November 8, 2007

• ElectricPoetry: The Cancerboy Diaries

  

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  BEHIND THE POETRY:  In early 2004, Joel, my friend and roommate, went to the doctor because he was having trouble when going to the bathroom. The pain he was feeling turned out to have been caused by a mammoth cancerous growth in his large intestine, which had been growing for a decade. The growth was removed, he spent two weeks in the hospital, and then his doctors began a very aggresive program of chemotherapies, which is still continuing. Recently, he was told that the third round was completed, and the cancer seems to have been eradicated again, but it will really never go away, becuase it is scattered througout the lymph nodes in his body. He has been given a "rest" but will have to begin treatments again possibly after Christmas. He's only 52, and will have to suffer through chemotherapies all his life, or until either the cancer or the treatments kill him. Like the scales of justice, although with no justice for the sufferers, the cancer and the chemo battle it out in his body. I began writing the Cancerboy Diaries, of which the most recent is presented last in the series below, as soon as Joel was diagnosed. Here, for the first time on one of my websites, is the collected series of the "Cancerboy Diaries'. MFN/ppf

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  "The Cancerboy Diaries: Entry the 1st"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  © June 12, 2004 8:24 a.m. pdt

  
  You didn't listen too well perhaps
  But you always have been a stubborn sort
  I said I knew what you were bringing to the party
  But I was wrong as usual
  We've been "together" now for nearly a decade
  And the ball in your colon
  Had been "together" with you all that time too
  Now it is gone
  Your bad habits disappeared for a while suddenly
  But then re-appeared on the horizon of hellishness

  
  I wrote a poem about you
  But you don't like poetry
  So you won't read it
  I cursed you with tourettelike abandon
  in the hours when you slept unawares

  
  I come home to your drunkenness
  And lazy abandonment too often
  And now the recuperation period
  stays you here for what seems like an eternity

  
  And eternity for you is not a given, is it?
  You didn't listen too well perhaps
  When the solemn men in white coats diagnosed
  and the prognosis was denial in a diatribe

  
  Now two threrapies later
  Nothing seems to have changed
  Nothing bothers you too much
  The TV still blares into my room at night
  The bottles still pile up on the
  sideboard by the sink
  The smoke still chokes me as it has for years

  
  We haven't changed
  The bastard tykes in the project
  still think we're queerguys
  We still ignore and berate and yell and scream
  And thanks for the hug that was sweet

  
  We're on a precipice together
  But you are the only one in danger of falling
  We're living a shared existence
  But you are the only one who might see it end soon
  We're like a couple of grannies with poor eyesight
  Who can't see the truth as it parades before us
  We're news junkies without a clue
  Responding to bellicose tirades and
  Uncertain soliliquies as if we understand
  Our differences.

  
  I say too often that I hate you old fool
  And you keep talking to the cats
  Everything is a comedy except the eventual outcome
  And I shall be hopeful that these entries
  Number many many numerals,
  As the cancer stops it's course
  And as the therapy poisons
  And as we renew the bonds
  Which made me say I knew what you were bringing to the party
  In the first place.

   

  "The Cancerboy Diaries: Entry the 2nd"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  © August 31, 2004 8:41 p.m. pdt

  
  The sickness still hasn't happened yet,
  and it's what, the ninth treatment?
  I keep telling you you're the poster boy
  For Chemotherapy
  Nothing seems to upset the apple cart
  And when thousands see their hair fall out
  And spend a good deal of time kneeling by the toilet
  You have come through without a scrape
  And good tidings are born by your disposition.

  
  We both thought things were going to be worse now
  Didn't we?
  But thank the Godhead, the Natural Way,
  The random patterns of existence
  Thank the Lord, Chance, Health, and Kismet's folly
  You are looking like a winner in a loser's game
  And I know I can't be a third as thankful as you are.

