninety percent chance of being cured,” I wrote. “I’m really sorry if you think I’m crossing a line by sending you this note, but at this point, I really don’t know what else to do.”
Lola wrote me back:
Your Mum has explained everything you’ve said to me. The only thing she doesn’t seem to agree with is the percentages when it comes to a possible recovery rate. But she is very clear about how she wants to proceed and ultimately she’s the only one who can make the final decision about how to move forward and what the risks are. I can’t imagine that she doesn’t know the facts and is making the decision in a way that is not fully informed.
I know this isn’t what you want to hear from me. But I can understand and appreciate her choice, so I can’t lean on her to make a different one. I’m sorry to disappoint you in this way. You are the light of your Mum’s life. You need to keep being that for her, even while disagreeing with the path she has chosen. And there is definitely a chance that she’s right.
Arei took a similar stance:
I completely support your Mom’s need to trust and believe in the method of treatment that she chooses. I also believe that she has tried and continues to try diligently to get the best information that she can about her condition and her options in order to make the most informed decision for herself that she can.
I also want you to know that I, too, am extremely cautious when it comes to conventional medicine, and from personal experiences my greater comfort and success in terms of my health has been with alternative approaches.
Your Mom has worked so hard in her life to be truthful with herself, conscious, and authentic. I have so much respect for what she has accomplished in that regard, and I believe she is bringing that same thoughtful, studied authenticity to her current situation.
If she has, and still chooses to continue on the alternative path she has chosen, I desperately hope that you will be able to respect and support her in it. I think you need one another’s love and support more profoundly than I have words to express.
I believe, with all my heart, that you are trying to save your mother’s life and I also know that she is trying very hard to do the same.
I loved my Mom’s friends, but I was starting to think they were as far out as she was. I suppose alkaline water seeks its own level.
Next I called my aunt Barbara in Victoria, B.C. Her daughter Emily had had mouth cancer when she was just a teenager—it was scary, but she’d survived it after undergoing surgery and radiation. Emily had been in remission ever since, and had just gotten married. So I assumed that my aunt, more than most people, would have an appreciation for the benefits of modern medicine.
I assumed wrong. She sounded just as brainwashed as all of Mom’s other Stepford Wives. “Belief is the most important thing,” she told me in a trancelike voice.
Mom had everyone fooled. She had them convinced that she had carefully considered her options, had weighed the benefits and harms, and was making the best decision based on her so-called belief system. And that I was the one letting my fears get the better of me. I felt deflated, but I could understand why they’d be hesitant to challenge her: if Mom were willing to cut me off—her beloved child—there was no doubt she’d do it to them.
Reflecting back on their letters, I can also understand why Mom’s friends didn’t believe she was in denial. Mom was the queen of self-examination. She meditated. She looked at the dark corners of her life. She was aware of her control issues and insecurities, her chronic ambivalence in relationships. Always trying to uncover another layer of truth, she let her writing tell her what she didn’t want to hear. She studied her dreams and even underwent cognitive therapy for her chocolate addiction. She’d led consciousness-raising groups for twenty-two years! Mom had more self-knowledge than anyone we knew—and yet she was in denial. It was unbelievable.
They couldn’t see—and for a long time, I even didn’t see—how Mom coated her denial with a veneer of enlightened thinking. She used the language of patient empowerment to persuade others (and herself) that she was doing the right thing: that she was being an active patient who was staying true t
o herself and choosing quality of life. How could anyone possibly argue with that? Those were good ways of being! Feminist ways of being. What kind of horrible person wouldn’t respect a woman’s right to choose her own course of treatment? Me, that’s who.
* * *
—
AND HER SO-CALLED healers? They were on the payroll. Yet I wondered just how supportive they’d be if they knew the full truth of her situation. With that in mind, I decided to write the most senior member of her militia: Michael.
