Another Essay for the Cancer Support/Writing Group at the Cancer Support Community Benjamin Center

Topic Assignment: What do you say, or how do you respond to those who offer unsolicited or unhelpful advice?
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Everything depends on what they say. If they tell me how good I look, I understand that they mean that I look much better than your average dead person who’s been in the ground for the past few months, but that doesn’t bother me. I just say, “Thanks.”

If they tell me that I should immediately switch to a macrobiotic diet or some other diet du jour, I smile and tell them that a person has to have priorities, and food is one of them for me. You can tell. Just look at me. I’ve had lots of hospice patients whose wives made them stick to one miserable diet or another, and they died anyway. It’s never the husbands who get insistent on particular diets, it’s always the wives.

If they tell me they’re praying for me, I thank them and point out that I’m not good at praying myself so, just in case prayer actually works, I appreciate their help. If there’s time, I point out that there was actually a controlled study that showed that remote intercessory prayer seemed to have a beneficial effect on the patients who got the prayers as opposed to the people in the control group who didn’t get the prayers. The prayers were quite remote. The people doing the praying didn't know what hospital the patients were in. They were just told the patients' first names. Unfortunately, when the study was repeated to see if it would work again, it didn’t.

So far, nobody has advised me to get a mango colonic. I like mango juice, but I'm not a fan of colonics.

Cancer Support/Writing Group Strikes Again

Assigned Topic: "I have learned that in life, there is sometimes a second chance."
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This topic seems to me to be about what you do to re-order your priorities when you get a cancer diagnosis. It’s not just that a cancer cure gives a person a second chance. It’s the very diagnosis that brings you the opportunity for figuring out what the second chance ought to be. Good thing about that, because not everyone gets cured from cancer.

Of course, there’s a downside to this opportunity for a second chance. If you die of, say, getting hit by a piece of space junk that comes down from its orbit, traveling at 17,500 miles an hour relative to the surface of the earth, and kills you instantly, you don’t get that opportunity for a second chance, but, on the other hand, you don’t suffer very much, or for very long. With dying from cancer, the process is slower and, sometimes, unpleasant.

So maybe the best option is to get the cancer diagnosis, but when the time comes that the treatment is failing, go stand outside during a meteor shower.

Woody Allen once said, “I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” But everyone has to die sometime, of something. There wouldn’t be room on earth for new people if the old people didn’t kick the bucket. The key thing is to make your life count for something, and, sometimes, it takes a bother like a cancer diagnosis to give you a second chance to figure out how to go about doing that.

For what it's worth, in my particular case, I haven't figured out what to do to make this part of my life count for something.

Yet another essay from my writing/cancer support group

Assigned Topic: Write about how an enforced discipline either made me, or didn’t make me, into the person I want to be.

The term, "enforced discipline," needs to be defined by me.
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My definition of an "enforced discipline" is something I was forced to learn that I’d have preferred not to have had to learn.

Thinking…

OK, I never really wanted to go to Hebrew School. I didn’t mind hearing about the bible stories or the stories behind the Jewish holidays. It was the Hebrew language that I just couldn’t get my head around. And it wasn’t the fact that they write it backwards. I actually thought that was kind of cute, and the Hebrew letters were reasonably nicely designed. I just am not the sort of person who’s good at languages. I took a year of French in high school and two years of French in college, and I’m not very good at French either. Heck, if it weren’t for the fact that I was married to an English teacher for forty-three years, English would be a language that I wouldn’t be good at. Looking at the previous sentence, I still may not be all that good at English.

So Hebrew school was an enforced discipline for me. What sort of person was it supposed to turn me into? Well, a Jew. And I am a Jew so I guess that worked even if I didn’t enjoy the process.

But the topic implies that I should decide whether I wanted to be a Jew. That’s more difficult to figure out. Clearly my first experience with Judaism, the circumcision at day eight of my life, a process that may become illegal in Santa Monica and San Francisco after the next election, was probably not subjectively pleasant, but I don’t remember it well enough to know if the drop of Manischewitz wine they gave me at the time was enough of an anesthetic to overcome the discomfort. I guess I can’t actually figure out if I wanted to be a Jew or not. I just am one.

Cancer Sucks

Acting "As if" means choosing a reaction that seems beneficial and then acting as if that's the way you actually feel. For today's essay, write about a time when you did that. How did it work out?
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Acting 'As if."

We cancer survivors experience acting "As if" all the time. Here's the first time I acted "As if."