  
  As the time lapses into uncertain sameness
  As the hours pass unheeded and un-needed
  As the weight of time's coffin slowly recedes
  You seem to have some time for levity
  For brevity of endless doubts
  And for this I am happy for you
  And I know you are happy for this outcome as well

  
  But what is the outcome?
  What is the prognosis several weeks from now?
  Are the drugs and the poison just settling in
  For a long stay?
  And are you ready for the occurrences of time
  On that future day?
  I guess we shall have to wait and see
  And hope for the best possibility 

   

  "The Cancerboy Diaries: Entry the 3rd"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  © December 3, 2004 5:11 a.m. pst

  
  It's all over now, or is it?
  That's the question on our minds this week
  The last week of the treatments
  Knock wood

  
  I know I can't believe it's been as long
  As it has been, this waiting
  With you seemingly the same
  Little change
  Same habits,
  Except of course the sleepiness that
  arrives a couple of hours after each injection
  And now those injections,
  for all intense intents and purpose
  Are succeeding in eradication
  Or so we hope again and won't know
  Until that fateful doctor's visit on the ninth

  
  Your stamina remained, as did those bad habits
  The cigarette smoke still swirls above your head
  The beer bottles still pile up on the sideboard
  (although you've been forced to drink them warm
  because of the treatment's drawbacks)

  
  The pills and the pills to counteract the other pills
  Thankfully you have not had to suffer much
  The Picc line in your arm,
  An answer to the bruising that could have
  Spread thanks to the loss of platelets
  Which served to clot your blood in better times
  Failed and spit the saline solution
  So they removed it last week
  It made you look like a Frankenstien monster
  With a permanent vein in your arm dangling

  
  Now the Picc line is removed
  As in hopes so is the cancer
  But no one knows
  Or they're not telling yet.

  
  Stay well.
  We pray
  You're a real asshole at times (and I speak as a comrade in arms
  in that department)
  But I don't want you to go away from this life yet
  You're too young to die
  Fingers crossed, let's hope the train has
  reached it's destination
  and you can get off this trip
  Good luck buddy

   

  "The Cancerboy Diaries: Entry the 4th"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  © November  2, 2005  4:40 a.m. pst

  
  This morning, a year hence from the last entry in this series
  I was thinking of summing up the story, turning the last page
  Eliminating the doubt from last year's diary doldrums
  But then I remembered
  The "bad news" received a few weeks ago
  has not been finalized,
  and so I was not prepared to write
  until I knew, with you,
  what to expect
  from the rest of your life
  A year has passed.
  A year spent knowing that
  Careless Cancer, in remission,
  was silent, soothingly absent from reality
  You stopped smoking and drinking again
  This time for over three months
  You wouldn't clean the ashtray in the sink however
  and it sits, still there, filled with smoky water
  I tell you I hate your inattention to cleanliness
  even as I slip deeper under your influence
  in our shared existence together
  "The doctor said he was worried"
  These were the words, which
  keeping you on those pins and needles
  of needless unbelieving wonder
  you kept repeating to yourself
  You missed your last appointment.
  How can you even remember
  all the meds and the doctors and
  the pain and the unwary unknowing
  The constant teetertottering of disdainful
  implications
  How can you stand it?
  How indeed.
  The news probably doesn't want to be heard.

  
  I didn't write that entry,
  and then I saw you sitting in your chair
  whilst arriving home last night.
  Drunk as usual,
  Upset and arrogant
  Irritatingly lovable but lachrymose
  Home alone during the day
  I figured you must have had another appointment
  But I was preoccupied
  And didn't want to hear your shit
  Cause I have problems of my own.
  Later of course you told me of the final problem
  And my own problems disappeared without a trace.
  The cancer is back.
  No amount of pamphlets engineered to
  "prolong survival"
  can disguise the truth of the situation
  No amount of pallid predictions
  can serve to soothe the salacious statements
  Simmering in your psyche
  The cancer is back.

