A Country Like This

I have travelled to many countries but never to a country like this. Crossing the border I did not recognise my surroundings. There were no landmarks. People came to visit, brought flowers, fruit, books and cards, but they never stayed. I was left. The border that divided us was impenetrable. I was sick, so sick I could die. They were well.

My goal became in an instant to be well like them. Did they know what a privilege it was to pedal a bicycle, walk to work, eat out at a restaurant? Should I survive, having been in this place, I would be content to be alive, to experience the many signals that make us aware of the presence of others, to feel the sun, to savour the small things that make up life. I would not wish for exotic places, extreme environments, cruises, the arts. I don’t envy others the world borders they cross again and again while I stay here—only for the one border to a home where that other person I used to be lived.

For I have become a stranger to myself. I avoid mirrors. And bathroom scales and hard seats. And use safety pins to keep my clothes on. I punctuate my steps with a cane. I can see the 206 bones of my body. I could be a concentration camp survivor, a victim of anorexia nervosa or a starving woman in a famished Third World country.

But there is a light in the eye. And strength in the limbs. I dream of food. It is life now.

People must prepare themselves to meet me. Some look away. But many encourage and say positively, “You’re voice is strong”; “This will be a challenging long-distance swim” (knowing I was a swimmer); “There’s colour in your face.” And I love them for it. It fills me with the elixir of hope.

My “overseas trip” is the regular drive to Brisbane every Thursday for chemotherapy. I say this not with self-pity but with truthfulness. There are many simple beauties after the cabin fever of one’s house: sunlight falling along the pale limbs of a gum tree, light and shade inside a pine forest, mist rising off paddocks. I do not need to see a temple.

An insight of illness is the realisation that many of our “needs” are superfluous. True values take shape. Life does not have to be spectacular. It already is, in its own understated way. Friends, some unexpected, and family have shown me that loving and caring people matter, as those qualities matter in myself. They fill me with warmth and build faith in humanity.

Chemotherapy is a major defence against disease. It is poured into the veins like an industrial cleaner, knocking down the bad but also the good cells. The good cells recover more successfully than the bad and therein lies the treatment. It is a scourge and a blessing. I love it and hate it. But I must have it.

The Brisbane Mater Medical Centre chemotherapy unit is filled with now familiar cap-clad women, and men, many of whom look normal. Some joke and walk with purpose, some creep on canes. Occasionally a muscular young man presents in Wallaby colours as though he’s just run off the oval.

We are a sad and marked lot, but we do not seem defeated. We manage, each in our own private way—in the mind which is where the person truly resides, a place where few if any penetrate to know us.

Here in my treetop bedroom looking over a canopy of green, classical music playing on the edge of consciousness, there is time to think, of my family and friends that support me, the mental strength gained in survival, the help of modern drug technology and medical expertise, my focus on recovery, my luck in what I do have.

I think of all the writers who despite their illness write through their lack of energy, their pain and often their fear. It is a testament to the hold that writing has on dedicated authors. And to their spirit.

Jane Austen wrote twelve chapters into an unfinished novel.

Philip Hodgins wrote realistically and movingly of rural life, and used his illness as material for much of his later poetry.

Mary Ann Shaffer wrote her first novel at seventy, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, but didn’t see it edited or published.

From another viewpoint, illness and disability have been the inspiration for others to write books and show how it has changed, even enhanced, their lives. Recovery can bring awakenings.

Surprising how the mind adapts to a new situation. Time is not wasted on regret. Old expectations are gone. There remains only one, which is paramount.

There are many in a country like this. Some will cross the border back and some will not. I am watching that border. Whatever happens, I will not be the same again.