The Bitch that Got Me to Write Again
She entered our relationship on the afternoon of the second day of our seaside holiday.
We'd had the best morning, walking part of the Strandloper Trail between Morgan Bay and Marsh Strand over round, green hills, gaping at the spotted-hide cows that grazed peacefully on top of dizzying cliffs while the warm Indian Ocean launched itself repeatedly at rocks below.
We'd searched the shingle for tiny treasures at Bead Beach on the far side of Double Mouth, where the Santo Esperito deposited a load of Ming porcelain in 1608. I picked up two small pieces of porcelain and gave them to the barefoot Xhosa lady on the rocks who'd sold us four Carnelian beads and three money cowries for a few Rands each. She could sell the porcelain on to someone else. The people of my home province are not rich, in monetary terms at least.
I'd grown up in the Eastern Cape, but my familiarity with its coastline came only with my first marriage and a family beach house at Haga-Haga. So when Buurman and I, after three years together with no proper holiday to show for it, decided to go on honeymoon it was easy to choose a place with warm water, lots of walks, and rock pools teeming with life. The fact that Buurman had never been to the East Coast sealed the deal.
We had talked about marriage early on in our relationship and decided against it. "Kom ons trou elke môre en hou honeymoon elke dag", he'd said and we lived those words. I was scared to let this beautiful man into my life at first. I used to believe I killed people. Nearly everybody I loved, died and those who did not die, left. My rational mind knows I do not have the power to inflict death (if I did, a few people may have been wished dead by now). Still I warned him, because I didn't want to deal with more loss.
He assured me he wasn't planning to die anytime soon.
We decided to live what we have, while we have it.
This magic that manifested between us was bigger than the sum of its parts and we would not throw it away. In fact, we would nurture it and make it grow.
And just like that, my heart opened. I no longer wrote, because I was happy. I lived instead. It was new, for both of us, this joyful restoration to wholeness. We had found our other halves as adults, when we possessed both the maturity to appreciate the magnitude of what we had found in each other and the emotional literacy to not fuck it up.
Not a day went by unappreciated and our belated honeymoon was a chance to celebrate the gift we'd been given.
We were tired, sweaty and sunburnt (me) when we got back to the little prefab house in the caravan park that was our holiday home. We looked forward to a shower and a pedicure at the hotel spa (me) and a beer (Buurman). The cellphone signal was patchy at the little house and it came as a surprise when his phone rang as we reached the front door. It was the dermatologist he'd seen the week before. They had been missing each other's calls since before we left; what with there being no network coverage in the kloof and dermatologists being busy and us on the road.
She was there when Buurman put the phone down. She came out through his lips and suddenly she could not be unsaid. Her name still closes a cold hand around my stomach after a full six weeks. Melanoma. (Or melamoon as Buurman says in Afrikaans. I find these occasional mispronunciations heart-rendingly endearing.) She has moved in with us and we are getting to know her. Her full name is Melanoma Stage IIIC.
We've been for the mapping and a wide excision of the nodular melanoma. Buurman has the scars to show for it and I get to call him "Patches" for the many plasters in his neck. Three of the four sentinal nodes removed were found to be metastatic (cancerous). We went to see the oncologist together. I tend to go to the talking appointments while Buurman deals with the scans by himself. Much was my distress the week before last when the fact that I'd had a virus in the lead-up to a changeover meant I had to work at the guesthouse while Buurman drove himself to Panorama for surgery AND BACK AGAIN despite my protestations and the fact there was a lift available.
The stitches are coming out today and on Wednesday it's off to radiology for X-rays and MRI, to be followed by a PET scan if the others are clear. Further nodes may have to be removed if they are accessible. The only thing you can do with melanoma is cut it out; they no longer use chemotherapy and seldom radiation. Then follows Immunotherapy: not guaranteed to work and with a 15% chance of sending the cancer into overdrive, at R100 000 a pop every three weeks for 18 months. Side effects include every kind of -itis there is, in the oncologist's words. There are cheaper, unproven options like Inderal + Ecotrin prescribed off-label.
The social worker at the Oncology Centre spoke of faith and prayer, and added that they offer End of Life Care and hospice. She suggested putting all the death preparation in place and then forgetting about it, which seems sensible. Fortunately Buurman and I are not afraid to speak of death. We live too close to nature to deny its seasons.
Personally I believe in a combination of tactics, but the treatment will ultimately be for Buurman to decide. Medical Aid plus Critical Illness Cover are not enough to cover Immunotherapy accompanied by treatment of its more serious side effects. This morning we discussed selling our land and settling somewhere that's easier to manage. We won't do anything rash, but it's strangely comforting that we can throw around ideas that seemed unthinkable six weeks ago with such ease.
If you've made it up to here, dear reader, please don't give advice. Alternative treatments have also been discussed with the oncologist. Cannabis interferes with the immunotherapy and so does intravenous turmeric. Thoughts and prayers are indeed welcome, but know that we may not believe as you do.
Wednesday's scans will tell us more. This is not a quick thing. It is a waiting game. And we're ready to play.
On the Strandloper Trail 26/02/2019
