Dope on a rope, a.k.a. chemo

Photo courtesy of Cathy Fisher Morris

April 8, 2002. I stood in the closet lost in what-ifs and wondering what was appropriate apparel for the occasion of voluntarily turning my own body into a toxic waste dump. A Hazmat suit came to mind.

Then I briefly thought of power clothes. Something that would scream: "I'm a lean, mean cancer fighting machine. I am the undeniable authority. Don't mess with me." But alas, wearing a power suit to consume bio-hazardous materials seemed, well, ill-suited. And I was hardly feeling powerful. Rather, I was grieving the passing of my own good health. Black seemed appropriate. And so I dressed me and my qualms in a comfortable old black pantsuit, the one with elastic in the waist and baggy sleeves that could easily be rolled up to accommodate needles or blood pressure cuffs or whatever other nifty gadgets would observe my innards -- or deliver poisonous drugs.

Dressed, I looked in the mirror. My alter ego stared back and tried to refocus me on the task at hand: to let the drugs do their job so that I could live. She admonished: "Chemo couture -- what a silly thing to think about. It's your life that matters. And if you have to toss a few cookies or lose your hair, that's a small price to pay." My alter ego never did approve of my pity parties, and so to appease her, I added the standard issue accessory that every cancer patient gets: The Official Brave Person Mask.

En route to the hospital, I wondered where people in the surrounding cars were going. To work? To school? To the gym? Weren't they the lucky ones?

I broke the silence by asking Alex how he was feeling. "This all seems so surreal," he answered. That's exactly what I was thinking. Like an episode from The Twilight Zone, we were looking down at our other selves going to a place we would never voluntarily go.

Alex pulled into the parking garage, turned off the ignition and shifted to face me. "I hate that you have to do this," he said.

"It's not my idea of fun, either, but let's get it over with," I answered, without adding: "Who in their right mind would choose to allow drugs that are designed to kill enter their body?" We hugged and walked hand-in-hand to the clinic.

In the waiting area, I was filled with apprehension and froze when my name was called. If I just didn't answer, I thought, we could silently escape down the elevator and forget about all this. But I did answer and quickly found myself in a comfortable recliner surrounded by other patients, some awake and some asleep, all hooked up to IV's. There was no escape now, so I surrendered to the inescapable.

I winced as the nurse inserted the IV and hung the bag of chemicals. Alex sat facing me, clearly wondering what to expect. The anguish in his eyes told me how difficult it was for him to watch a stranger pump my body full of lethal chemicals. My brave person mask smiled, gave him the thumbs up sign, pointed to the drugs hanging high above my shoulder, and declared, "This dope on a rope gives me lots of hope." All Alex could manage was a wince and a squeeze of my hand.

Next Friday, Oct. 22: The ride gets bumpy

Betsy de Parry is the author of The Roller Coaster Chronicles and host of a series of webcasts about cancer. Find her on Facebook or Twitter or e-mail her.