One February afternoon of my junior year in high school, I came home to an empty house from my fabulous life as a new upperclassman. I was the Captain and MVP of the swim team. I had a new boyfriend and great friends. I had a fantastic job and a solo in the winter choir concert. I followed my just home from school routine and began to go through the mail lying on the dining room table. Off to the side, there was an already opened letter from a doctor’s office. The letter mentioned a finding in a bone scan my dad had the week before. The words “multiple myeloma” meant absolutely nothing to me so I quickly Google’d them.
All I remember from that day was a frantic phone call to my mom, a lot of crying and a lot of attempted reassurance. My dad had been diagnosed with Stage 2 multiple myeloma - cancer of the bone marrow.
I didn’t have much of a relationship with my dad. I was a daddy’s girl, but it was because my mom was always around. She disciplined me and made me work for what I wanted. When dad was home, all I had to do was ask and he’d give me anything. He let me stay out late when mom was out of town and he’d order pizza if she wasn’t going to be home to make dinner. He loved sports and insisted that I have an entire wardrobe of Cleveland Indians apparel. He coached my tennis team in high school and we went to baseball games together sometimes. He also had a job that forced him to work over 60 hours a week. He was in a Monday night bowling league and he’d get in late at night smelling like cigars and beer. He always watched the big games at his friends’ places and he usually passed out on the couch after dinner. I don’t remember a time when I saw him in the audience at my choir concerts or poolside during a swim meet. I can’t even remember a time when he drove me to a practice or a rehearsal.
I had seen many things happen to my dad. He had his first heart attack when I was five leading up to an eventual quadruple bypass surgery when I was thirteen. No matter what happened, we always knew the things he did to correct his health would make him better. This was different.
Although he had options of chemotherapy, radiation therapy and transplants, this was still a death sentence. They gave him two years to live.
Over the next few months, his bones became so weak that he had to quit his job. He lost his hair and several pounds – he weighed less than I did. He threw up a lot and we had to wear masks around him. My friends weren’t allowed to come over because he was petrified of contacting any kind of sickness. He was so weak that a common cold could have killed him. The only thing he could do was lie on the couch and watch TV. Sitting hurt too much because he didn’t have anything to cushion his weak tailbone since he had lost so much weight. It was the worst few months of my life. I had never seen anything like this before and I couldn’t understand why fate had chosen my father.
November rolled around and the doctor announced that dad’s myeloma cell counts had gone down enough for them to stop chemo and start moving forward with the stem cell transplant procedure. It was to take place in December but, because it is still such a new procedure, they weren’t sure how long the effects would last. He didn’t care – he wanted to go through with it.
Dad left for the hospital on my eighteenth birthday. They put him on some heavy narcotics as a machine slowly sucked out his cells. He was completely under for a week. Visiting him was a joke. He was permanently hallucinating. My personal favorite was his warning about “the Palestinian doctor that was peaking through the window” at him. He would have conversations with the dial tone thinking it was someone calling. It was so hard not to laugh, but it hurt so badly to see him like that.
The transplant process isn’t too exciting – a lot of painful waiting. They extract the cells in his bone marrow, freeze them in hopes of killing the myeloma cells and finally inject the “healthy” cells back into his bones. He was recovering over Christmas and got back home on New Years Day.
The next few weeks were tough. He was sick a lot and irritable. Finally, just around his birthday on February 1st, he started to feel better. When spring hit, he started golfing again and even came out to help coach the boys’ tennis team. He couldn’t move much, but he tried his best.
Although this was one of the worst things that ever happened to my dad and our family, it was also one of the best. My dad was selfish and didn’t care about anyone but himself during my childhood. My mom resented him for never being around but hated herself even more for dealing with it. They fought all the time about the serious and the stupid stuff. They were ready to call it quits.
My family is closer than ever now. We have so many wonderful family friends and have learned to genuinely appreciate one another. We hang out together, talk about intellectual and worldly issues and my dad even talks about one day walking me down the aisle. He told me once that he is more afraid to give me away than anything. I get excited to go home on the weekends and I call him during big games to talk about the plays and get his expert reaction. We’ve learned to appreciate time, which is something that so many take for granted. I never realized how realistic the end is until it was put in complete perspective.
It could be much worse, but just a few months ago, dad’s cancer resurfaced. He has chemo treatments twice a week and he still gets sick from time to time. He denied the offer to have another stem cell transplant. I don’t blame him.
