Jewish World Review August 6, 2001 / 17 Menachem-Av, 5761
The Waiting Room
FOUR guys sit in the Insider's Waiting Room at Cedars-Sinai Cancer Center
in Los Angeles, preparing to have blood drawn. Like many cancer patients,
they dress like they've just had a run around the track: sweats, athletic
shoes and, of course, baseball caps. With cancer, you've got to be ready to
go the distance.
There is a young guy with one leg. There is a tall, pale guy with a big,
beefy chest. There is a dapper, darker guy, who speaks to the nurse in
Farsi. And there is me.
Yes, in the Insider's Waiting Room, I am just one of the guys hoping for
a good white blood cell count. I'm wearing the blue sweat suit, the white
Nikes, and the cap with the letter M.
Just one of the guys. Now that I have lung cancer, I have finally
achieved the unisexual parity that the woman's movement longed for. Sitting
with our IVs and portacaths, all patients are one. There is not much
difference between men and women, young and old, lung and breast and
prostate. There is only sick and well.
Soon verdicts come back for three of the four. They have blood counts
that are not so hot, indicating an immune system that at least for the moment
is shutting down. They'll each need shots of blood enhancer to perk them up
before chemo resumes.
The decline of the blood count is a normal, predictable response to a
body under attack, and yet as I wait for my own blood work, I take my
fellows' news both collectively and personally. Overhearing their verdicts,
I feel sad for them and worried for me. It feels like a bad day at traffic
court, and the judge is ornery. How will G-d distinguish me from them?
"Look under the cap," I urge the all-knowing One. "There's a worthy
person here."
Worthy.
Since cancer, I've tried so hard to be worthy. I practice becoming
Bernie Siegel's "exceptional patient:" I hug my doctors. I keep a journal.
I do art-therapy drawings. I take my daily walks up a steep hill. I eat a
high protein diet including a flax seed shake. I listen to a visualization
tape and imagine my cancer cells vanquished by chemo. I plant a garden big
with lavender. On any virtual report card, I get high grades.
But if none of it works, if my white cells drop and my CT scans come out
with tumors, it won't be that G-d finds me unworthy. Not at all.
In the Insiders' Waiting Room, I can almost hear G-d cry with
frustration. G-d hates cancer as much as I do, and understands the waste and
wear that accompanies it. G-d hopes that researchers hurry up and design
real cures.
G-d is in the process of activation that inspires doctors to work night and day for a cancer cure. They're
making headway but, still, it's taking way too long.
But is there really no cause and effect, no connection between good works
and a good count? Of course there is.
A plausible connection between good works and health lies in two Jewish
concepts, "kindness" and "justice."
"Chesed" is goodness or kindness, the expansive social instinct that
makes us care about, and care for, each other. Since my diagnosis, I've
learned how crucial it is to get those cards and emails telling me of patient
success stories. Every cancer survivor's "chesed" cheers me on.
"Din" is "justice," the constricting, all-or-nothing, notion of right and
wrong. Without justice, the obsessive determination that I am part of my
cure, I'd crawl into my bed, waiting for chemo every three weeks, and for the
doctor miraculously to pronounce me healed.
From a patient's perspective, I need them both. I walk a tightrope
between "chesed" and "din."
I can't be all "chesed." I need time to be alone. And I don't have a
hold on "din." I can't cure myself no matter how "positively" I think. To
blame myself for any bad outcome would lead to despair or worse. In the
waiting room, there are four worthy people, not just one. Asking G-d to
choose me and not them is heinous. That's why the rabbis understand that
excessive "justice" leads to murder. I have to guard against the survivor
imperative, the narcissistic instinct, that if only one person is going to
weather cancer, it should be me.
It's difficult to keep my balance between these two forces. Good thing
G-d is on the tightrope, walking right on the edge with
07/17/01: Some of the best times of my life have happened during chemo
By Marlene Adler Marks
JWR contributor Marlene Adler Marks is a columnist and author of "A Woman's Voice: Reflections on Love, Death, Faith, Food & Family Life ". Send your comments to her by clicking here.
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