Here's something I wrote for my father...
Cancer. Noun. A malignant tumor, a disease featuring this. Cancer, the forth sign of the Zodiac. Cancer, a figure of speech that means corruption.
He died 7 years back. Date and time of death, 31st July 1999, Saturday 6.05pm. Treatment length, 5 years 5 months. “What’s his name again, oh yes, patient 068642H That’s right, diagnosed with Cancer of the Para nasal sinus and nasal cavity, 3rd stage. Or in your, I mean, laymen’s terms, nose cancer with minimum prognosis… recovery rate.” Who was he? What was his name? Tell me without looking at his file. You have been so well trained to look at the patient number. Do you ever glance at the name? Have you, Mr Oncology Specialist, ever asked about him, his life, his family, his fucking occupation, any children? “How do you feel today?” Without nodding your head being this know it all. Do you know what he goes through? Maybe you don’t because cancer is what you’ve only seen in pictures in medical books, in the open bodies that lay on the table, in the faces of patients, people, who walk in and out of your office, hoping for some good news. Tell me his name without looking at his file. He was more than just a piece of paper, or a number on a plastic wristband on his right hand, or a brown toe tag tagged to his toe. He was my father and he died. He died the day he walked into the oncology clinic, his number was up even before he was buzzed in. He ceased to exist the minute he was called by his patient number. And with each passing day this number grew smaller as it wasted away from treatments “Mr..er..068642H, I don’t think radiotherapy is working for you, as you can see, the cancerous growth has increased in size, we recommend Chemotherapy as the next alternative. Yes, yes, we know that you’ve almost lost your hearing and your sense of smell and can no longer eat because radiation has burnt all your good cells, but you see, with Chemo you only loose your hair.” Surgeries, x-rays, stuck in MRIs machines with radio voices that tell it to keep its eyes shut and keep calm if it does open its eyes. Tell me Mr Radio Voice, How do you stay calm in a coffin? Checkups, medication “take this to combat the cancer and this to combat the effect of this, which will result in kidney failure, and this which will combat the result in kidney failure but will also increase the blood sugar level which will be lethal because your damaged kidney, from the result of that, will no longer function as it did before and last but not least, this one for headaches which is one small side effect of cancer, have a good day", counseling “how to heal if you don’t heal?” Emergency rooms with fucking stone cold doctors and their stone cold stethoscopes who insist on knowing medical history before treating it and just sit there coughing out medical jargon and get irritated when 068642H can’t hear what they’ve said because all the radio signals from the medical equipment is interfering his hearing aid. Tubes shoved up its nose, tubes attached to its belly, tubes up its goddamn penis for the urine bag, beds with call buttons to call rude tight ass nurses with name tags that say “Care givers with a smile”, sheets soiled with vomit even if 068642H had nothing to eat because it can’t eat anymore and it ends up hacking bile and blood, bedpans, obligated visitors with well wishes who know what they’ll be wearing at the funeral, rotting next door neighbors, sleeping with lights on, my weak mother who begged it to hang on, and me, who sat in the corner taking it all in. Forgetting what the number represented. I forgot about my father because I only saw what you made me see. The cancer.
Tell me his name without looking at the file because I too, can’t remember. I can’t remember because my mind went blank when my father told me he was diagnosed with cancer. My memory of him died when I only saw what you made me see! You were preoccupied with the disease. You were preoccupied with keeping his body alive even if it meant that we were left with was the shell of a person. Tell me his name without looking at his file! Because all I see is a piece of paper, a number on a plastic wristband on his right hand, a brown toe tag tagged to his toe. He was my father and he died the day I failed to see nothing more than a number. And I need to remember. I need to remember because people ask me things, they ask me about my father and I go numb. Because there is nothing left to remember. How do you tell someone that you’ve forgotten what your father looks like, when all that was left was a living breathing corpse? Or the sound of his voice? Tell me how do you remember the sound of his voice when cancer had eaten away his tongue? Tell me his name without looking at his file because I too can’t remember.