It’ll be four years this February. So much for two years.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Waking up in the City that never sleeps
I first traveled to New York City fresh out of high school, way after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and just over a year after Friends called it quits. I didn’t have any real reason to go there, I just wanted to be a tourist for a couple of days and see all of the things I'd already seen on the television in person. I went from the Financial District to the Fashion District, Second Street to 102nd Street, Queens to Brooklyn, Chinatown to Times Square and all that's in between. I saw homeless people, ate dirty water hotdogs, swiped my MetroCard, hailed a taxi and even bought a "designer" purse from a street vendor. I was annoyed with the sound of car horns beeping every second and I was offended by the smell of trash day on a hot summer afternoon. I went to Tiffany's and Bloomingdale's, Ground Zero and Central Park, the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. I saw what I thought to be the entire city in just two days.
The city was just a tourist trap for me. I loved the action and the lights but I hated the lack of reality. It was just a giant fantasy – something I’d seen in movies and read about in magazines. I was obsessed with the city and the lifestyle I would one day lead if I lived there. However, rather than taking a glimpse into my future home, I felt as though I were at giant amusement park, walking around with a bunch of other people who had no idea what taking the F train to West Fourth Street and then hopping the A train to get downtown meant. I was fascinated with the City, but didn’t quite understand how the women in Sex and the City and the cast of Seinfeld lived such wonderful, exotic lives with all these tourists around.
I went back to New York just a few weeks ago as a brand new 21 year old. I intended to experience New York City in a new way by exploring what the nightlife had to offer. I went to a few bars and pubs, but none of them really tickled my fancy. I didn’t understand where all of the fanatical night life existed because all I saw were a bunch of amateurs going to happy hour and then heading home to watch the 11 o’clock news.
Nearly losing hope, I stumbled upon a wonderful little place that has karaoke on the weekends. I’m an old choir hero, so I was ecstatic to get a few drinks and sing a few tunes on stage. I had a great time that night and ended up going back the next night for another round of ridiculous karaoke. Much to my surprise, I wasn’t carded at the door. The doorman, Doc, said, “Don’t worry, I remember you from last night.” I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, in New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, and the bouncer remembered me. The bartender called me by name and I nearly choked on my whiskey sour, which he made for me free of charge. I felt as though I were about to be a this-could-happen-to-you story about what not to do at a bar in New York.
Because I was too busy being freaked out at the recognition, I didn’t pay attention to the fact that, after another night at the place, most of the people in the bar had been there the night before and the night before that. They recognized me and I recognized them. I saw so many familiar faces those next few nights and had conversations with people I’d known for a few hours that I’d never had and probably never will have with people I’d known for years. The little pub reminded me so much of places at home. It wasn’t something you’d picture when you think of New York City bars. It was homey, cozy even. The candied smell of mixed drinks and wines and the faint smell of cigarettes from before the pub banned smoking trumped the smell of spilled beer on the shabby wooden floors. The bar stools were leather with the foam padding on the inside. I know this because some of them had the foam peaking through the seams. Sitting at the bar seemed like an old routine - kind of like plopping down on your parent’s comfy, worn-in sofa. There were thousands of liquor bottles, pretty much anything you could think of, piled behind the bar like an elite army. The bartender flipped and tipped the bottles and glasses concocting drinks and brews the best way he knew how. He put it on your tab without asking for a name – somehow just knowing. “Shaken, not stirred,” a man joked while ordering his dry martini with two olives that he quickly swallowed before ordering another. The taste of alcohol and fried food lingered on my breath after inhaling my fried cod and chips and pint of Guinness in my tipsy stupor.
Karaoke performances, beginning at 9pm Thursday through Saturday, turn the pub into a miniature concert hall for those who have consumed enough alcohol to appreciate a rousing performance of the B-52’s ‘Love Shack’ by Miss Cassandra, the girl who has knocked back enough Cosmos for all of the ladies in the bar. She stumbles through the verses but nails the ‘Bang Bang’s’ before the last chorus. The bar-goers shout the “TIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNN ROOF….rusted,” because Cassandra doesn’t seem to remember where she is. I take the stage to rap a played out 90’s rap song that everyone, despite their age, seems to know. The microphone, as Billy Joel once said, smelled like a beer, but that was the last of my worries. Watching those quick words fly across the screen kept my heart pounding. I nailed every word and exited the stage hugging and slapping high-fives with people who seemed to realize the song I just performed was the song I’d be remembered by.
It was strange to find a place in such a large, melting pot of a city where there were locals. Real locals. Not those people who are in town for business or visiting friends. The people who stop by for a drink after work and then continue down to 51st and 3rd to call it a night at their own apartment. What was even stranger was to find people like this who accepted us outsiders and invited us back for a couple more crazy nights. It was the kind of place I’ll go back to for the rest of my life, every time I visit the city, just to see if the barstools still look the same and the bartender still remembers the time we performed a duet the second night of karaoke and that my name is spelled with a ‘d’ rather than a ‘t’. It was the kind of place I hope to be a real regular at someday. Maybe even the exact place.
