Return to Club Chemo....

Club Chemo is an exclusive, and potentially last, resort.


You don't see the swells lining up to go there. And you don't come back (if you do at all) with a nice suntan and a stronger golf swing. You might end up with an improved dress size, but compensatingly, your personal vigor and beauty are likely to suffer significant indignities.


Most health spas promise to shape you up, to make you fitter and happier. Club Chemo will attempt to save your life, but it will take a lot out of you, whether or not it actually proves effective in treating your cancer. At a regular vacation getaway, you may watch yourself gradually evolve to higher levels of form and function; but at Club Chemo, you will likely witness a progressive deterioration in multiple body systems:

• Your hair follicles may fail--all over. While there may be some conveniences associated with this loss, it entails functional as well as aesthetic disadvantages. For instance, a smooth scalp may be chic and pleasantly cool during the warmer weather, but believe me, you do not want to spend a summer without nose hair. There are far more tiny insects to inhale than you ever, ever imagined; that internal filtering system is there for a reason.
• You will gradually slow down. What was once a brief, even pleasant activity can become an overwhelming ordeal. Flitting through Kroger's for some prescriptions and a few nourishing food items may wear you out like a 12-mile hike in the higher elevations of Shenandoah National Park. At some point, you may drop your pencil and proceed to spend several minutes attempting to perform the mental mathematics to determine whether bending down and picking it up is a worthwhile expenditure of energy for the day. Of course, even that intellectual operation won't be so easy....
• Your mind won't be spared. Thinking and remembering--they used to be so effortless. Now you will stop in the middle of a task, or a sentence, and find yourself in limbo, like that little whirling circle that my version of Windows uses to assure me that it's on the job, just be patient, a few more seconds....You will need a whole new level of patience to deal with your newfound idiocy, and so will your near and dear ones.
• Despite your inactivity, your body may be sore and aching for no apparent reason; you wake up first thing in the morning wondering what you possibly could have done to feel this way. In times past, it would take a weekend of raking wet leaves and drinking to excess to produce this level of malaise. Even the most sedentary occupation may eventually be too much, and you'll have to take medical leave, thus compounding your sense of futility.
• Some chemo regimens have additional characteristic side effects. One of my current agents (capecitabine) has given me a full-blown case of "palmar-plantar erythrodysethesia," otherwise known as hand-foot syndrome. This sounds like an affliction common to livestock in the old pre-veterinary days, and that probably isn't far off. Your hands and feet redden, swell, and become exquisitely tender, and then the skin peels off. You come to realize how many times a day you push buttons, turn handles, and perform other small and mundane operations that are a cinch for healthy hands; but now, each task requires some kind of work-around to minimize pain and further damage. As for your feet, I have one word: slippers. Whenever and wherever you have to be on your feet. Einstein made them a fashion statement, and so can you.

Despite all this, I don't intend to discourage you from Club Chemo. It may really help you.


Your sojourn on its premises may cure you completely; or it may buy you some priceless time. My first session, 8 years ago, enabled me, among other things, to put 2 offspring through college, progress in my career, sing and play music, create various inconsequential works of sculpture, walk through the glorious mountains, and engage in several love affairs, ranging from the otiose to the frankly disastrous. In other words, I gained some additional life--and for me, it was worth it.


So, I am back for another stint at Club Chemo, hoping to beat back my longtime companions, those various metastatic tumors, to a place where we can peacefully coexist for a while longer. If you're there, too, I wish you the best.