“I have a great appreciation for alternative methods of healing,” I began, “but it pains me to watch my mom totally ignore what modern medicine has to offer. Dr. Feinberg says he’s optimistic that her cancer is ‘highly curable’ with surgery. I’m not sure how experienced you are with treating rectal cancer specifically, but do you really think she has a chance of being cured with herbs and healthy eating alone?”
“Your mother is an intelligent and aware person and perfectly capable of making whatever decisions are right for her,” Michael wrote in his reply. “The best thing that you can do is give her your love and support. It’s difficult enough for people who have this kind of illness to deal with their own fear and anxiety. The last thing they need is to have to deal with other people’s, especially from those who are close to them. The worst prognosis is usually for those who succumb to fear; the best prognosis is for those who have absolute faith in the choices they make, whatever they are. If you really want to help your mother, try your best to keep your personal beliefs out of it.”
As if SCIENCE was my PERSONAL BELIEF?
Livid, I googled Michael. He seemed to be big fish in Ontario’s herbalism community. He ran his own herbalism school (based on his own “unique system”), where he offered a variety of workshops such as “The Spirit of Herbs,” “Advanced Spirit of Herbs,” and “Applied Spirit of Herbs.” An image search revealed a middle-aged white man with silver wire-rimmed glasses and long, wild grey hair (in several photos protruding from a worn red baseball cap). I’d say the look on his face was a “special blend” of insecurity, blind devotion, and “distilled” self-importance.
I clicked on a couple of his YouTube videos. He talked a lot about “the modern medical reductionist paradigm,” “the way we were meant to live,” and how “healing is about learning to live in harmony with the natural world.” But mostly he seemed to like hearing himself talk. I was not impressed. Perhaps he thought being dishevelled communicated his status as an elevated and powerful spiritual healer? I just thought he looked like unmowed grass.
* * *
—
IT WAS MADDENING. It felt like everyone thought I was the crazy one, like in an old horror movie when the wrong person gets dragged away to the insane asylum. With Teddy no longer putting up a fight, I was the only one freaking out. I knew in my gut that the situation wasn’t good, but Josh still didn’t seem bothered, which only added to my growing Chicken Little complex.
“You think it’s just a snap reaction to this thing in her life, but she’s been going to communes for years,” he said. “She’s always seen the world from a different place.”
“Yes, but this is extremely strange behaviour, even for her. In general she’s a fairly rational person. But what I’m hearing out of her mouth these days doesn’t seem to make any sense.”
“It makes sense to her—”
“I know it does. But the scientific facts say otherwise.”
“But there are other facts. She sees the world differently.”
As we spoke, I felt the maybes start to pile up in my head: Maybe Josh was right (Mom had always travelled to the beat of a different drum). Maybe I just hadn’t perceived how fervent she was before now. Maybe I was being a bully. Maybe I just needed to trust her. After all, she was the parent.
I felt scared and alone. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stuffed all my feelings into an internal compression sack and resolved to Move On. On the outside I appeared happy and high functioning—going to my cool job, playing hockey and chess on the weekends—but most days that winter I’d come straight home, plop myself in front of the TV, smoke a joint, and wash down potato chips with too much red wine.
7
A TOUCH OF CANCER
In the spring, I signed a lease on a new apartment. But before I could move in, I had to shack up with Mom for a few weeks. She was a bit apprehensive about the prospect (wanting to be able to do her healing practices in peace), but I promised I wouldn’t be a nag. I was tired of sparring with her. For the sake of my sanity, and in order to remain on good terms, I had to chill out. And honestly, after months of feeling scared about her situation and overwhelmed by work, not to mention a recent breakup, I was just looking forward to being “home” for a little while.
The Hemingway had been my permanent address since I was fourteen. I’d continued to stay there off and on over the years—during breaks from university and grad school, and whenever I was between apartments in my twenties. Mom always took care of me there. She’d keep the fridge stocked with gourmet side dishes from Pusateri’s Fine Foods—marinated calamari, heirloom bruschetta, tuna salad worth its weight in gold. She’d bring home my favourite caramel truffles from the Belgian Chocolate Shop. Whenever I stayed over, Mom would wake me up in the morning with fancy coffee. She’d add real Mexican vanilla, foam the milk, and shave dark chocolate on top. She may not have been much of a cook, but she was a damn fine barista.