  
  As these words are typed into the processor
  I have no idea if this is the next to last
  entry in the Cancerboy Diaries.
  Or if miracles do happen,
  and the course of death can be detoured
  if but for a moment
  We laughed last night
  (what can we do? cry?)
  and talked of parachutes and hang gliders
  and gambling trips to Vegas
  and 2000 dollar hookers
  We laughed last night
  and now I think of you anon my friend
  and turn the pages of the diary again
  And write about inconclusive adjudicators of
  Existence and happiness on this planet
  I pray you have a good time while you can
  And that the next entry in the diary
  is a postive one
  I can only pray, hope, and dream
  But you have to live,
  and die,
  with this burden.

   

  "The Cancerboy Diaries: Entry the 5th"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  © March  2, 2006  4:24 a.m. pst

  
  Were miracles supposed to happen,
  and was life a subtle joke played
  on the Universal Psyche
  after all
  We cannot tell,
  and so we blithely ignore the disasters
  when we can
  in order to concentrate on happier times.
  We joked about the lack of nausea
  You still had your thick head of hair
  Each week more poison was ordered
  and inserted into your failing body
  Each week more laughs were shed
  Like nervous embarrassing moments
  Each week the timer's spring
  seemed ever so slowly to loose
  and with it feelings of superiority over
  life itself.
  Mephisophelean Cancer cackles
  as he draws his bloody sickle across
  your years, months, and days
  We could never laugh as hard as he.
  Why couldn't you have listened
  when I offered to accompany you
  on out of state trips, to lavish lunches,
  to any form of forgetfulness
  while we still have "time".
  But you didn't
  As Usual.
  Others would joke with me in the past
  about your lackadaisical outlook on life.
  Now that the shutter could close forever
  did you change your ways
  and endeavor to feel the fulsome power
  of life's happinesses before they were snuffed?
  No, and no again,
  As Usual.
  Even I, who lives in close proximity
  to this suffering calamity
  thought for a moment that everything
  would be "okay"
  but then the other morning I heard
  you in the bathroom, where the
  cough became a nagging reminder
  that poison is being injected weekly.
  You had decided on the lavish lunches
  and yet each time I ask you to go with me
  The Cancer and the Chemo have other plans.
  Now you are sick
  Sick with this debilitating disease
  This malignant monster which
  married your health
  and threw away the key.
  Your face looks tired and sags
  Your smiles aren't healthy
  And you move slower and less certain
  than in any time I've known you.

  
  As I think that I would want to remember
  some better times, and discussions
  from the past,
  Coke fueled evenings in Long Beach
  listening to music as we
  tag teamed the record player.
  We haven't played our records for each other
  in years, until the other night,
  trying to find a shared normalcy
  that doesn't exist anymore,
  As I think that I hardly know you
  As you slowly wither away,
  and as your full head of hair,
  finally becomes ready to shed,
  and follicles in the sink
  serve as yet another sad timepiece
  ticking with uncertain certainty
  As I think about the future loss of existence
  we will all experience,
  I wish you well,
  even as we laugh
  because we dare not cry.
  I turn another page in the diary
  and wait with you,
  as the cough,
  and the hair loss continue
  and the minutes tick
  as always
  but with a harder sound.

   

  "The Cancerboy Diaries: Entry the 6th"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  © Dec. 22, 2006 7:06 am pst

  
  This was supposed to be the positive entry,
  Unwritten till today,
  but full of hope after the second
  round of chemotherapy
  ended the Cancer's stroll
  through your stomach area,
  lodging in your lymph nodes,
  and causing so many problems.
  The therapy had finally facilitated
  a full recovery,
  and all traces of the disease
  had fled your body.
  Yes, this was
  supposed to be the positive entry,
  but I failed to write it.
  We had witnessed the
  shearing of your head
  when the medicine
  caused clumps of your hair
  to disappear
  almost overnight.
  We had witnessed
  the nausea and the sickness
  as the medicine wound it's way
  through your insides
  supposedly eradicating the
  Cancer's liesurely destructive walk.
  We had finally witnessed joy
  when the second round of treatments
  ended, and the doctors
  gave you a fleeting ray of hope
  in the distance.
  Months passed,
  and the sixth entry of the Diary
  remained unwritten.
  Knowing that the
  last chapter had hopefully been written,
  the Diary stayed shut,
  and the pages,
  devoid of words of elation,
  stated blank and beackoning.
  Just as Christmas shines in
  the near distance,
  the latest doctor's visit
  bore no good tidings at all,
  and now I pull out the Diary again,
  and the glorious respite from
  pain and disease will have to
  be postponed,
  as your prognosis came back positive,
  and the Creative Cancer causes
  problems once again,
  resuming his liesurely stroll
  through your already
  wartorn shell of humanity.
  I pen these words with hesitancy
  Hope again outlasting reality
  as we brace for Round Three
  of the treatments.
  What will the outcome
  be this time
  on the Rollercoaster of Uncertainty
  ?
  Your head of hair had finally re-emerged
  and now it is doubtless that
  this forest of follicles will not be felled
  by the medicine again.
  Holiday questions
  and uncertain futures
  gaze again at your existence
  and we will
  pray again
  that Strike Three
  does not put you
  out of the ballgame for good.

