The New Normal

Today was our first day at City of Hope hospital (CoH), where C will receive his treatment - a treatment that will last most of the next year.  There is a huge load of info pouring in, coming in these waves that are both hard to believe and hard to accept.

These consultations with the doctors are particularly hard.  Right now C is trying to maintain some equilibrium, some normalcy in the midst of what survivors call "the new normal".  But a sit down with a matter-of-fact oncologist rocks all that.  So we sit in these sterile examination rooms - all pretty much the same - trying to gather information and get questions answered, trying to turn those answers into some kind of picture of C's future.  He is ground zero for these discussions - they could not be more personal. 



Part of the shock of being tossed into this world is realizing that it's here all the time. We are surrounded by a constant stream of people in various states of their treatment. Patients, families, medical staff. All moving through their familiar routines while we try to adjust. Where's the coffee shop? Where is radiology? Where is that nurses desk? What building are we in? Why is this door locked?

Wheelchairs, stocking caps, bad daytime TV, fleets of attendants helping move someone on a gurney attached to a bunch of IVs, a reunion out in the lobby between a hairless man in a smock wearing the ever-present, germ-blocking facemask of the chemo patient hugging a child who seems familiar and comfortable with this complicated scene.

Normally we would have driven by on the 605 on the way to somewhere else, easily forgetting all these people were here, coping, taking one step at a time. But now we're here, filling out the paperwork, looking at the scans, listening to the options, walking these halls. I can't imagine having to do this alone.



Right now we are trying to get a bead on the precise fight ahead. But it comes in bits and pieces. So we're getting our footing, bracing ourselves, and looking to C's lead on how this battle will be waged. We all have our own ways of facing trouble, but this really is about C and what he wants. He will lead this his way, probably with humor. After we left CoH late in the afternoon we grabbed some burgers for the road and he said, "How does the saying go? Starve a cold, feed a tumor?"

We got out to dinner the other night, at a place near C's loft downtown - a welcome bit of normal. Listening to the jukebox, having a drink, David giving Harry some drawing tips while C entertained Rose. The little things that you're reminded are precious.












"The new normal". We all talk and find ways to laugh, but it's there, something new in C's eyes. We love our brother, and we know that even though he is big and fit and strong, our brother is sick. Fuck cancer.