Ironically, it was only as I got older that she became more of the nurturing “Mommy” I’d wanted when I was little. Maybe it was because I wasn’t as needy as I was back then. Or perhaps with a decade of meditation workshops and Buddhist retreats under her belt she was able to be more attentive. (She even admitted to having been “asleep at the mommy wheel.”) Either way, she made a conscious effort to be more present for me.
When I got a breast reduction in my final year of university, Mom stepped up and took care of me at her place during my recovery. I’d complained to my doctor about having back pain—which was true—but the bigger truth was that I wanted a slender, boyish chest. I’d already chopped off my dreadlocks (thank god), returning to my short-haired boy roots. I was becoming more myself.
For two weeks over my winter break Mom waited on me, bringing an array of artisanal fruit juices to my bedside table. I remember Syd being over one day and doing a double take when she saw Mom serving me a bowl of soup. Syd and I had been good friends since Cherrywood, and she’d never seen Mom perform such a maternal act. It felt really nice to be tended to by her. I appreciated her efforts, even if she was a little late to the party.
One day while I was recovering in bed Mom entered my room with a big smile on her face. “Look what I got you!” she sang, holding out a plush toy dog. I rolled my eyes. Isn’t twenty-two a bit old for stuffed animals? But my icy heart melted once Mom placed him in my arms. He was pretty darn cute—a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel with white fur and floppy apricot ears. I named him Puppy.
Upon my return to the Hemingway, Puppy was still there on my bed, but the continuity pretty much ended there. My antique childhood desk had been moved into the living room, and in its place stood a large wooden structure that looked like an oversized telephone booth. “That’s my new infrared sauna,” Mom announced excitedly. “Infrared light is great for detoxification!” She explained that every morning she’d sit inside the sauna and read for thirty minutes. “I also drink green tea while I’m in it for greater effect,” she said.
I made a concerted effort not to react. I was just there to hang out, watch reruns of Sex and the City, and enjoy my morning coffee service. No more fits of anger. My new approach was to simply observe and ask questions—without giving any DVD commentary. You catch more flies with raw organic mānuka honey, right? And a part of me thought that maybe if Mom described some of her pie-in-sky cures out loud, she’d hear just how ridiculous they sounded.
I look
ed around. The kitchen cupboard where Mom normally kept tea was now overflowing with bottles of supplements: IP6, vitamin C, vitamin D, selenium, vitamin E, papaya enzymes, castor oil, probiotics, colloidal silver, random gold-and-green capsules. On the fridge was a card with “Father Zago’s secret recipe” for curing cancer: aloe juice, raw honey, and whisky. It sounded like something on the menu at a hipster cocktail bar.
She was now using only chemical-free makeup and household products. She’d bought a negative ion machine to purify the air. Mom was in Full Healer Mode. An extended game of alternative medicine bingo, my first week at the Hemingway played out something like this:
Monday morning
Mom was standing over the kitchen counter, mixing up a bowl of organic cottage cheese and flaxseed oil.
“What’s that?” I asked, poking my head over her shoulder.
“It’s the Budwig diet!” She continued to stir.
“The whah?”
“Johanna Budwig was a famous German scientist in the 1950s,” Mom explained, carrying her breakfast over to the dining room table. “She was nominated for the Nobel Prize seven times for curing cancer, but Big Pharma shut her down because she refused to add chemo to her protocol.”
I kept my mouth shut but couldn’t hide my look of skepticism.
“Look her up if you want some reassurance,” Mom said.
“Reassurance? Of what?”
“That things can work! She had a ninety percent cure rate with her diet.”
I took my mug of coffee and sat down across from her at the table, watching as she took a spoonful in her mouth and wrinkled her nose. “It tastes awful,” she said, grinning performatively. “It’s a lot of flaxseed oil.”
Dead Mom Walking Page 9
