100 Days of Happiness (6 page)

DIALOGUE
WITH
GAFFE

“Friends, I've got liver cancer . . .”

“Really? My uncle had the same thing last year . . .”

“So how is he now?”

“Oh, he's dead!”

ABSURD
DIALOGUE

“Friends, I've got liver cancer . . .”

“Ah, what a relief, I was expecting something worse!”

“Worse? Like what is there that would have been worse?”

“Well, for instance . . . now let me see . . . ah yes, being a paraplegic is worse, I think.”

“Thanks. Now I feel so much better.”

EMBARRASSING
D
IALOGUE

“Friends, I've got liver cancer . . .”

“Oh my God! You were always my favorite musketeer!”

“Why are you using the past tense?”

ENCOURAGING
DIALOGUE

“Friends, I've got liver cancer . . .”

“Don't worry, you're strong, you'll beat this!”

“And what if I don't?”

“Don't even take that possibility into consideration.”

 * * * 

At this point in the encouraging dialogue the tears start to flow and we all sob wholeheartedly together for half an hour or so.

 * * * 

I decide to break the tension myself and discuss my own disease with irony. That's when I come up with a nickname for the amiable little
French fry that lives in my liver. I dub it “my buddy Fritz,” a phrase we use in Italian to describe hypocritical friends you don't want to name outright. From that moment forward, the word
cancer
is stricken from my dictionary.

I tell Athos and Aramis that, in the afternoon, I'm scheduled for a CAT scan and that there are people who had the same cancer I have who've gone on to live for four and even five more years. By now, I know everything about hepatocellular carcinomas. I'm an expert on the subject.

They're both overwhelmed; neither one seems capable of getting out a complete logical sentence. Not that I can, for that matter. We wind up playing foosball, me in a duo with the barista's pockmarked fourteen-year-old son, and we say nothing more about it. Still, the thing is right there beside us, watching us play, never once taking its eyes off me. My team wins 6 to 4—the kid is a phenomenal goalie.

 * * * 

That afternoon I go to take the too-long-delayed computerized axial tomography. Three very complicated words to say that a bundle of rays analyze my torso slice by slice, separating it like a package of individually wrapped Kraft American cheese.

The result is the ugliest word in the world after
war
.

It's practically a synonym for death.

Metastasis.

My lungs are riddled with metastasizing cancer.

I read it somewhere: the first metastasis of liver cancer usually develops in the lungs.

I'm a textbook case.

T
he main question is: how long?

How much more time do I have?

But even as I ponder this one, there is another, which seems even more pressing. How will I tell Paola? What do I say? I can't even ponder this one. It feels strange, not part of our story. I close my eyes, imagining her face when I tell her, her expression, her eyes. I can't wrap my head around it, so I leave it alone, something to worry about later.

Then come the other questions.

Among those, the one that matters most to me is: how?

How will I die?

Will I know what's happening?

Will I suffer?

Will it be agonizing?

It is only in that instant that it dawns on me that the word
agony
is even more unpleasant than the much-maligned word
death
.

I don't know why this whole nightmare is happening to me, but I do know that I need to know how long I have.

I make another appointment to see the oncologist, for whom by now I feel a childish hatred, as if he'd popped the beach ball I was playing with in the waves. At the same time I decide not to wait to know how long. I can no longer keep this to myself. I must talk with Paola.

“Meet me near the school,” I tell her, keeping my voice casual, cool. “I have something to tell you.”

She parks her car. She has not seen me yet. I watch her as she picks up her bag, presses the automatic lock. She is wearing a light blue dress, which brings out the blond highlights in her hair, the green flecks in her eyes. I see, as if for the first time, her long determined stride as she begin walking toward me. I go to her. She is vivid and beautiful, and I feel a sharp pang of pain. How will I tell her? What words will best express it? In the end, I decide to keep it very simple, no gilding of the lily required. We stand by her Renault Twingo, which is parked by a broken streetlight. It flickers intermittently as I find the courage to speak the words.

“I have liver cancer,” I say, “and it's metastasized to my lungs.”

At first she narrows her eyes and just looks at me. I don't know how to interpret her look. It's as if she thinks I'm joking, or trying to get her to forgive me sooner than she's ready to. She stares at me as I steadily gaze back at her. I'm no actor, she knows that. If anyone has that gift in our family, it's her. Finally, she lets out a long sigh. She has decided to believe me. “That fortune-teller you took me to all those years ago, remember? She didn't really know her stuff, did she, when she promised us a long and happy married life?”

I grimace. How the past has a way of coming back to haunt you when you're least expecting it.

“When did you find out?”

I tell her what I know in short, terse sentences. “Ten days ago. I've done every possible exam and analysis. Unfortunately, there is no margin for error.”

The warrior woman I married decides to take an active role in my affairs. She decides to bury the hatchet then and there and go with me to see the oncologist. Even though it's quite clear that her gesture is neither an attempt at rekindling our love nor an act of forgiveness, I feel wildly optimistic. I wonder whether it's pity, or horror, or some other such ultimately negative emotion that's inspiring her actions. She has a look of sympathy on her face, which is confirmed when she
asks me to come back home to sleep. I hesitate. This isn't the way I wanted to be welcomed back to the family. Paola guesses what I'm thinking and makes it clear that she definitely hasn't forgotten what happened. “Don't start getting any ideas,” she says. Love, as I thought, is a long way away. With those few words, she lets me know that the only reason she's letting me come back home is that I'm sick. There's no forgiveness either, for the moment. A truce of sorts is the best way to look at it, where I am home but not reinstated. I must earn back her love. Once I have that, forgiveness will come.

