The Complicated Calculation of Comfort

I'm not sure if it's old age or chemotherapy, but while I used to have a great mind for playing name that movie/TV show/novel/story, at this point I'd have a hard time pulling the title from clues like spaceships, ray guns, glowing swords, and a planet/asteroid thing that blows up in the end.* This is currently annoying me 'cause I'm really trying to remember a book (movie? TV show?) a read once that had this character who kept describing his desired retirement (I think): he wanted to lie back on the couch and have a woman stroke his head and say, "There, there."

There's probably a lot more to it that I'm not remembering, but I have to admit that after twenty-six months of cancer treatment and a few weeks of cancer non-treatment, having someone stroke my head and say, "There, there" actually sounds kind of nice. 

Well, depending. 

Specifically, depending on who it is doing the there-thereing. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there's a level of intimacy that's required for that scenario to be soothing rather than creepy. If the distance between the person on the couch and the person saying, "There, there" is too great, it's creepy. But if they're close, it's potentially soothing. So, for example: Mother? Soothing. Co-worker? Creepy (and quite possibly illegal). Sibling? Creepy. Sibling, if your last name happens to be Lannister? Soothing. Spouse? Soothing. Ex-spouse? Way too complicated to determine in the abstract. 

You get the idea.

But then there's the other side of the equation.

Take Mothers. Every now and then I have to admit I start wishing my Mum was still around. Mum would've been soothing. Cancer's not quite the same as a skinned knee or chicken pox, but I think Mum had demonstrated that she had skills at soothing. But whenever I start wishing she were still here I think a bit more, and it occurs to me that wishing she was still here is insane. This would've wrecked her. The last thing my Mum ever would've wished for would be to outlast any of her children. She would not have been excited by the opportunity to watch me die, even if she was able to manage soothing. 

Which leads to the core of the problem with soothing: anyone who's actually close enough to be able to be soothing is nearly by definition also close enough that the last thing the cancer patient wants is to open the door to them to let them into the horror show. This is the part of Deadpool that I think resonated with so many cancer patients: the idea that the guy would rather leave his fiance behind than expose her to the experience of his cancer. It's really not an unreasonable approach. One of the saddest things about cancer is how hard it can be on a patient's pre-existing relationships.

And for the cancer patient, navigating those interpersonal distances can sometimes take way more energy than you've got available.

At least that's how I've found it to be. Your mileage may vary.


* Although, in my defense, at this point that description could refer to any of seven different movies.