The day I got my cancer diagnosis was Sept. 5th, 2006. It was morning. I'd just finished my night shift in the ER, and I'd strolled into the radiology suite to convince the radiologists to slip me into the CT scanner schedule because, two days previously, on the Sunday of the Labor Day weekend, one of the other docs on the medical staff had heard me cough and had gently suggested (all right, not so gently) that I should get a CT scan because my cough sounded to her like the cough you get from lung cancer.

The radiologists re-assured me that as a non-smoker, I had a very low chance at having lung cancer. I pointed out to them that in my part time job as a hospice doc, I'd cared for a few non-smokers who died of lung cancer. So, to placate me, they asked the technician to slip me into the CT schedule.

After the CT, I went into the office of the radiologist who was reading CTs that morning to get my result. He and I were looking at the various views, and I noticed that he wasn't saying anything for a longer time than it would normally take a radiologist to read a negative chest CT. So, I looked more closely, and then I saw something I didn't think was normal. I pointed it out to hem and asked, "Is that what you're looking at?"

"Yes."

"Could it be something else besides cancer?"

"Probably not."

This is where the acting "As if" kicked in. What I wanted to do was yell, "Oh shit."

But I restrained myself and pretended to be calm and rational because that's the way doctors are supposed to be, right? Right.

Well, that worked. Everyone thought I was being calm and rational because I never said, "Oh shit" until, well, just now. Meanwhile, in my head, I was visualizing the hospice patients with lung cancer that I'd been caring for during the previous twenty years.

Getting cancer really is the pits. It changes your whole life around. Some people like to say that finding out you have cancer has a few good points since you re-orient your priorities and re-direct your life toward things that are really important.

Well, that's true, but it's not worth it. Anything good that comes from having cancer is completely outweighed by the bad stuff, the surgery, chemo, sickness, death.

Cancer sucks. There, I said it, and I'm glad.

Thurmont on a Summer's Day (c)

Thurmont on a Summer's Day (c)

by Henry Farkas

Passing through Thurmont, Maryland
Visiting the goldfish farm.

Large breeder goldfish laying eggs on mats
Mats transferred to indoor tanks.

Fingerlings hatched in those concrete tanks.
Slightly bigger goldfish sent to the ponds.

It's a cycle of nature with regular size goldfish
Driven in plastic water filled bags

To BWI and shipped by air all over the country
While fish poop washes downstream from Thurmont.

The poop should be captured and used as fertilizer
And not sent directly to the Chesapeake Bay.

Letter I Wrote to a Woman on JDate

Hi XXXXXX,

It's nice to have an actual name to write to. Thanks for that.

I'm relatively new to JDate, about a month, so when I tell you what I look for in a profile, that doesn't constitute advice from a veteran of the wars between the sexes. It's just my amateur attempt to find the right person.

So, I have to admit, shallow as that seems, I look at the photo. I've yet to respond to any letter or profile that doesn't have a picture. Your photo, by the way, is stunningly beautiful.

I have met a few women who, in person, look considerably older in person than in the photo. I try to convince women to have a video chat with my via Skype or Gmail. Only one, so far, has accepted that offer.

I, personally, have a certain amount of baggage that will probably make it difficult for me to find a mate on this, or any other site. I spend half my year at my primary residence in Maryland and the other half in Los Angeles. That's going to be a hard sell with any woman.

Anyway, on to the comment about what I look for in a profile and what I've tried to do with my profile. First off, I put in several photos so that anyone looking at it gets a really good idea of what I look like, in sharp focus. I don't want anyone to be surprised about what I look like when she meets me in person or when she sees me on Skype.

I asked my daughters to help me write the profile to make sure it's essentially correct, and I put in a bit of humor. The essay questions are very important. When I look at a profile, I want to know if the woman is a non-smoker, but other than that, I ignore all the check off items. In the check off questions. There are a bunch of women who are adventurous and who like to lift weights, but that doesn't impress me, or even convince me of anything. I want to see that the woman is articulate, funny, and sure of herself. And what I want most is to get the impression that if I don't measure up to her standards, then she'll dump me right away. There's no point in my becoming a starter date that a woman checks out just for practice. It's the essays where this sort of information can be communicated. So don't waste the opportunity of fill out every essay question. I tweak the essays in my profile every so often to keep them fresh.

You might think, "Who does this guy think he is, giving me advice?" Actually, I just like to write essays as a form of self-expression, and you just happened to end up on the receiving end of one of them.

