Taking the Shuttle
A few years ago, I was in Houston for one of my regularly scheduled health checks at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. It was time to see, once again, whether or not cancer was going to make another attempt on my life.
I was traveling by shuttle from Houston Hobby airport, a twenty-minute drive that costs twenty bucks, and I was not alone. There was one other passenger that day, a guy who was a decade or so younger than me, perhaps thirty.
When you grab one of those airport shuttles, you never know who’s going to be joining you. There may be one other person; there may be five. Plus, you don’t know what their stories are. Different shuffles take different routes and make different stops, but as a general rule when you’re heading toward Houston’s medical district, most of the people on board have at least some connection to illness. Not necessarily cancer, mind you, but if they’re heading toward the medical district from the airport, you can pretty much bet that either they or someone in their family is seriously ill.
Because of this serious illness connection, these airport shuttles can also be awkward. When you get on board, you may or may not feel like talking that day. You may be too antsy about upcoming appointments. You may have had a bad morning. You may be feeling blue or existential. That breakfast sandwich you ate at the airport may not be sitting quite right.
Or you may want to engage somebody that day, asking appropriately probing questions to your shuttle neighbor while making sure you aren’t forcing someone to talk who’d really rather not. For you don’t want to be that person who’s talking too much, filling up every stretch of silence with nervous chatter or meaningless observations.
On this particular spring day, I was feeling upbeat. Although I’d been through a lot, cancer-wise, things seemed to be going my way of late. And so, as I looked at the guy sitting beside me, I thought, well, I guess I could be friendly and chat a bit.
“So, where you heading?” I asked.
“M.D. Anderson,” he said, in an amiable way.
“Oh really? Me too,” I confided.
“Appointment time?” he asked.
“Yep. Time for check-ups,” I said. “How ‘bout you?”
“Yeah, something like that…”
I could have ended it there. I mean we had exchanged pleasantries. We had revealed a bit of meaningful information. We were brothers, in a way, joined by that most unpleasant bond, cancer.
But I decided to probe a bit further.
“So, what’re you in for?” I asked.
“Uh, lung cancer.”
Ouch, I thought. I don’t know everything about cancer, but I did know that lung cancer was one of the biggies. That is, one of the deadliest kinds around, if not the deadliest.
“And you?” he asked.
I told him about the cancer that had been recurring in my arm. And then we’d come to another logical stopping point. But I plodded on.
“So, what’s the prognosis?” I asked, somewhat boldly.
“Three months.”
“What?” I replied, believing I’d misheard him.
“Three months.”
“Three months? Are you kidding?” I responded. “You look fine. I mean, I can’t even tell there’s anything wrong!”
“Yeah. I get that a lot. But they just found it too late. So now I’m looking into experimental stuff…”
Now, several years later, that conversation haunts me. My brief friend, I must assume, has been dead for some time, and it’s as if I’ve somehow stepped into his place. I am now that (fairly) young person who doesn’t look like he’s about to die, at least for now. I’m the one who surprises people when they hear of my condition. I’m the one who leaves people questioning whether any of the dire news could possibly be true. I am the guy with lung (and liver) cancer who’s embarking on an experimental adventure.
I’m not exactly sure why I wanted to tell you this story. But to be completely honest, I find something poignant and ironic in it. Something about meeting people, talking to them, listening, and saying goodbye. Something about appearances and expectations. Something about life and death, the way things are, the rotating Ferris wheel we step on and ride for as long as we can until it’s time to step off.
And I find truth in the loneliness involved, some young kid, nameless, riding to a medical appointment during the last ninety days of his life. Such is the nature of cancer. No matter how many friends you have, and I have many, at times you’re on that shuttle, riding somewhere unknown, all alone.
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