Cancer: a love story

MY SECRET GARDEN NO MORE

It is a very still and somewhat humid morning as I come out to the terrace to write. The river is a glimmering mirror and not a single palm frond moves. It is all peace and beauty. I feel shakey from yesterday's exertions but I had a full night's sleep and I just feel good. The neuropathy still makes my feet feel like they are in shoes filled with sand and is beginning to affect my fingertips with a slight numbness but I grow accustomed to it and barely notice it when I am otherwise focused as I am now. Yesterday I spent most of the day on the boat with Alan and Danny. Alan had taken a boating safety course with me last summer so I invited him to learn to drive and care for the 30' Bayliner which belongs to my brother but which we now both share. My brother is spending the summer at his home in upstate New York and I am neither strong nor agile enough to take it out myself. After cruising the Intercoastal Canal for a few hours we stopped to eat at a waterside cafe. It was a perfect day. I had none of the usual side-effects and mostly had this wonderful sensation of just being normal.
The happiness and gratitude I felt was so strong it lingers yet.

This is in sharp contrast to the days since my last post. I had intended to write sooner but I was just too sick. What I discovered was that the Velcade regimen and its side-effects is cumulative. It has become increasingly difficult. In addition to the intense and prolonged constipation/incontinence cycle I also experienced a debilitating level of exhaustion that was unmitigated by rest. But most frightening were the days of inexplicable fevers as high as 102 degrees which did eventually disappear with antibiotics. This all took place during the week that I was "chemo-free". Perhaps it was the result of withdrawal from the intense amount of steroids that I take as part of my chemo regimen. I don't know. I just know it is not a fun part of the ride.

Right now the stillness of this precious morning is broken by the carrillon of the neighborhood Prep School playing "As the Saints Go Marching In". I am so fortunate to live here. It gives me goose bumps. It is truly Paradise Point!

And yet, no small irony, three days after posting Bumper Sticker Bible, I was hit by some major elephant shit here in paradise. Paradise Point, my beloved property is in fact a pennisula bordered on one side by a canal and on the other a river. At the end of the penninsula there is a simple cement bridge surrounded with ten foot chain link fencing. Neighborhood boats, including mine, pass from the local canals under this bridge to get to the river and beyond. It was buit by a developer fifty or more years ago to enable him easier access to the property on the otherside of the canal. And then abandoned and neglected. It is the orignal bridge to nowhere. It is in poor condition and needs to be removed.

However, my land slopes up to the top of the bridge where I leveled an area for a small stone terrace and buit a"secret garden" that is partially, somewhat mysteriously, hidden from view of the rest of the property and is nonetheless enticing for it. It is enshrouded with lush vegetation including six mature coconut palms. There is always a breeze in this shaded haven and therefore a perfect place to meditate or counsel another as both Jeff and I have done at times. It is guarded by a four foot, beautifully weathered statue of Francis of Assisi which I bought in 1982 and kept in my Boston garden as a memorial to my mother who had just died from the same cancer I have.

During the week I was so sick I was informed by the State Flood Control Department that they were removing the bridge next week and excavating all the land coming into my property for thirty feet! That would entirely destroy the garden including ALL the trees and replace it with a downward sloping bank composed of "rip-rap" which I understand in this case to be bags of cement. So my property would no longer culminate in an exquisitely lush garden but in a gully of cement bags. And the soul of this wondrously sacred place would be ruthlessly extinquished. In many ways the horror of this plan is too much for me to bear with what I am dealing with on my plate already. The very thing that I use to support me in remaining positive through this health ordeal is being utterly destroyed by
an unnecessary and insensitive plan designed by perfectly decent people who have no regard for the impact upon me at all. And given the current economic debacle, I have no means in any way to restore what is being destroyed. Dealing with this in my current condition is easily the most distressing challenge of my life.

And deal with it I must. And I will. I have begun by asking my friend, George, who was one of my original partners in Treetops many years ago and has just moved here full time, to partner me in negotiating with Flood Control. I know that I am not at the top of my game and that I need assistance in anticipating and understanding all the implications of what Flood Control intends to do. He readily agreed to help me do that and to try and negotiate a more palatable solution to their current plan. I am very, very grateful to him. My intention is to approach this entire matter from a positive, non-adversarial perspective. It is not that the other, darker side does not live within me as well, I just refuse to give it a voice. I am intending to preserve something profoundly sacred so I will not use profane means to accomplish my task. There are no bad people here just a very, very, ill-considered plan.

The boys across the river have begun their volleyball practice. They are very disciplined and very serious. There is never any shouting and all one ever hears is the twack of the ball. I have come to love this sound and the youthful exuberance it represents. But now I have to leave the peace and delight of this riverside perch and prepare for my Spa Day to continue the chemotherapy and accupuncture of this cycle.