Cancer on Five Dollars a Day* *(chemo not included): How Humor Got Me through the Toughest Journey of My Life by Robert Schimmel Read Free Book Online

not telling me everything.”
    “No, I am. I really am. I have to move on with my life and you have to, too. Let’s just leave it at that. Please.”
    Everything I say sounds so hollow, so full of crap. No way Melissa’s buying any of it. I feel like such a heel.
    “What did I do?” She’s desperately trying to figure this out, trying to make some sense of it. “Did I do something to you?”
    “No, no, you didn’t do anything.”
    “Robert—”
    She’s crying now, sobbing. I can’t leave her like that in the lobby. I buzz her up. Time now shimmers and all I know is that she’s upstairs with me and I’m holding her, smelling her hair, and her tears are streaming down her cheeks onto my shirt. I can barely find my voice, but inside I’m silently screaming, It’s not about you. It’s not about us. I have cancer. I need to be in Arizona with my kids, my parents, and, yes, Vicki. I need to fight it there and you can’t be part of that fight. It’s too much for you.
    And I suppose if I were being truly honest, I would have to add, It’s also too much for me.
    And then there is silence as the two of us look at each other, look right into each other’s souls. Then we turn away. This, too, this end, is a kind of death.
    “What am I supposed to do?” Melissa says. “Just walk out of here and forget about you?”
    “You have to,” I say and mean it, but then add in a canned, tinny voice: “You deserve somebody better. A younger guy.”
    She glares at me, her eyes tiny blue dots of rage. “You are so full of shit .”
    I can’t say anything because she’s right. I am full of shit. I’m also full of heartbreak, loss, guilt, regret, pain, and terror. Plain, simple, unadulterated fear. With a capital F. Not the fear of dying, believe it or not, at least not at this moment. The fear that I have made the biggest mistake of my life. And the realization that I can do nothing about it.
    “I’m gonna go.” Melissa stands straight as a sergeant and then her face creases. She suddenly looks very small and very sad. “Can I at least call you?”
    “It’d be better if you didn’t.”
    She nods, her eyes welling up. And then time slows. There is a quick clumsy hug, the door opening but not closing, and the sound of her footsteps clattering down the stairs. I teeter, feeling dizzy again, certain that I will fall. I reach behind me and lean against my rented living room couch for balance. I sit down slowly and exhale massively. I feel a sudden sharp jab in my chest as if I’ve been knifed, then I gasp for air, caused by the newly formed hole in my heart.

SESSION TWO
    ���FINDING YOUR PURPOSE”

TUESDAY EVENING
    Back in the air.
    L.A. to Phoenix.
    Winging to my first chemotherapy support group meeting tonight at seven. This should be a hoot.
    Okay, just for fun, let’s run through my recent little life change one more time.
    In twenty-four hours I’ve gone from a sitcom star on Fox to a cancer patient in Phoenix. I’ve switched from trying to begin a life with Melissa to trying to save my life at Mayo.
    Talk about whiplash. My head’s spinning like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist .
    And I’m feeling—
    That’s really it, isn’t it? That’s what being alive is.
    Feeling.
    Right now I’m feeling numb. In a trance. My head throbbing. As if someone’s swatted me across the skull with a tire iron.
    But even in this zoned-out zombie state, even as I literally deal with death, I know that my attitude about life has changed.
    I feel liberated in a way. But mainly I feel that I have to keep going. I’m going to beat this. I have to. I want to spend time with my kids. I want them to know me. And not just for the next six months. For years to come. I want to watch Jacob and Aliyah grow up and I want them to watch me grow old.
    And I’m going to beat this because I want to reconnect with Melissa. Somehow, some way. Maybe we’re meant to be. Maybe we’re Fated. My head is foggy, but that’s not why I think