Two Lucky

After more than a week of rest at home, Rusty has recovered almost completely from the IL-2 therapy.

He is his usual self, loving and already focused on getting stronger for the next round. Most of his activities are limited to a few minutes of walking outside every day. For the most part, we spend our hours taking naps, reading, and watching TV on the couch.

I’ve hesitated to write because there is really not much to tell. Every day is an exercise in patient living. I attend to his needs: blanket, pillow, water, a peck on the cheek, a hug.

Despite our best efforts, he’s still losing too much weight, hovering at a slender 140lbs for his 6′1in-tall frame. Our diet has whittled down to occasional meals, shared Chinese take-out, ramen, sushi sometimes. He has developed a liking for fresh watermelon, which I try to procure diligently.

I miss the days of our courtship, when we walked without consequence, without time. Even in the early months of Rusty’s diagnosis, our hope was still athletic, vigorous. Times are different now.

When hope to rekindle memories starts to wane, when your lover is changing, deteriorating, it becomes a challenge to keep loving. Every day is a lesson in patient loving. Every day you relearn how to love again.

So many times throughout this ordeal I’ve asked, in various ways and to various gods: Why me? Why us? Even knowing there’s no good or real answer, I have not stopped asking.

These next few hours, weeks or months. What lies ahead? If Rusty’s scans come back tomorrow with damning results, for the first time the cancer will have outpaced us. We will not know what to do next. We will be without a plan. There may not be anything we can do.

And we have tried so hard. I have watched my lover suffer through almost two full years of back-to-back treatment.

He has had eight or nine surgeries, too many to count. Radiation burns cover his left axilla. He takes close to 40 pills every day. He has had his body poked and prodded by an endless stream of doctors and nurses. So much blood has been drawn from him into test tubes for testing. So many needles.

From hospital to hospital across the nation, I have watched this cancer cut him down from a healthy, virile marathon runner to a broken, weary man.

What do you want from us? We have prayed and prayed. I have offered arm and years of my life. I have done the very best I can. I have treated people well, been there for my family and friends. Where is my karmic restitution?

“There is still so much I want to do. We have to get married, have kids - I want us to have our own business, buy a place to live in, settle down. Keep me alive, baby. I can’t go yet.”

Our hands touch. My tears come quickly and easily. I smoke until I throw up. I cannot sleep. I want to reach out but what is there to say to another? The person I need the most faces his own terrible demons.

My grieving began two years ago. But two years is a short time.

Time does not heal wounds. Love does not dissipate. If Rusty dies, I would have learned only one thing, that watching your loved one suffer is a human being’s most profound pain. There is no respite in that lesson.

Rusty likes to take his nap by the fireplace. This afternoon, he asked me to read by his side. I started with the first chapter of a new book I bought recently - Mortimer of the Maghreb, by Henry Shukman. I began energetically, then slowing down and lowering my voice as his body relaxed into the couch.

When he awoke 30 minutes later, he found me crying next to him, my hands on his arms. “Go ahead and cry, my love,” he whispered drowsily, “Go ahead and cry, it’s okay,” and stroked my hair as my book lay open on the floor.

Small boy in the woods, by bies

Dreams

I woke last night after a dream that Rusty cheated on me. I broke up with him. It was 4am. I walked out to the living room, where he lay sleeping on the couch. His skin was damp, glistening by the window. He had a fever again in the night.

I remember the dream vividly. We sat down one morning to breakfast and I asked him: Are you cheating? He said yes, with Sy. I haven’t seen, nor heard from Sy in over 10 years. When I think of him, I still see a 15-year-old pimply trumpeter. Oddly, I wonder first if he is still alive.

When I wake up again, it is 7am. Rusty is already up and about. I kiss him good morning. I didn’t sleep much last night, he says. I make toast, coffee and pour out some grape juice we bought from a farmers’ market yesterday. I will need to get some berries for tomorrow. We’re out of soy milk also.

Anniversary special

I am gearing up to leave in two weeks. There are air tickets to confirm, bags to pack, but it seems impossible to get anything done with so much work in the way. At the end of the day, this is what matters to me: That after a difficult year apart, Rusty and I are finally going to live together. This life ahead of us, at least for the next six months, will be everything we’ve worked towards in these short two years. The New York apartment we put our names to will be our first, real home.

