Cancer patients, on the whole, try to avoid the topic of blame.
In mid-November, when she was handing back some essays to her 102 class, a student raised his hand. Hisname was Bruno, he was on the ice hockey team, and he had a head of thick, curly black hair. Rita had recently become aware of hair and how much or little people had of it, since hers had begun to come out in clumps when she combed it, the way you might pull up flowers, accidentally when you are weeding. She had purchased some extensions she clipped onto her remaining hair that were actually kind of attractive, she thought. She might even look better than she ever looked. Cancer was honing her features, refining them. Or chemo was. In any case she thought she looked more real somehow.
“How do you think we are supposed to keep up with all this reading?” Bruno asked. “We’ve got games this week and next.”
Are you joking?
she thought. It was such a cliché, the college athlete complaining about the actual academic work.
“Coach says you are giving us too much; he is going to report it.”
Rita could see some of the other students nodding.
“Okay, poll: How many of you think this class has been too much work? We have a total of five books and five short essays in here,” she said. “One final. Is that really too much?”
A slight girl with a pierced nose raised her hand. “It is just the reading. It’s a lot. Some of these books are long, and kinda hard to read.”
“Okay, poll: Does everyone feel like that?”
The class nodded in unison. “Okay, duly noted,” Rita said. “I’ll get back to you on this.”
After class she went to the janitor’s closet bathroom and threw up.
She was certain she had read much more than she was assigning in her own college 102 class. She was certain she had had to write more essays and take more tests, too. Nevertheless, she decided to lighten the load. “You have to choose your battles,” she told her mother, on the phone, explaining the decision.
“That you do,” her mother said. She still hadn’t told her about the cancer.
That night, she went online and saw that Henrik and Anna Lin had created their own private chat room. She could see it but not enter; they had it “locked.” There were four other cancer forums she could go to, but somehow none of them appealed to her. She felt sort of left out of the discussion with Henrik and Anna Lin. She had begun to think of them as her secret cancer family. They were in there talking for over two hours, without her. Then, at about eleven, just as she was turning off her computer and about to go to sleep, she got an IM from Anna Lin.
“Rita—you still up?”
“Yeah, planning my classes for the week. Gotta scale back, apparently I assigned too much work!”
“Guess what?!”
“What?”
“Henrik is coming to visit me! He is coming to Japan!”
“Are you joking?”
“No, he is coming this weekend!”
“But what about his chemo?”
“He just finished it up. And he says he feels okay. He said I make him feel better.”
“Wow.”
“I know, double wow, right?”
“Right!”
Anna hung up and Rita just sat there, feeling surprised and a little jealous. It wasn’t that she wanted to be Henrik’s best cancer buddy. She just didn’t want to be nobody’s cancer buddy.
The weekend went by and Rita bought apples and made applesauce, which she had heard was good for nausea. She graded papers and picked which book to take off the reading list. All the books were classics, and she didn’t like the feeling she was snubbing one. But it had to be. She was choosing her battles. On Monday she told her class. “Okay, I want you to know I am hearing you. And I am taking
The Good Earth
off the list for this class. It makes me a little sad because it is a truly great book, a book of triumph over adversity, and hope and love, and I hope you all read it someday, like over the holiday …” She heard a snicker. “But for now we will omit
In mid-November, when she was handing back some essays to her 102 class, a student raised his hand. Hisname was Bruno, he was on the ice hockey team, and he had a head of thick, curly black hair. Rita had recently become aware of hair and how much or little people had of it, since hers had begun to come out in clumps when she combed it, the way you might pull up flowers, accidentally when you are weeding. She had purchased some extensions she clipped onto her remaining hair that were actually kind of attractive, she thought. She might even look better than she ever looked. Cancer was honing her features, refining them. Or chemo was. In any case she thought she looked more real somehow.
“How do you think we are supposed to keep up with all this reading?” Bruno asked. “We’ve got games this week and next.”
Are you joking?
she thought. It was such a cliché, the college athlete complaining about the actual academic work.
“Coach says you are giving us too much; he is going to report it.”
Rita could see some of the other students nodding.
“Okay, poll: How many of you think this class has been too much work? We have a total of five books and five short essays in here,” she said. “One final. Is that really too much?”
A slight girl with a pierced nose raised her hand. “It is just the reading. It’s a lot. Some of these books are long, and kinda hard to read.”
“Okay, poll: Does everyone feel like that?”
The class nodded in unison. “Okay, duly noted,” Rita said. “I’ll get back to you on this.”
After class she went to the janitor’s closet bathroom and threw up.
She was certain she had read much more than she was assigning in her own college 102 class. She was certain she had had to write more essays and take more tests, too. Nevertheless, she decided to lighten the load. “You have to choose your battles,” she told her mother, on the phone, explaining the decision.
“That you do,” her mother said. She still hadn’t told her about the cancer.
That night, she went online and saw that Henrik and Anna Lin had created their own private chat room. She could see it but not enter; they had it “locked.” There were four other cancer forums she could go to, but somehow none of them appealed to her. She felt sort of left out of the discussion with Henrik and Anna Lin. She had begun to think of them as her secret cancer family. They were in there talking for over two hours, without her. Then, at about eleven, just as she was turning off her computer and about to go to sleep, she got an IM from Anna Lin.
“Rita—you still up?”
“Yeah, planning my classes for the week. Gotta scale back, apparently I assigned too much work!”
“Guess what?!”
“What?”
“Henrik is coming to visit me! He is coming to Japan!”
“Are you joking?”
“No, he is coming this weekend!”
“But what about his chemo?”
“He just finished it up. And he says he feels okay. He said I make him feel better.”
“Wow.”
“I know, double wow, right?”
“Right!”
Anna hung up and Rita just sat there, feeling surprised and a little jealous. It wasn’t that she wanted to be Henrik’s best cancer buddy. She just didn’t want to be nobody’s cancer buddy.
The weekend went by and Rita bought apples and made applesauce, which she had heard was good for nausea. She graded papers and picked which book to take off the reading list. All the books were classics, and she didn’t like the feeling she was snubbing one. But it had to be. She was choosing her battles. On Monday she told her class. “Okay, I want you to know I am hearing you. And I am taking
The Good Earth
off the list for this class. It makes me a little sad because it is a truly great book, a book of triumph over adversity, and hope and love, and I hope you all read it someday, like over the holiday …” She heard a snicker. “But for now we will omit
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