Cancer Schmancer (22 page)

The food at the shower was light and ladylike with tea, scones, and finger sandwiches—very English. And the company was good.

But then the dreaded opening of the gifts began. Even under normal circumstances, I always found this part of a baby shower notori-ously boring by the fifth present. Now, with what I was going through, this gift-opening ritual was sheer and absolute torture.

I graciously “oohed” and “ahhed” as Juliette displayed each adorable little baby outfit. A play suit, a jumper, T-shirts, booties—

on and on it went. As the pile of wrapped gifts dwindled down to the last few, I decided I wanted to talk to this gal, Melinda, ask her what she thought about our surgeon, Doctor #9.

I saw her standing in the doorway to the kitchen, keeping a safe distance from everything. It seemed like this ritual was hard for her, too. So I got up and walked into the kitchen to talk to her.

“I just wanted to ask you, did our surgeon remove your appendix . . . and forget to tell you?”

“You, too?” she responded.

It was like meeting a kindred spirit. Of course, her situation was completely different. She’d gone in to have outpatient surgery for an ovarian cyst, and it wasn’t until she was out cold on the table that they realized her condition was much more serious. She had ovarian cancer. The doctors ran to Joe, her husband, in the waiting room to have him sign papers for what turned out to be life-altering inpatient surgery.

Anyway, we both said we hated the idea of going to some cancer support group to talk about our “feelings.” Ugh. The thought of it made us both squirm. I’m sure it’s very helpful for 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 186

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most people, but I think Melinda and I were still in denial mode and just wanted to blend back into normal life as if nothing had happened.

Like magnets, we connected in that kitchen at Juliette’s baby shower and immediately became our own support group of two.

Melinda is a bright, intelligent woman with a happy, gummy smile. She’s an artist whose husband, Joe, is a television producer.

I know in this life there are angels that guide us. Just like in that Wim Wenders movie Wings of Desire, Melinda and I were destined to meet. What we both needed, we found in each other. And how’s this for bizarre: We had the same surgery, the same surgeon, and we were both born on the same day, September 30. Is that weird or what?

We exchanged e-mail addresses and began writing at once. It was like finding a life raft in a sea where everybody knows how to swim but you. What a relief and what a gift she became. After weeks of writing we decided to take a walk together on the beach.

But what if we proved better pen pals than actual mates? We might blow the wonderful support we were getting through our e-mails if we suddenly decided we didn’t like each other. Well, life is all about taking risks, so we forged ahead with it.

When she arrived at my house, I hugged her at the door for a long time. Although I hadn’t actually seen her since that brief encounter at the shower, our e-mails were extremely personal, so I felt a strange and deep connection. I liked her. I did not, however, remember the wonderful, hearty laugh she had. All I said was, “Welcome,” and she threw back her head and let out a huge guffaw, which was music to my ears. I was glad we’d taken this next step.

Once, when Melinda and I were on a walk, we spotted two women on the same road pushing babies in those three-wheeled jogging strollers about three hundred yards ahead. Two women with babies and two hollowed-out women with no babies.

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I don’t know why, but I wanted to pass them to get ahead. I didn’t like trailing behind them. There was too much symbolism lurking there—the distance from us to them, and the fact that they had kids and we didn’t. All I could think of was beating them, passing them, putting them behind me.

So I started to jog, pulling Melinda along with me. She didn’t feel the same urgency, but humored me just the same. Huffing and puffing, we forged ahead as the two unsuspecting mothers with children fast-walked, gabbing along their merry way. It sounds crazy, but it meant everything to me to win that race—a race no one was running but me. F.Y.I.—I did get ahead of them, and as I did, I raised my arms like a victorious marathon runner.

When Melinda reached her two-year anniversary of good health, it was me and John whom she and Joe wanted to celebrate with. Over delicious Italian food, we raised our glasses and toasted to Melinda’s good health, my good health, and the men in our lives who’d stood by us and lived through it with us. Our heroes. Joe appreciated this and began to open up about how scared he was when he stood alone signing that paper for Melinda’s hysterectomy in the hospital waiting room. Our hearts went out to him and how he must have felt. That night our support group of two became four.

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Chester Drescher

D e c e m b e r 2 0 0 0

after my surgery I was never the same, and my beloved Chester Drescher was never the same, either. When I returned from the hospital he just couldn’t accept the change in me. He was so old already. At eighteen years he was finally running out of steam.

The one thing I was careful not to do was bend down to lift things. The surgeon had told me to avoid this, and I did. But try explaining that to your dog who’s so used to being picked up and carried everywhere. Poor old guy, what a deep bond we shared. I always said, “When this little guy goes, he’s going to leave a hole in my life the size of the Grand Canyon.”

Having an old dog is like being in the company of any geriatric. They get all the same afflictions. The hearing goes, the eye-sight goes, arthritis sets in, and it’s all downhill from there. How sad it is that a turtle can live to 150, or a parrot can live as long as a human, but man’s best friend can only live for a decade or two.

With some things there’s little justice.

My great-grandmother in her last years used to say, “It’s no good to get old.” I think that’s where Chester was at, too.

In his day, boy, he was such the little star. On magazine covers 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 190

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with me, in movies, on talk shows. He even had a recurring role on The Nanny. He was always right in the thick of it. Always with that photogenic smile, right by my side. He was a one-woman dog and I loved him for that.

At first I’d seen my recovery as a good thing because it forced me to be home a lot with Chester. We were always in bed together.

But toward the end my condition robbed me of the energy I needed to keep him completely comfortable. He was becoming in-continent and had bouts where his kidneys were acting sluggish and he just wouldn’t feel well. But then he’d have his good days, like when I shot the cover of Rosie magazine.

