(OMED: Recently, I was near death at University Hospital in Portland.  The drugs they gave me saved my life while generating psychotic visions that led me to attack my caretakers.  For days, my legs and arms were strapped down to keep me from hurting people.   What follows here is a courageous and inspired reflection by one of Oregon's finest writers, Michael O'Brien of Tillamook who favors sports, now embarking on his own endurance course of medical treatment -- in his case, chemotherapy which doctors propose will save his life.  Words cannot express the brilliance of his words under the circumstances. )

Late August, 2006 -- After extensive preparation for the commencement of my chemotherapy, I triple bogeyed the opening hole.  In golf terms. Through no fault of my own.  But the end result adds sweet comedy to what was perceivably a dire undertaking.

And what a course we’re playing!

A room with 16 well-used Barca-lounger chairs and tables betwixt each in a crowded, but nicely appointed venue. One enormously talanted male nurse named Rob, who moves like Keith Wilkes through screens constructed of intravenous sidestands, two leads to each human arm.  Liken him to a good bartender, finding time when he feels it fits to slide a rolling chair up to a 
patient and gently chat for five minutes. Never missing any needs coming from others in the room. 

And the players…..the patients…..It is my sincere hope that life allows you to avoid visiting this room with lives on the line…but there exists a level of truth, real humor and non-pretention that I don’t expect to ever encounter again.  Here are beautiful young and older women, bald, wearing stylish hats or hairpieces, laughing about the pillows full of hair that drove them to this fashion. Exchanging funny comments about how friends and people wanting to say or do the right thing, often find themselves buried in mis-statements that can only be funny to us who are unspoken allies in a battle for life.

Did I mention that on this day, with 16 chairs in use for four-hour stints of blood-altering chemicals, I am the only male here? And, a rookie as well?

My "cocktail" is one consisting of extract from a yew tree for the first half of the session and a more chemical-derived portion of cure for the second. Everything feels fine at the outset.  15-minutes later I feel I am burning up, big heat rushes and sweat cascading down my face. Labored breathing. Rob is right on it, with a sweeping motion of the top clamp my medicine is shut down. I’ve reacted badly to cocktail portion number one. 

I am assessed a 30-minute steroid and benadryl penalty box sit. Shortly thereafter, I am feeling quite well. Wishing I had a golf club or baseball bat in hand, visions of long blows dancing in my steroid-altered brainwaves.  It is decided that we can try again, but the medicine must go in slower and the steroids must accompany. My day just changed from four to eight hours.  But, with just the right time lapsed, each woman slowly smiled at me and asked in one way or another if I was "all-right." There exists a lovely camaraderie among cancer patients that has wisdom and the need to encourage others attached to it. The point is that we’re all different but all the same, recently cast into life changing processes. 

In this room, where our veins are busy and hopes high, we cast away pretentions, admit fear and weakness and, generally, everything and everyone is real with each other. Simply by its very nature.  You find beauty in a bald woman, the beauty coming from her glow of acceptance and mutual hope for those around her, her treatment a fair way along, in her ninth session. She has learned to "turn it over" and is at peace, wants us (to be at peace, too), especially this clumsy, already noisy addition to the room.   Myself as a rookie, still carrying baggage of stuff not getting done out there in my little world.  Letting it still matter.  Exhibit A.  A freshly-off-work fishmonger at a royal wedding.

Laughter is in place throughout. A visit from an old friend as they all marvel and "ooh" at how her hair has come back curly in her remission. Touched as she walks over to me and smiles. I thank her for the positive glimpse of a cheerful recovery she emulates. She kneels, takes my knee and says, "Never give up hope honey, never give up hope." 

I’m having a big day. The rest are all gone, it is 7:30 p.m. in a major hospital where all that remain seemingly are me, the janitors, one male nurse with a sly sense of humor of his own and an amazing doctor who has chosen to stay and shoot the breeze with this rookie, letting him know he cares if he gets out with the right feeling on a rough first day.  As it ends and we part, he chuckles and says, "Enjoy tonight, the steroids are going to probably make you feel pretty good. Here’s something if you can’t sleep."

Later, at 3:30 a.m. I am still pacing my house, trying to make sense of it with Joe Walsh and "So What" blaring in my house, doors open into the summer night, muttering to myself like a madman.  Enough steroids I’m thinking, to alter the next six Super Bowls. Finally find a way to lay down and steal a few hours. Doctor said beware of Friday – "Gonna crash hard, but you’ll be OK. Call me at anytime if you need anything." 

I ask him if I’m on the 13th-hole and don’t know what to hit if I can call. He says, "I may have to get a second opinion on that one."

It’s Wednesday night, I’m still a touch Jose Cansaco-ed , but, one down six to go. Three weeks apart. Hoping I can start working as the kid’s season’s start. We’ll see. 

Triple bogey on the first hole, but somehow very optimistic.

OB

© 2006 Michael O'Brien