I emphatically reject the tyranny of this cancer. In this new life, I don’t want any more sleepless nights. What fear I have, I must learn to replace with hope. I must remember that this journey is a marathon, and that when I am weary, I can ride on love to keep going.

A year ago, I said:

Let our love guide you through these times, Rusty. Draw from me the strength you need to press on. Look into the future and know that there exists for us a beautiful life together. Take my hand and walk with me. I love you.

Soundtrack

I’ve got my love to keep me warm, by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

Anniversary special

Two years ago, Rusty and I met at cafe French Roast in New York. We had exchanged e-mails online and had been chatting for two weeks. At that time, I was cruising through my dating career. I changed boys more often than I changed shirts. Hell, I think I even wore the same shirt to three dates that week.

My point is, it was beginning to become a chore and I almost wasn’t going to show that night. But Renee had an idea to jazz up the evening. Turns out she also had a date she was thinking of blowing off. So, just for kicks, we arranged to meet our dates at the same cafe. Mutual support, she said.

As our men arrived, Renee and I sat at different tables, but positioned ourselves so that we could scout out each other’s suitor. I saw a tall Swede in his early 30s sit down next to her. He wore glasses that made him look older than he was. He may even have been slightly bald. Rusty, on the other hand, looked dapper in a T-shirt and vintage jacket. Brash, blonde, and avoiding carbs - as far as I was concerned - I had the better cut of meat that night.

Reaching Shadow, by thepres6

Quiet life

After a very green week in Amsterdam, Rusty returns to New York today. Meanwhile, I continue to bide my time here in Singapore, waiting for my departure, our reunion. Work is difficult. I am distracted and honestly, not terribly interested. With each day, I worry more about how he’s doing. After two years of fighting this disease, I know how easily things can take a turn for the worse.

For now, the fevers and chills are gone, but the lump is still there. We do not want to jump to conclusions. It’s possible it is just an inflamed lymph node. Rusty will see Dr Wolchok about it on Wednesday. He receives his second infusion of Medarex in about two weeks.

Apart from all the cancer talk, I am excited about this imminent six-month move back to New York. All this time it’s been my wish to settle down with Rusty without all the extensive flying we’ve been doing. Under these circumstances, the old adage: Be careful what you wish for, seems appropriate. But I do not forget that even so, what a blessing it is to have a chance at a quiet life together again.

After trawling through countless furniture stores and ass-testing (that’s an interesting phrase) every seat in sight, Rusty and I finally decided on a couch for our new apartment. Initially, we wanted to get a leather one in black, but agreed in the end that that was overdone. Also, a good leather couch would set us back significantly, and nothing is more appalling than pleather (an awful mix of plastic and leather). So, this is what we ordered: A tasteful micro-fibre (easy clean up) sofa bed from Bo Concept in charcoal grey.

The Zen 6000, photo from Bo Concept

Other delights in the pipeline: A 42-inch LCD flatscreen to mount above our (working) fireplace, a Tempurpedic foam mattress on a platform bed, barstools, a hanging lamp, a lounge chair and an antique coffee table.

We don’t have any visuals on these items yet, but when we do I’ll be sure to post those up. Of course, we’ll be needing kitchenware and sheets and other accessories.

Moving in with Rusty and shopping for our new home together is one of the happiest of couple activities. It is largely cosmetic, but its emotional significance is considerable.

Every item is a story of how it came to belong - snatches of earnest discussion, the shop assistant with a memorable lisp and the circling of autumn as we huddle into a showroom from the cold.

Coming home

Here I am, sitting at the Newark Liberty airport waiting to board my flight back to Singapore. In these last weeks, not only was I given the rare opportunity to cover a murder trial, I also began a new chapter of my life. From January, Rusty and I will spend 2007 in our very own East Village apartment, in the city that we met and fell in love.

It will take a few weeks for me to put together my exit plan back to New York. During this time, Rusty will begin his new treatment. We should know if he is eligible for the clinical trial in a few days. This new drug, Medarex, is being researched by pharmaceutical company Bristol-Meyers Squibb. The trial, run by Dr Jedd Wolchok at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital, will last 12 weeks.

Every three weeks, Rusty will be given an infusion of the drug through IV. The side effects will not be pleasant. Some have been hospitalised due to severe colitis. We scan again at the end of the trial.

My sadness comes and goes. These past few weeks have been a heady adventure to prepare for living in New York again. Between the $500,000 bond and a deadly cancer, Rusty and I will need the help of giants to stay together.