Rosie O’Donnell and I have been friends for many years. We met shooting the movie Car 54, Where Are You? I don’t know why, but some of my best friends come out of my worst movies. When she learned about my cancer, she called my parents immediately.

She was on hiatus and I guess really out of the loop, because it was about two months after my surgery when she surfaced. I’m sure she still holds a lot of pain from the loss of her mother, who died from breast cancer, and hearing about my struggles made her very upset.

When she called me, I told her the whole story from the beginning. It was nice to speak with such openness and friendship.

It had been too long, and that phone call from her was another positive thing to come out of the cancer.

Rosie and I began e-mailing each other after that first conversation, sharing the lives we were each living now. And it wasn’t long before she asked me to tell my cancer story in the premiere issue of Rosie magazine. Up to this point I hadn’t wanted to do any press on the subject, but Rosie was different; she was a friend. I trusted her to handle my story with sensitivity. As it turned out the most daunting aspect of it all was shooting the cover, even though she offered to fly to L.A. and make it as easy on me as possible.

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Thanks to Rosie, the magazine accommodated all my needs.

We shot the cover in my home, and didn’t do the interview until the next day. Tommy Hilfiger supplied my clothes, and my friend Gregory did the makeup. Nothing fancy; Rosie wanted everything very real and natural.

Knowing well in advance that I was going before cameras for the first time since my operation, I tried to watch what I ate and exercise a bit more. But it wasn’t easy finding a type of exercise that didn’t leave me feeling like hell the next day. I know about

“no pain, no gain,” but this was ridiculous. There were times I couldn’t stand up straight. I tried yoga, walking, swimming, and—foolishly—even hiking. But everything I tried left me with an inflamed abdomen. Finally I said, “Forget it! I’d rather have a fat ass and feel good.” How liberating. All my life I’d felt guilty if I didn’t exercise, but now I couldn’t. Hooray! For the time being I’d allow myself to let it all hang out. Whoo-hoo!

In the weeks that preceded the shoot, Chester was not doing well. Often I’d think of my grandmother Yetta, caring for her mother, Esther, who lived with my grandparents for many, many years. In Esther’s youth she was a great help to Yetta, cooking, cleaning, and, most important, helping to raise the children (my mother and her sister, Denise). But when she got very old, the tables turned and the daughter became the mother.

I was beginning to feel like a martyr. The love I’d felt for Chester and he for me throughout the years is what drove me to get up throughout the night, tending to his needs, spoon-feeding him and cleaning his bedding. I swore I’d never put Chester to sleep, that in the end I’d hold him and comfort him until it was all over. That was the beautiful fantasy I had for Chester. But life always gets in the way of fantasies, and a whole different scenario unfolded.

In the meantime, the day of the Rosie shoot, miraculously, 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 192

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Chester was in rare form. It was as if he was stimulated and excited by the crew and all the activity. He loved being on a set, and that day was a happy one for him. After almost nineteen years of being a real ham in front of the camera, this was to be his last photo shoot. He lived for only one week longer, during which he went into a rapid decline.

John and I came home Christmas night and found Chester unable to get up, covered in his own feces. Now, this was an extremely dignified and very proud dog. So to see him in this helpless and humiliating condition was clear evidence that he’d reached his limit.

My heart ached for the misery he must’ve felt in that very old body of his. I bathed him in warm water in my bathroom sink, but moments after, he began yelping in pain. It was so scary and frightening.

Because it was Christmas, no one was at our regular vet, so I ran to my medicine chest, ground up some medication, and stuck it in ice cream for him to lick up. Within minutes, his tiny body relaxed and went to sleep. I, on the other hand, got no sleep, jumping out of bed every ten minutes with each movement or moan he made. My best hope was to keep him sedated, hydrated, and nourished until we figured out what to do.

By morning, nothing had changed and I finally accepted that things would never get better, but only worse and worse. He was not sick, he was old, he’d never get well. Never.

On December 26, 2000, the worst year of my life got even worse. I called the vet and we agreed that she’d come to the house in the late afternoon and put Chester down. I felt an eerie calm that day. It was as though I had a window of clarity and had to follow through.

Chester and I lay on the bed together all day. I kept him very relaxed on Valium and I just kissed and stroked him. I whispered in his ear how much I loved him. I’d always said, “There’ll never be another you,” and I repeated it over and over that day. We had 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 193

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penne pasta together. He seemed to want it and I didn’t want to deny him anything. He really couldn’t digest stuff like that anymore, but it didn’t matter.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and I held him outside on my deck. I wanted him to feel the sun on his face and the wind in his hair one more time. I inhaled his scent and brushed him and cradled him. When the doctor arrived it seemed too soon, and I wanted to send her away, but what was going to change?

At least today we had closure, calmness, and beautiful, quiet loving moments. Really, it was the way we should all go. I held Chester in my arms while he ate a plate of chocolate ice cream. I don’t think he had an awareness that there was another person in the room with us. He was so into the ice cream. My darling Chester Drescher, the greatest dog in the world, gently received his injection, which he hardly seemed to notice, while eating chocolate ice cream in his mama’s arms.

I was so devastated by my loss I wrote this poem. I’m sharing it with you not because I’m contemplating a new career as a poet, but rather because I wrote it from the heart, and it seemed a richly deserved homage to my wonderful Chester.

Ode to Chester

I now feel so empty and cold. . . .

the twenty-sixth of December,

a day I’ll always remember.

no words can be spoken,

to mend a heart that is broken.

my house is no longer a home.

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oh, but my sadness is deep

I bravely, courageously put my Chester to sleep.

no more barks in the hallways,

my love lives for him always.

I’ve saved tufts of fur from his comb.

now drowned are my fears,

by my oceans of tears.