   

  "The Cancerboy Dairies: Entry the 7th"
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  © November 8, 2007 6:04 a.m. pst

  
  One of the plot turns
  on a popular television show
  had a character diagnosed with the Big Casino
  After four or five episodes, her hair fell out,
  she became nauseous,
  and bitchy,
  and just in time for November sweeps,
  her doctor gave her a welcome house call
  and the news was upliftingly positive
  As strains of hopeful and inspirational music played,
  the doctor declared that all traces of the cancer
  in her lymph nodes had gone
  Smiles all around
  Hesitant jubilation
  and fade out

  
  That was television
  Veracity is only partially part of the script
  and the doctor never warned, as in "real life"
  that there is a good chance the Big C will return
  and return
  and return

  
  The ballgame for you is not over yet
  We've had the seventh inning stretch
  and in the final moments of the eighth
  the cancer and the chemo seem to be tied
  We're about ready for the last inning
  unless the game goes into overtime

  
  Another year,
  another round of chemotherapy
  The hair grew back, only to begin to fall out again
  We finally have been able to go out to dinner together
  Only once, but we had a good time.
  (I owed you dinner from a 12 year old bet you never collected)
  (I didn't want the debt to go uncollected should cancer win!)
  Well, on some occasions you feel better and can eat
  but most of the time the treatments halt your appetite
  much like the original "ball of cancer" stopped
  the course of the food through your intestinal tract
  in the first place

  
  Was that four years ago?
  You have now lived through this calamity
  One year longer than the bleakest assessments
  of your lifeline were given
  You have now settled into "cancer complacency"
  as you meet your weekly chemo buddies
  (those who are still around)
  every week at the clinic
  Just last week the third round of therapies ended
  The blood counts were negative in regards to the
  presence of the disease
  but the disease is not gone like on the television show
  The disease has been slowed, but the growth will emerge
  Undetected now, and soon to be detected
  all over again

  
  Nobody is writing your script
  No late night reprise for your health
  No mellifluous swelling of violin strings for you
  Doc tells you that he's going to give you "a rest"
  A rest from the debilitating destruction caused by the cure
  which is not really a cure at all
  but just a few more pages of the diary
  encouraging you to live a little longer
  before the final curtain falls and the book is closed forever

  
  Enjoy your rest
  Perhaps you will retain your appetite,
  and we can go to dinner again (that was fun)
  Perhaps you will have a little more joy this Christmas
  but then again perhaps you will not
  You never know
  The pain of never knowing is the worst pain in the world

  
  After your "rest" the chemotherapy will be administered again.
  Neither you nor I (nor the white coated medicos) know for certain
  what the outcome will be
  or what the t.o.d. will look like.
  I, like a lot of seemingly healthy humanity,
  know that the t.o.d. will come eventually for us all
  But we don't have a disease with a variable alarm
  like you and your fellow sufferers do
  We feel good not knowing
  And we hope that someday you will be able to
  feel good again knowing something positive

  
  God is writing your script, not some televsion scribe
  And faith is all that any of us can muster
  as we close another chapter in the diary
  praying perhaps that a cure is discovered
  at some point in your present life of suffering

  
  

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