From time to time in these musings I have mentioned that I am a charter member of the Frazier Thomas Band. The Frazier Thomas Band was the imaginary air guitar band my oldest and nearest friends and I formed back in the late sixties to celebrate our halcyon days of youth. It seemed to grow organically out of our friendships. If there was ever an origin story, I can’t recall it anymore. At the time Frazier Thomas was still a beloved local television celebrity, who over a long career had enjoyed remarkable success playing a variety of characters and roles in several beloved kid shows. However, as far as our band was concerned, the easy choice of a symbolic character to honor Mr. Thomas was based on his role as Prime Minister to the King of the United States, Garfield Goose, a hand puppet pictured below with Frazier and another loyal subject of the King’s realm, Romberg Rabbit.
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Earlier this week I heard from the wife of another living member of our imaginary band. She was Lee’s best friend and remains a very good friend to me. Her husband, also one of the band’s charter members, is one of my oldest pals and remains one of my best friends.
About three or four years ago, my old friend was diagnosed by doctors with an aggressive form of cancer. At that time, after recovering from cancer surgery, he received an experimental drug treatment. This treatment had been effective, so much so in fact, that, based on the follow-up scans, it appeared to have eliminated all traces of his disease. Unfortunately, this happy result proved to be temporary and too good to be true. The disease resurfaced in a different form, attacking a new organ. Ever since my two friends have waged a pitched battle against cancer.
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Ostensibly, she was calling to provide an update concerning their long-awaited, and just recently concluded, family vacation on Hilton Head. However, our conversation quickly segued to the other, more pressing, recent events that concerned my old bandmate’s latest round of medical tests. These periodic tests have been a routine part of their existence for several years.
The news was not good. She reported to me that her husband’s cancer not only had reappeared but spread. We discussed a new treatment plan that was being floated by members of the medical team, however, she also told me that, for the first time, one of the doctors had candidly acknowledged to my friend that his long-term prognosis was not good. Indeed, it quickly became evident to me the primary purpose of her call would be to urge me (along with Lola the pup) to pay them a visit, and soon, too, because, well, one never knows.
I was glad she called to commiserate. She knows, better than most, that I have, so to speak, been there and done that in terms of caring for Lee. One always tries to remain positive, of course, but the dark truth about cancer is that watching the disease take the life of someone you love is indescribably painful. Even as the cancer conducted its insidious business with Lee, it simultaneously took a hard toll on me. It is better to share the pain.
Yet, cancer undeniably is far tougher on its unfortunate victims. Painful surgery only rarely ever excises the disease from the body completely; biopsies of lymph nodes help doctors to detect its presence in the cells and stage its advancement. The victims invariably suffer unpleasant, even debilitating, post-surgical effects. These effects are to be expected, however, given the intrusive nature of surgery that involves the use of sharp instruments to probe and rip body tissue. My old friend, who tends to be stoic, would admit no more than that he was feeling “blue.”
Lee’s cancers had forced me to recognize the hard way that this intrusive and painful surgery was merely a stage setter for chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Over time the treatments poisoned and sickened her. You are informed that these side effects gradually will subside but it is not unusual to see these effects linger long after the treatment itself has concluded. I hardly needed to remind my friend’s wife that one such treatment had nearly killed Lee, her best friend, before the cancer could finish the job.
The thing about cancer is that it is a disease process. Oft times the disease cruelly ebbs and flow. You can be an agnostic, yet you end up praying on your knees for a miracle remission. You can be a complete cynic about most everything else, yet desperately trust the medical doctor’s confident and soothing pronouncements when they claim the cancer can be managed and controlled. Eventually for Lee, as for so many other countless victims, despite all the prayers and soothing words, cancer’s flow accelerated, downhill, unstoppable. I remember being thrilled one day when Lee suddenly announced to me that she was feeling better. I recall feeling ecstatic the first time we could step out on a weekend night for dinner with friends. You begin to think, it’s like old times. Then one night, between courses, she disappears from the dinner table. She returns but does not tell anyone she is feeling sick to her stomach. She does not need to tell me.
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Today I still can feel the overpowering sense of relief that I felt whenever Lee’s periodic body scans would come back clean. You think, well, we can live with this. Much like me and Lee, my two dear friends had been lulled into hopefulness by several previous clean test results. Such results can induce a false sense of security. Even so, it was obvious to some of us back here that my old bandmate has not been himself for several months. And lurking behind his wife’s cheery talk about their day-to-day lives and recent adventures, I detected her nervous dread.
From firsthand experience I know that the status quo seems a fine and acceptable until suddenly it is not. You would be happy to form an uneasy truce with cancer, and just leave it at that, but cancer does not negotiate in good faith. Thus, you live in constant fear that the next turn will be a final turn for the worse. Even when this turns out not to be the case, an undercurrent of fear remains that it will be the next time. I don’t say any of this to her.
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In a couple weeks Eric and I will make the trip to see our old friend and his wife. She has seen the temporary healing power these visits have had on him in the past. So, for a few days at least, she is hoping to hear his hearty laugh once more as we swap the old stories and familiar tales, and fall back into our unique and private speech patterns, perfected over many years of close friendship and shared experiences, and mostly incomprehensible to outsiders. She is hoping to see his face brighten with flickers of life upon returning home from a short joyride, like in the old days, all smiles, still humming off-key snippets of selected songs from a collective musical playlist put together over the course of our lifetimes.
For a few days at least, Eric and I plan to revisit the music and rhythms of our lives with our old friend. I hope this will not be our last visit, but with each passing year the music seems to fades just a bit. When my friend’s time comes, a little piece of me will die with him.