I vow to learn, to understand. She will need to be healthy for us all now, especially for our children.

Paola holds my hand while the obnoxious oncologist leaves no room for optimism. He studies my CAT scan and the results of my blood test and decrees: “Signor Battistini, your neoplasm is one of the most aggressive types and, unfortunately, we caught it only at a very advanced stage. The tumor markers in your blood are at very high levels. This is the value here: the choriogonadotropin.”

This is where I feel Paola's “I told you so” glare stabbing me like a thousand daggers.

“Your CAT scan shows numerous widespread metastases in your lungs.”

I start to get annoyed: “Yes, I know that . . . would you get to the point.”

“If the circumstances were different, I would have suggested attempting the surgical removal of the primary neoplasia from your liver, but in your condition it would really be little more than an extremely dangerous palliative. As would a liver transplant. The percentages for a successful transplant are very low; the waiting list is very long; and in your case, the metastases have already thoroughly compromised the situation. Forgive me for speaking frankly, but I think it's important to be clear on this: there is no therapy that can really help you.”

Silence. I look at Paola, who lacks the strength to lift her eyes. I've had the question locked and loaded for ten minutes and I let it fly:

“How long?”

“That's a hard answer to come up with, Signor Battistini . . .”

The bastard hesitates. Goddamn it, live up to your responsibilities! I need you to tell me how long it will be before they turn out the lights around the field.

“How long?”

“We'd need to see how your—”

“How long?!”

“Four or five months,” he specifies. “It depends on the resilience of your liver. And the treatment you decide to undergo.”

Silence.

“Cases range widely, though,” he explains; “there are some who have lived as long as five years.”

“ ‘There are some . . .'; like how many?”

“Let us say . . . very, very few.”

Very, very few. A very, very encouraging percentage.

I ask my second question.

“How long will I be healthy?”

“What do you mean by ‘healthy'? You're already a sick man.”

“You know exactly what I'm asking. How long will I be able to live a normal life?”

“Here too it all depends on—”

“More or less!” I drill in, aggressively.

“A little over three months. Then the dose of painkillers you'll have to take will render you insensible and the final phase will begin.”

A little over three months to live. To live a real life, I mean to say. More or less.

“A hundred days,” I say under my breath.

“I beg your pardon?” asks the doctor.

“I've got a hundred days left.”

“I told you that it could be longer, if . . .”

I pay no attention to him. A hundred days. The number echoes through my mind.

Paola breaks in.

“Is there anything we can do to prolong the time? Anything at all?”

“Chemotherapy, Signora, can be an excellent aid in blocking the proliferation of pathogenic cells,” he explains. “But it has countless side effects that make everyday life quite complicated.”

I tune back in to the medical consultation still under way.

“What kind of side effects are we talking about?”

I know perfectly well that chemo makes your hair fall out, gives you nausea, makes you vomit, and leaves you exhausted. Everyone knows it—we've all seen it in lots of documentaries and movies. And nearly everyone has had some secondhand experience of it from watching the slow demise of a grandparent or an uncle or aunt. But the truth is very different and much worse.

“Chemotherapy, Signor Battistini, isn't a very sharp tool. It kills healthy cells as well. In effect, it is a poison we inject into the body in order to kill the main enemy, but on the way to its objective, it causes a bloodbath. There are many more side effects than you may know about. There are cases of anemia, digestive problems, loss of appetite and alteration of taste perceptions, fever, coughing, sore throat, headaches, muscle pains, jangled nerves, hearing loss, loss of sexual appetite, and problems with fertility.”

Is that all?

If I do nothing, I'll die in a few months, with the assistance of kindly medicines to keep me from suffering in my last few days. If I subject myself to the best known type of cancer treatment, I'll die all the same, though probably later; however, in the meanwhile I'll be transformed: I'll no longer be Lucio Battistini but a 220-pound ghost,
stunned and languishing on a sofa, confined to endless hours of channel surfing.

The oncologist asks me if I want to start the first round of chemotherapy. I say nothing. Very simply, I don't know.

At the door, I hug Paola good-bye and head off toward the pastry shop to get my few possessions. I'll catch up with her later at home to eat dinner with the kids.

Lorenzo and Eva.

The mere sound of their names is enough to make me want to cry.

I try not to think about it. Not now.

 * * * 

My father-in-law says nothing as he sits listening to my report on the appointment. I summarize: I have a hundred days left to live. A few days more, a few days less. Then what the oncologist calls the final phase will set in, and I don't even want to imagine what that will be like.

The question that Oscar asks me is horrifying but legitimate: “So how do you want to spend these hundred days?”

Another question I have no answer to.

A hundred days.

That's a very long time for a vacation.

There are only a very lucky few who've taken a vacation that lasted a hundred days.

Too bad we're not talking about a vacation.

 * * * 

A hundred days.

I've never thought about it.

No one's ever thought about it.

What would you do if you had only a hundred days left to live?

Long pause.

Let me repeat the question.

What would you do if you had only a hundred days left to live?

Let me offer some suggestions.

Would you get up and go to work or to school tomorrow morning?

Would you spend every minute of your day having sex with the one you love?

Would you sell everything you own and move to a tropical island?

Would you pray to the God you worship?

Would you pray to a God you've never believed in?

Would you scream as long as there was a breath left in your body?

Would you lie there staring endlessly at the ceiling, hoping for it to collapse and crush you?

I'm going to leave a couple of pages blank, for you to jot down your notes. Scribble in it, be my guest, I won't be offended.