The city was just a tourist trap for me. I loved the action and the lights but I hated the lack of reality. It was just a giant fantasy – something I’d seen in movies and read about in magazines. I was obsessed with the city and the lifestyle I would one day lead if I lived there. However, rather than taking a glimpse into my future home, I felt as though I were at giant amusement park, walking around with a bunch of other people who had no idea what taking the F train to West Fourth Street and then hopping the A train to get downtown meant. I was fascinated with the City, but didn’t quite understand how the women in Sex and the City and the cast of Seinfeld lived such wonderful, exotic lives with all these tourists around.
I went back to New York just a few weeks ago as a brand new 21 year old. I intended to experience New York City in a new way by exploring what the nightlife had to offer. I went to a few bars and pubs, but none of them really tickled my fancy. I didn’t understand where all of the fanatical night life existed because all I saw were a bunch of amateurs going to happy hour and then heading home to watch the 11 o’clock news.
Nearly losing hope, I stumbled upon a wonderful little place that has karaoke on the weekends. I’m an old choir hero, so I was ecstatic to get a few drinks and sing a few tunes on stage. I had a great time that night and ended up going back the next night for another round of ridiculous karaoke. Much to my surprise, I wasn’t carded at the door. The doorman, Doc, said, “Don’t worry, I remember you from last night.” I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, in New York City, one of the largest cities in the world, and the bouncer remembered me. The bartender called me by name and I nearly choked on my whiskey sour, which he made for me free of charge. I felt as though I were about to be a this-could-happen-to-you story about what not to do at a bar in New York.
Because I was too busy being freaked out at the recognition, I didn’t pay attention to the fact that, after another night at the place, most of the people in the bar had been there the night before and the night before that. They recognized me and I recognized them. I saw so many familiar faces those next few nights and had conversations with people I’d known for a few hours that I’d never had and probably never will have with people I’d known for years. The little pub reminded me so much of places at home. It wasn’t something you’d picture when you think of New York City bars. It was homey, cozy even. The candied smell of mixed drinks and wines and the faint smell of cigarettes from before the pub banned smoking trumped the smell of spilled beer on the shabby wooden floors. The bar stools were leather with the foam padding on the inside. I know this because some of them had the foam peaking through the seams. Sitting at the bar seemed like an old routine - kind of like plopping down on your parent’s comfy, worn-in sofa. There were thousands of liquor bottles, pretty much anything you could think of, piled behind the bar like an elite army. The bartender flipped and tipped the bottles and glasses concocting drinks and brews the best way he knew how. He put it on your tab without asking for a name – somehow just knowing. “Shaken, not stirred,” a man joked while ordering his dry martini with two olives that he quickly swallowed before ordering another. The taste of alcohol and fried food lingered on my breath after inhaling my fried cod and chips and pint of Guinness in my tipsy stupor.
Karaoke performances, beginning at 9pm Thursday through Saturday, turn the pub into a miniature concert hall for those who have consumed enough alcohol to appreciate a rousing performance of the B-52’s ‘Love Shack’ by Miss Cassandra, the girl who has knocked back enough Cosmos for all of the ladies in the bar. She stumbles through the verses but nails the ‘Bang Bang’s’ before the last chorus. The bar-goers shout the “TIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNN ROOF….rusted,” because Cassandra doesn’t seem to remember where she is. I take the stage to rap a played out 90’s rap song that everyone, despite their age, seems to know. The microphone, as Billy Joel once said, smelled like a beer, but that was the last of my worries. Watching those quick words fly across the screen kept my heart pounding. I nailed every word and exited the stage hugging and slapping high-fives with people who seemed to realize the song I just performed was the song I’d be remembered by.
It was strange to find a place in such a large, melting pot of a city where there were locals. Real locals. Not those people who are in town for business or visiting friends. The people who stop by for a drink after work and then continue down to 51st and 3rd to call it a night at their own apartment. What was even stranger was to find people like this who accepted us outsiders and invited us back for a couple more crazy nights. It was the kind of place I’ll go back to for the rest of my life, every time I visit the city, just to see if the barstools still look the same and the bartender still remembers the time we performed a duet the second night of karaoke and that my name is spelled with a ‘d’ rather than a ‘t’. It was the kind of place I hope to be a real regular at someday. Maybe even the exact place.
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