Every one of us knows what it means. You don’t have to be a cancer patient to know. And every patient who gets chemo will see it at one time or another. Every time you sit down in that chair and await the needle, it goes through your mind: is this the day they’ll send me home?

The first needle isn’t bad at all. It’s the one they use to draw blood. Then they take the vial of your blood to the Lab God. And this is when the knot that started in your stomach starts to grow.

Most people don’t think about it because it’s unpleasant. But chemotherapy is specifically made to destroy cells. Which means that chemo is intended to take you to the edge of the cliff of death without pushing you over. It is the worst of all biological and chemical weapons. And hundreds of thousands of us get it pumped through us on a daily basis. It is meant to kill you…but we are trying like hell to use it to help us live. Sometimes it works…and sometimes it doesn’t.

If the labs come back “okay”, they stick you with another needle which becomes an IV catheter that carries death to your veins. If the labs aren’t “okay”, they might lower your dosage or change your meds…and then start the IV. But if the labs are “bad”, they take you into a semi-private room where a doctor-possibly not even your own-explains what’s going on…and they send you home with at least two of pieces of paper.

The first paper is a note explaining what to expect next. This list, though intimidating, isn’t the scariest thing you’ve faced. Fever, nausea, vomiting, headaches, abdominal pain, joint pain, chemo brain, insomnia, depression, anxiety, weight loss, hair loss, vision changes, dizziness, dry mouth, fainting, rapid heartbeat, nosebleeds, vertigo, pulmonary toxicity, and blood clots are just a few on the list. But, hell, you’ve dealt with that since day one! There hasn’t been a day in your short-term memory that hasn’t included one or two of all the symptoms on that list! It’s not the list that scares you…it’s receiving it that frightens the hell out of you…very few people who receive this list come back to receive chemo.

The second paper is a prescription for pain medication. Some get Percocet or Lortab, but most get Morphine. And that’s when you know it’s bad. They’re sending you home without treatment because “all we can do is make you comfortable”. You’ve already spent all this time waiting…on labs…on needles…on doctors… on chemo. Now…you’re waiting to die.

Being sent home is a fate that’s worse than the death you know is coming. Hell, we all know we’re dying. From the moment you take your first breath, you begin the short trip to dead. Some of us get a few years. Some get a few decades. But there are some who get hours. It’s no different the day you’re diagnosed with cancer. Some get months, others years, and even fewer get decades. But when you’re sent home with a pain prescription, you’re too tired to be scared. Fear seems to stop when you realize the end has started.

There are those who argue that knowing you’re going to die soon makes you go more quickly than if you hadn’t known. And there are others who think that giving people pain meds hastens death because they don’t feel life dripping away. As someone who might have that experience one day, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter. Whether you know it or not…whether you feel it or not, a cancer patient just “knows” sometimes.

It’s in the way you feel. Did you smell the hospital when you came in this morning or did you just come in and not care? Are you on autopilot or does each stick still hurt? How many times have you flipped through that old issue of Woman’s Day magazine and do you even read it anymore? The moment you stop hearing, seeing, feeling, and dreading the trip….the closer you are to the end of it. Because giving a damn extends your life. Being mad can add months. Getting truly pissed can earn you a year or more. But it’s when you fill yourself with, “I don’t care”, you might as well fill that prescription.

But anger and rage won’t save us all. If it did, there would be a cure. If being mad and hating the disease could save a life, a friend of mine wouldn’t have been sent home this morning. She’d be running or biking or walking or whatever it is she wants to do because she’d be cancer free. If hating could save her, that is.

Unfortunately, she’s a friend of mine who will most likely be claimed by cancer. She’s someone I look at and say, “That might be me.” She’s got friends who love her, family who adores her and animals who will grieve for her. She was once strong and healthy…she’s now too weak to walk and weighs 82lbs. She’s also got lung cancer. And very little time left. And, as of 8:45am, she’s got a piece of paper that tells her life is going to be short and more painful than anything she’s ever been through. And only thing she has for any measure of comfort is a single, non-refillable prescription for Morphine.

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