I am supposed to leave for California tomorrow. I had to cancel because I am too sick. I tried to make the best of my disappointment, so we scheduled a staycation at Dream Hotel in the Meatpacking District. Sloan-Kettering was really helpful in arranging hydration so I can live a few days without my Mediport and swim and be a somewhat normal person for a few days. I took today and tomorrow off. I have a facial.
We got a notification that the pool, the whole reason I am going, will close at 5. I called and explained I am dying, but the manager initially said that everything is outlined in the rules and that they can’t refund me for today, so we have to go anyway. It re-opens at 8 pm. I was really disappointed that they wouldn’t let me cancel but a friend called on my behalf, and another helpful person there arranged for me to go swimming at the hotel next door during the event. We’re on our way there now and will arrive a bit after 5, which is why I was so upset at the timing. I got my Mediport de-accessed and am excited to be a normal person for a few days. I still have to go in for hydration tomorrow at MSKCC. I got a facial and look a little bit more like myself without the antibiotics acne.
Josie,
I read your piece in The NY Times and have been thinking about you daily ever since. I have a three-month-old son, and I’ll often think of you during 4-am feedings when the house is dark and still. The fact that a complete stranger could make such an impact is a credit to your writing and unique outlook on life. My mother recently went through chemo for ovarian cancer, so your story felt close to home. I know we’ve never met so you have no reason to take my advice, but please consider finding another hotel. Don’t give up. Swim. Float. Feel normal, if just for a moment.
Pulling for you in Milwaukee, WI.
Thank you! I’m looking forward to being normal for a few days. 🙂 The hotel fixed the issue and they got me on the list for the adjacent hotel pool. Best of luck and health to your mother.
Hello Josie….
I publish Art of Dying Magazine…www.artofdyingmagazine.com. Could I interview you? I am especially inspired by your NYT article:
I’m so happy and so sad at the same time.
Death isn’t an abstract concept. I live week to week, moment to moment. I live fully, but I have always done that.
Josie, you’re the Real Deal…keep up the great work.
Yes.
I hope to hear from you,
Love,
John
Dear Josie!
Your article in the NYTimes touched my heart and ever since I read it I also can’t stop thinking of you. It is your writing that inspires to live and enjoy this wonderful world and people no matter of diagnosis. I just wanted to let you know that no matter of distance or time, I have huge support for you! I am with you, I am thinking of you and hope that your friends and family bring you lovey memories. I wish I was in NYC so to give you a huge hug!!!
Josie,
After reading your intriguing and enjoyable NYT article, I learned more about you and began reading your blog. Initially, I felt that I owed you that investment of time, given the honest and courageous effort you’ve made to put your experiences into print. However, as I read through the entries, it became simply one of the most compelling stories I have read in a long time, both in how you have approached your life and through your skill in relating your experience. You might not know whether you ‘have a book’ in you, but if you are allowed the opportunity some day to author one, I expect it will be a wonderful piece of work. Your pithy headlines, the endearing honesty, the often unexpected (and therefore delightful) wry humor, the love you have for your friends, your mother, your cats – it all shines through. (I confess I laughed out loud at your comment about the chain saw on a stick being the perfect zombie weapon – I have one and that use had shockingly never occurred to me).
I’m grateful for the inspiration that your story has given me, and I’m sure, many others. During some minor hand surgery last week, in the midst of some moderate discomfort, I thought about the many procedures and setbacks that you have so gracefully endured and my discomfort became trivial. I will always keep your example with me.
Despite being a born and still more-or-less-practicing Catholic, I admit that I don’t really understand the process of prayer. I see a rationale for and practice prayers of gratitude, as I tend to believe that I’ve been blessed with a life in some ways more abundant than perhaps even deserved. In your case, I pray in thanks that you are surrounded and supported by so many and such dear friends. I’m also grateful that you and your current boyfriend both took the risk that resulted in your meeting – he must be a great guy.
But prayers asking for something always seemed to me somehow presumptuous and grasping, especially given the aforementioned easy existence I’ve led compared to the challenges millions of others undergo on a daily basis. However, despite these misgivings, when lacking other efficacies I do pray for intervention in dire circumstances. In your case, Josie, I pray for the best possible outcome for you, even though I don’t know what that might be.
It’s been written that we don’t know ‘what dreams may come’, but my life experiences won’t let me believe that existence is a random event or without meaning and consequence. I hope that sometime, somewhere, I’ll have the opportunity to spend some time with you – it’s something for me to look forward to.
May you have strength and blessings along your way,
Rick
After reading your piece in the NYT Review Section, I did what someone might expect—Google your name to find a picture(s). You may have scars and radiation tattoos (I also have scars and radiation tattoos), but that doesn’t take away from the fact that you are a very attractive woman and a very talented writer. Your opening line, “I have cancer, so if you want to hang out, act now!” is brilliant. Sardonic, honest and, kinda sexy. Rather than get hit by a bus, I’ve always wanted to be walking down the street on a nice day, when a piece of space junk makes it through the atmosphere and hits me in the back of the head. Preferably a piece of Soviet space junk so my obit could read that I was the “last victim” of the Cold War. Like you, I also apologize too profusely—not sure why. That is a good question to explore with my therapist.
Here’s what I do know, courtesy of the author Chuck Klosterman whose new book, “Raided in Captivity” is a series of very short stories. In one story, a character says, “You have to lose your life to understand how worthless most of life is. You have to lose it all. All at once. That is the only way to gauge the value of anything.” Losing so much of my life to cancer has made me see how worthless most of life is and ultimately the value of life.