Blood in the Tracks — a.k.a. Tangled

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself;  I am large. I contain multitudes."

          —  Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

I am so confused by what my therapist just said.  

More on that in a minute.

It has been a whole entire year since James's diagnosis.  How to categorize this peculiar anniversary?  What a mixed milestone to acknowledge.  I picture faceless acquaintances trying to capture it in words — everything from the benign and well-meaning; "Congrats on making it through a whole year of your son's never-ending chemo!!! [insert thumbs up/sad face emoji]" to the oblivious; "It's only been a year since your life totally derailed? Wow, I feel like it's been ages!!!" to the truly empathetic; "Major kudos to you for *not* strangling your sick kid while he's raging at you on steroids."  If I could convince Hallmark to produce a greeting card with that last message, I know a host of other hospital parents who would buy it in bulk.

The summer was a relief, a return to some semblance of normalcy, a rhythm reclaimed.  James is doing amazingly well.  On our annual August trip back to the East Coast to see extended family, he was running, laughing, biking, jumping in the waves, even boogie boarding with the whoops and hollers of a carefree 6-year-old.  He is almost his old self again, with his handsome young face filled out, slightly matured into the lines and angles that will increasingly define it.  It is a stark contrast to this time last year, when he was a pale shade of himself, drawn up into his body somehow, lethargic and whiny, too cold to venture into the water despite the summer heat.  This August as I packed our bags before our flight to Boston, I sat down hard on the floor with my suitcase open in front of me, my heartbeat quickening in a slight panic as I considered whether to pack an extra pair of jeans for the trip.  Last year, we hadn't come back as planned, the weather turned colder, my cheery summer clothes grew increasingly absurd in the children's cancer ward with every day that passed.  So ... what if?  Should I prepare for a different trip than what we had mapped out this time?  Expect the unexpected?  Probably.  But how the hell do you live your life that way?  

I put the extra jeans back into the drawer.

Earlier this summer in Sun Valley, James and I drove far up a dirt road to a small mountain lake laden with steelhead trout.  The colors of the valley were vivid reds and greens and golds, and the still white snow-capped peaks nodded to us as we unpacked his new fishing rod next to the piercing blue of the lake.  I gave him some cursory pointers on casting, barely remembering the mechanics myself, picturing my grandfather's gruff instructions to my 7-year-old self as he steered his small fishing boat through the Florida channels behind his house, saying under his breath with a stoic pride, "Atta girl!" when I cast the line.  James helped bait the hook with a fleshy worm, listened again to my directions and attempted a cast.  The line caught mid-way with a snap, wrapping itself around the pole.  I took the pole back and reeled in what I could, sitting down on a nearby rock to try and fix the rod while watching James out of the corner of my eye.  He walked out onto a fallen log over the shallows of the lake, jumped lithely from rock to rock, inspected the glassy water.  I worked quietly to untangle the clear thread of the fishing line, an organic Gordian knot resistant to my careful maneuvering, Penelope at her loom as I watched my son explore.  I could see the lake through my fingers as I peered closely at the knot to see if there was any hope of unraveling it.  Tangled up in blue.  

It occurred to me as I sat watching him, letting my fingers work this futile task, that the knots I am trying to untangle now - the mystery of his illness, the "right" way to parent in the face of this challenge, the emotions that come swimming at me every day - aren't asking to be untangled.  My role is to bear witness, to be there, to live IN the tangle ... and to help him thrive in spite of it.  Perhaps it is even to marvel at the complexity of that tangled knot, to conceive of its intricacy as art rather than as problem, and to know that even though cutting bait comes with loss, there will be more than enough line left for the many expeditions to come.

The other day, in anticipation of the back-to-school frenzy, a friend and I were commiserating about what a pain in the ass it is to make lunches for the kids in the morning.  We touched on how disgusting and unhealthy "Lunchables" are no matter how convenient, and she brought up a mutual acquaintance of ours whose daughter also has leukemia: "She packs her child Lunchables. The doctors say it has no relation to S. getting cancer, but of course they wouldn't tell her now. Why would they want to make her feel worse after the fact?"

I desperately wish there were a simple cause and effect here.  I wish the doctors weren't telling me something out of a desire to protect my feelings and self-image as a somewhat competent mother.  It would be comforting to know there was something I did to warrant this undesirable outcome, that *not* doing that thing anymore could make the cancer stay away if James is lucky enough to be cured, and to make sure I protect my daughter against a similar fate.  So I return now to the cause of all of this, one year later.  I picture strands of DNA, small twists of ribbon and peptides and nucleic beauty ... and then images of those fragile tethers frayed, worn, spiraled or split out of control.  One small, random mutation - and here we are.  A simple twist of fate. The fragility of life, of health, of safety, overwhelms me. 

Back to my therapist.  He's a failed musician and a former engineer, utterly unlike any therapist I've ever met, and I adore him.  He has a goatee and a rotund belly and a wedding ring and he got his MD when he decided coding was boring.  He takes my insurance.