Henry

The Power of Editing

Those of you who read my blog, and who know me, will realize that I'm not a person who likes shows, or movies, unless they reach my emotions. And lots of shows don't. They need to be both dramatic and funny. I have to actually feel what the writer wants me to feel, and what the actors pretend to feel. That actually doesn't happen as often for me as it does for most of the critics and for most of the public.

For example, Cats ran on Broadway for 18 years. During those years, my daughters, teenagers at the time, wanted to see it, and I agreed to drive them and some of their friends to New York to see the show. Since I needed something to do during the time they'd be seeing the show, I went ahead and bought myself a ticket to see it with them. It was in a theater made up to look like a garbage dump, and, for most of the show, I felt like a garbage dump was the perfect metaphor for the script. You know, if the script is boring, then no matter how good the performers are, the show is still garbage. Fortunately I was able to sleep during most of the show. I view that sleep with the appreciation that someone having his appendix out appreciates the sleep of general anesthesia. There was one mildly amusing special effect where some people made up to look a bit catlike rode through the air on a large thing that looked a bit like an auto tire. You couldn't see the wires, but you knew they were there. And there was one memorable song in that show that woke me right up, but then, back to some boring stuff about Jellicle cats, and, fortunately, I was able to go back to sleep.

But I'm not writing this blog entry to toss kitty litter on Cats.

One of the Broadway shows that deserved every accolade it got was A Chorus Line. I didn't see that on Broadway, but I saw the movie. It was an amazing show. Probably everyone reading this knows the plot and has heard the songs so I won't give a summary here. That was a show that got me involved with the characters. I felt like I got to know them, and I cared about them. I felt happy when they were happy, I laughed at the funny parts, and I cried when the writer wanted me to cry.

The director, Michael Bennett, came up with the idea for the show. He interviewed lots of dancers about their lives, picked out the ones with stories that would be dramatic and moving, and, with the help of his writers, edited those stories down to something that could be shown in one evening. It's no longer on Broadway, but there are still professional theaters in the US where you can see it, or you can rent the movie.

OK, so the show edited the life stories of people and made them interesting. Of course, it also had amazing music, clever lyrics, a great script, and outstanding actors. So why, you might ask, am I devoting a blog post to the show.

Actually, I'm not, exactly. Normally, I don't watch documentaries. That's not to say I don't appreciate good editing. I do, and documentaries are all about editing. And there are some documentaries that lots of people like. Not me, but lots of people. Al Gore won an Oscar for a documentary. I suppose lots of people liked it. I agree with the message of that documentary, but it was stilted and boring. Michael Moore does mildy amusing documentaries, but they're boring most of the time despite pretty good editing.

The documentary I'm writing about, Every Little Step, was made during the casting process for the 2006 Broadway revival of A Chorus Line. The concept, doing a documentary about the process of casting a Broadway show where the show is about the process of casting a Broadway show, is wonderful. Whoever came up with the idea of doing that probably thought, "Wow, this is a no-brainer. I wonder why someone else hasn't already thought of doing this? How can it lose? It has great music, and lots of amazing actors will come by and perform those great scenes, and that great music, for free. Whee!!"

Well, it could lose by not being well edited. But it was amazingly well edited. These are real people doing what the characters in A Chorus Line did. We get to see them audition for the show, talk about themselves like the characters do in the show, and, at times cry, and make us cry, about the things in their lives they're talking about.

And these dancers grew up singing the songs from A Chorus Line, visualizing themselves as those characters. This is where the editing makes the show so great. Out of the hundreds or thousands of hours of footage, the editors pick out events that happened months apart in the prolonged casting process, and put them into the final cut in such a way that we can appreciate things such as where one actress does a scene so well early in the process that she makes us, and the producers, cry, but seven months later, at the callback, she can't remember how she did the scene the first time, even when the producer takes her aside and says, "Just do it like you did it last time." But we can remember, and we can see the difference.

So I got involved with, and cared about, the Chorus Line characters and the dancers who were auditioning for the parts in the revival. Out of the hundreds or thousands of hours of footage, they edited it down to a standard movie length. I felt as involved with it as I'd normally feel with a scripted drama that's both dramatic and funny. I laughed at the funny parts, and I cried at the sad parts. Seeing the documentary, Every Little Step, was an experience, like the experience I had watching the movie, A Chorus Line, that I'll never forget.