No exit

One thing about having cancer is that you quickly come to know many other people with cancer, and inevitably one or another suffers a recurrence, so even when you're back on your feet yourself, you still don't get to leave cancerworld, no matter how hard you grope for the exit. And alas, one of my dearest friends has had a new diagnosis and is in the hospital for yet another surgery before embarking on her third regimen of chemotherapy in just 10 years.

The weird thing is, awful as this new diagnosis is, I have thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to spend long, languid afternoons with her as she recuperates in the hospital. She sent her husband off upstate to see their daughter in a play at college, so I've spent the weekend keeping her company at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, shuffling around the corridors with her and her IV pole and reminiscing about our pasts, shared and separate. Somehow, in the overheated air and plumply upholstered comfort of the patient lounge, we close our eyes to the miseries that lie ahead for her (chemo in the veins and in the abdomen, losing her beautiful hair yet again) and loll in the spacious present.

Just four years ago, I couldn't have put aside my anxiety about the future, but I've become inured to impending doom, or maybe just more determined to take pleasure when and where I can, or maybe it's a special form of chemo brain that has blocked off the lobe that's able to look ahead with any clarity. Whatever it is, I'm glad I had it for today.