I hadn't seen him in awhile, and made an appointment in a fit of panic earlier this week given the fact that there was blood in James's pee all of a sudden two days before we returned from our trip, and what the hell could that mean?  The oncologists were flummoxed and clearly worried, unsure of what to tell me other than "yes, it is a cause for concern, and we are bringing on some other experts, and we have no good answers yet."  Oh, okay, let me just take a quick picture of my son on his first real day of school and then wait by the phone for your call.  A small chance that it could be a secondary malignancy, you say?  An unfortunate side effect of the chemo?  Hmmm.  Let me just quickly call my therapist to see if I can deal with that mind-bender.  Nope.

Blood in the tracks.  The short answer for any alarmed readers is that James is okay, the red pee hasn't come back again, and no it wasn't beets (sadly) and yes it could have been something viral (most likely) or yes a small injury to his bladder (unlikely) or perhaps a sign of cancer (highly highly highly unlikely). Okay, fine.  I have learned to live and cope and even laugh in spite of a baseline level of anxiety throughout this whole year.  The initial tests are all fine, and at the recommendation of the urologist he will be tested almost literally up the wazoo on 10/12 (during his next scheduled spinal tap, so already under anesthesia) to rule out anything capital-B Bad.  I will let you know but I think we are in the clear - no more now lest I jinx it.

So ... back to my therapist.  I walked into his airless office and we greeted each other warmly, albeit with the measured detachment that the doctor/patient relationship demands.  He began with the requisite, "How are you today?" and I exhaled slowly, nodding softly as I answered, "I'm having a hard time."  He already knew from my voicemail that I was waiting on test results for James given this alarming new symptom, so he understood the context.  And then he stunned me by saying,

"I've got it! I finally know what your problem is!"

It seemed a true eureka moment for him.  I was rather touched.  It certainly got my attention.  I said,

"You mean ... other than my fear that the cancer is back?"  

Like ... he had actually diagnosed my master problem?  There was just one?  There could in fact be a magic bullet to solve one's existential angst and be coronated as "well-adjusted" or some lofty term like that which I have always aspired to?  Lay it on me, doc.  

He answered, "I am finally starting to understand all of the parts of you that disagree with each other!"  

Okay .... I'll bite.

"You just said you were having a really hard time ... whilenodding your head!"

Hmmmm.  I am indeed full of contradictions, sure.  But I was nodding my head to sort of acknowledge that yes, I am here because I am having a hard time weathering this latest storm of worry.  But my therapist is determined.  He goes on to explain that life is full of tradeoffs and I want it both ways and I am totally conflicted by the fact that I want to be there for James but it is eating me up inside and other statements that quite frankly aren't news to me, and then he says,

"This isexactlylike Deborah Harry!"

"Who?"

"You know, Deborah Harry!"

"I don't know who that is."

"Of course you do.  DEBORAH HARRY."

Still no.  I finally manage to convince him of this fact and he throws his hands up in the air, incredulous, and says,

"The LEAD SINGER OF BLONDIE!!!"

Don't you get it?  Surely you must, given how resolute he is.  But I don't, even after listening to him expound on her life story about how conflicted she was and how now she is godmother to her ex-husband's children and she always doubted herself and never managed to reconcile the contradictory parts of herself and yadda yadda yadda on top of a diagram he had me to draw illustrate the elusive (not) concept of tradeoffs.  He was sweating profusely.

"Okay, I hear you about life being about tradeoffs, I accept that you can never have it all, but how do you know she felt that way?"  He laughs almost maniacally in response, and then belts out,

"Because of Chrissie Hynde!"

Um ... what?  Do you know?  The mad scientist "Doc" played by Christopher Lloyd inBack to the Futurewas somehow in the armchair in front of me, my therapist channeling him as we had another mystifying exchange.

"What?  I'm confused.  Who isshe?"

"The lead singer of The Pretenders, of course!!!"

At this point I was trying not to cackle, but he was totally serious and desperate to have me see, and that would have felt like the height of rudeness - even though supposedly anything goes in therapy.  And yes, I fantasize about a life where my son isn't sick and parenting isn't so damn taxing, so he's right about that - eureka indeed!  But I was quietly shaking with laughter and trying not to show it.  And I guess Chrissie Hynde ended up miserable and alone and probably owned ten cats and never knew what a beautiful singer she was.

So ... the point of all this?  I don't know.  I haven't untangled it yet.  The contradictions abound, and the tradeoffs are real.  I certainly didn't have any new epiphanies in that session, but my therapist did, and hell if I didn't feel a whole lot better after I left his office.  I didn't need my issues untangled - frankly, I just needed to giggle a little.  It helps.

Laughter, love, art, fellowship, family, friends, music, nature, connection, and the ties that bind - these exist in multitudes.  Catch them as you can.