A day in the life
I made the morning train by a minute, which felt like a good omen on what was to be a day of new beginnings. There was just one passenger, a sleeper, curled on the first seat to the left on the downstairs carriage of the 06:59 train from Glenbrook to Sydney. I’d already sunk a coffee and the caffeine fix was in.
An hour’s ride to Sydney, then a bus and a walk before the first queue of the day outside Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Camperdown. All of us in masks and using the QR code to get approved for the next steps. The virus. Been to these hot spots, et cetera?
Starting a clinical trial is a bewildering experience but what came first was gratitude for being admitted to the threshold of a world vibrating with shiny potential, or something like it. There have been good results in 20–30pc of people. What seemed to be on offer was the possibility of remission after six years of cancer and constant chemo.
But something else is happening. I’m opening myself to something bigger than a temporary reprieve from a life tethered to drugs, tests, consults and time hooked up to medical machinery.
I’m opening myself to healing. Meaning that beyond cancer and chemo, beyond blood and bone, I’m ready to graduate from the deep learning I’ve received from cancer. Yes, it’s been a bitch. Yes, it’s been amazing. But I feel now that I got what I came for and it’s time to make the journey home to healing — not just from cancer but from every illness and injury that has shown me how far I’ve strayed from conscious living. I’m feeling into it. It’s a place of realignment, re-entry, where there’s no struggle, no war, no existential suffering. Just a bright blue sky.
But today at least, there would be needles and blood. Cannulas and chemo.
RPAH’s Haematology Department
08:30. I’m in RPAH’s Haematology Department. My doctor talks me through the new drug protocol, answers my questions, fills the paperwork and orders the drugs. He does a physical exam and a nurse takes my vitals.
My bloods were taken and then it was a 2-hour wait while the new drug was made up (balantamab, 250mg). I’m greeted and walked into the infusion ward in Gloucester House, a creamy art deco building constructed between the wars.
Surrounded by a dozen other patients, each connected to an intravenous drip, each being infused with a liquid cocktail. Some read, some sleep, others stare into space, all attended by kindly nurses clad in navy scrubs, swishing about in plastic yellow gowns.
Name, date of birth and soon enough I had cannulas in both arms, one for drugs, the other for bloods. One in, one out …
More bloods out then it’s in with dexamethasone. Then an hour’s wait and then it’s in with balantamab. Another hour’s wait then more blood out and a subcutaneous shot of bortezomib to send me on my way at 16:20.
This will be life-altering. To start, I’ll be infused with three chemo drugs and take a host of others for the first 9 months of treatment. A dozen blood samples each time I come to hospital, which will be four times a fortnight then a week off before it starts again.
Prayers from Auntie Joyce
The day before, I’d had tea with my Auntie Joyce, the first time we’d met since COVID hit in January. Sister Joy Mary Edwards is a Good Samaritan and we were rendezvousing at Santa Maria Good Samaritan Convent in Lawson. We clung to each other, me stooping, her reaching as we greeted on the garden path where she was being walked by half a dozen other nuns (Marie, Katherine, Moya, Veronica were names I caught).
Joyce who prayers for me, was in fine form. She has been in total Covid19 lock down for eight months. Meals delivered, no outings. Just a telephone and a dodgy internet connection. During lockdwon she had written a book, put her affairs in order and and stepped up her piano practice. What was new for me, she asked? I fear my life is so pared back these days as to seem bland. All I could summon was to say that I’d started a book club, begun training as a yoga teacher and was about to start a new, experimental drug as part of a clinical trial.
Before long, Joyce’s driver and chaperone said it was time for her to go. So we clung to each other again as she left, me stooping, her reaching, not wanting to say goodbye as I helped her into the front passenger seat and Veronica buckled her in.
She’s 93 at Christmas, I’ve just turned 58. Before she left she wondered out loud which of us would “go first.” I told her to keep up the prayers and I’d catch up to her later, in heaven.
Everyone is trying to get to the bar
The name of the bar, the bar is called Heaven
The band in Heaven, they play my favourite song
They play it once again, they play it all night long — David Byrne.
Dan Gaffney is a teacher and author. His book and podcast series, ‘Journey Home — Essays on Living and Dying’ was published in 2019.
