Rick’s “Cancer Story” – Part 2:

The chemo is wreaking havoc on me. Already I’m down from a very healthy 125 pounds to a borderline emaciated 105 pounds. Dr. Falk takes me off the protocol a couple weeks before surgery so I can gain a little strength back before what promises to be one hell of an operation. They wheel me into the O.R., weak, balding and a robust one hundred and ten pounds or so.

I wake up in the stark white, ugly, UCLA Intensive Care Unit, cold to the bone. The anesthetic has not yet worn off and I can’t move an inch. There is a breathing tube down my throat and I can’t speak. (The Doc had forgotten to “warn” me about that one). I’m freezing, yet totally unable to communicate this to anyone. I know how it feels to be a paralyzed, deaf-mute. Utterly, completely helpless. As I’m thinking this, a world weary doctor approaches my bed, surrounded by a gaggle of interns. UCLA is a “teaching hospital” after all. He discusses my case, like I’m not even there. I’m on display. I’m a freezing cold, paralyzed, deaf-mute zoo animal.

The surgery is a real bitch. It cuts me so long and so deep that I literally can’t lift my head and shoulders off the bed for three days. It takes me another three days after that to step out of bed. And even then, with my internals dripping all sorts of nasty, colored fluids into the IVAC machine that is connected to my lung by a tube—it feels like my entire chest cavity is being ripped apart from the inside out.

More than a week after this surgery and still at UCLA, I feel “up” enough to take a whack at masturbating. The climax feels just about the same as always, but …nothing comes out. No ejaculation. Zero. I should be incredibly, indescribably dejected. But somehow, I suppose I‘ve expected it. I’ve even suspected –and sometimes still do—that Doctor Skinner has done this PURPOSELY, so that I won’t produce cancerous offspring.

You wouldn’t believe how much mileage I’ve gotten out of this “condition” over the years. You know, “built-in birth control” and all. But just as often, if not more so, I’ve hidden it. Beneath a condom, that I pretend needs careful disposal upon removal, or in any other variety of ways. Although I’ve for the most part come to terms with this – every pun intended—deep down, to this day, I suppose I still feel a small sense of inadequacy.

One small blessing is that aside from my stay at the horribly depressing, chilling UCLA Medical Center, the rest of my in-residence time is spent at Tarzana Hospital, on the Pediatrics Ward. Much closer to home, I get frequent visits from Jack, Keith, Eric, Gregg, Kevin. Jack in particular, a budding medical genius, hangs out a lot, “analyzing” my treatment and in the procedures I’m undergoing. My new friend Sylvia visits as much as anyone else and it really, really helps to have a female friend who takes interest. Ken is a stalwart, and actually often gives his older brother a back massage. My steps, Greg and Amanda do the same, as does Brendie. These people… friends and family, in this place in time, save me in more ways than they know.

The Ward is relatively cheery, staffed by young, upbeat nurses. The one I remember most is Janie, a night-shift RN, who always has a bright smile for me, and an easy, boundless energy. In 1978-79, widespread medical marijuana is a thing of the pretty distant future. But word is going around in the medical community that smoking pot might help to relieve the agony of chemotherapy-induced nausea. So friends bring in a couple of joints every now and then, and Janie and I sit on my bed at 3am, watch whatever shit is on TV at that time of day, and get high. I don’t smoke pot these days. I just really don’t care for it. I suppose I associate it with my time spent, as a teenager, lying in a metal-framed bed, an I.V. needle in my arm, murals of giraffes and elephants on the wall, dying. But Janie too, and her comrades –like my friends– save me. In the middle of those dark nights, where I wake lonely and afraid, with just the hum and beep of machinery to greet me, I push a button and nearly immediately, have the best company I could possibly wish for.

At 16 years of age, and looking no older than 13, we’ve scored cheesy Oregon State IDs, saying we are… 21! (Hey kids, try getting away with THAT in the new millennium). We use the IDs. And abuse them. Not to go to bars, we don’t have the balls (or in my case …ball). We use them instead at

liquor stores to purchase copious amounts of Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, Andre’s Cold Duck and KB and Foster’s Beer. Real top-shelfz stuff. In the Holiday Season when I’m 16, Gregg and I decide we’ll join a group of girls to go the Rose Parade. That means all night, New Year’s Eve, camped out on Colorado Avenue. Those that are going plan to meet in the parking lot at Granada, pool our (financial) resources to buy booze and caravan over. A Granada co-ed, Ann, exhibits real presence of mind. Anticipating the need to make an extraordinarily large purchase, she dresses to the nines for the liquor store run to end all liquor store runs. She pulls it off. Of course, with several hundred dollars’ worth of booze, she needs assistance out of the store. The clerk helps her load the booty into a bunch of cars, which are inhabited by a bunch of obviously 15, 16, and 17 year olds. I’m a little disappointed that Mary has not shown up with the rest. One, I have a hell of a crush or her. And two, she had kinda-sorta indicated that I was probably gonna get a little action. But, Gregg and I leave the parking lot, headed toward Pasadena, the only two guys in a sea of more than 20 girls. Mary be damned (figuratively), I like my odds!

Despite partying and having a blast with a great group of gals from my own school, I meet a very shy, pretty redhead that night; her name is Patty. She and I are lying in the back of California Dreamin’ when Mary comes knocking on my curtained window. Blew that one!

And the next morning. I blow and blow and blow. All over the place. It seems much more than just a wicked hangover. Something is really wrong. Even more so than had been the usual since my “treatment” has begun.

Yeah, I’m dying. There is little doubt about that now. The malignancy that showed up as tumors in my right lung, which has been partially excised by Doctor Skinner, has metastasized to my left. My white blood count is nearly nonexistent. I barely sleep, and when I do, it’s in a quasi, semi-conscious, nightmare-riddled state. I can’t, and don’t eat. One, the soft tissue of my tongue and on the inside of my mouth is torn to shreds. Two, I’m not hungry. How can I be, when I’m throwing up OVER A HUNDRED TIMES A DAY? No exaggeration. Over a hundred times a day. Every now and then, I’ll vomit a little liquid. Mostly though, just a nasty, harsh, vile-tasting, phlegm, sometimes black, others a disgusting yellowish. All the sustenance I’m getting comes through the intravenous tube stuck… somewhere. In my arm, leg, foot, in the back of my hand or neck, wherever they can find a vein. Because of the needles themselves –the human pin cushion factor—but mainly because of the hot poison they push into my body—I feel as if my veins are being ripped apart from the inside out. I estimate that over my “three years in the hospital,” including office visits of course, that between chemotherapy treatment, having my blood drawn, and various other tests and procedures –all exacerbated by numerous failed attempts to “get a vein”– I’ve been stuck over four thousand times. And besides all this, everything… just… hurts. That’s what this level of toxic chemo “therapy” does to you. My bones. My muscles. Everything… just… really… fucking… hurts.

When fixated on “my cancer” while in my twenties, I’d often say that I’d take a major surgery over a round of chemo ANY DAY. I stand by that today.

In 1979, I’m introduced to Doctor Jordan Hallar, a Thoracic Surgery Specialist. He is acerbic, aggressive, and hysterically funny. Right away, I’m drawn to him. He terrifies the nurses and occasionally makes them cry. I don’t like that part, at all, but I love him. Hallar is brought in by Peter Falk. The chemo, Falk thinks, had shrunken the tumor just enough to take a stab at it. Hallar, who concurs, is the man for the job. And he does a good job. No, a great job.

After three major surgeries and nearly two years of solid chemotherapy, I’m bone white, bald as a billiard ball and 85 pounds.