Didi and I may not be especially religious, but we are Jews, and so we are guilty. We go to fancy places only on special occasions or for expense-account lunches, and even then we have a hard time indulging ourselves. You would think that night would have been an exception, but the truth is, it wasn’t. Our initial euphoria gave in to a set of more complicated emotions. The good news somehow also brought back to the surface all the sadness and difficulty we’d been through. Having only just set down a burden, we were exhausted. We had forgotten, in some weirdly practical sense, how to be happy.

My subconscious, however, was apparently less conflicted. The next morning, my 39th birthday, a song popped into my head that I didn’t even know I knew the lyrics to. I was standing in the shower, and there it was: “I can see clearly now, the rain has gone / I can see all the obstacles in my way / I think I can make it now, the pain has gone / Gonna be a bright … bright ... sunshiny day.” I wouldn’t blame anyone who doubted it happened that way. Only it did.

FALLOUT
Cancer is a nuclear bomb, not a tactical weapon, and so there is fallout. For starters, there is the threat of a recurrence. Beginning three months after I was pronounced cancer-free and continuing through today, I’ve undergone scores of follow-up tests. For a time, I had to do them every three months; now it’s six months. After every blood test, I still have to wait a week for the results. After every pet scan, I still haunt some diner and read. You learn little tricks—I don’t have scans on Fridays because then I have to wait an extra day to get the verdict—but the tests still jangle your nerves every time. So far, so good.

As a result of the radiation, I’m at increased risk for a secondary cancer, like prostate or colon cancer, and am more likely to fracture my leg. And I did wind up infertile, although that situation has been gradually getting better.

Because of the damage to my pelvic bone and the surrounding tissues, it was a year before Dr. Weiner cleared me to do even light, non-weight-bearing exercise. And it was another year before he allowed me to do physical therapy. Along the way, Dr. Gruenstein had put me on a bone-strengthening drug called Zometa. But Zometa can have serious side effects (it can cause bone death, of all things, in the jaws of certain dental patients), and it’s administered monthly, by IV. Gruenstein decided the costs outweighed the benefits and took me off it.

Today, I don’t limp or use a cane, but my hip hurts like an arthritis patient’s (some days good, some days bad). I can swim and ride an exercise bike, but I can’t run or play basketball or ride a real bike (no hard falls allowed). Some people ask me why I don’t have my hip replaced. That procedure fixes the spot where the top of the femur meets the pelvic bone. That’s not where my tumor was; it wouldn’t do me any good. Because I’ve been compensating for three-plus years now, I developed arthritis in my good hip. For a time, I took Vioxx—you know the rest of that story.

During the time I couldn’t exercise, I gained twenty pounds, and at my most recent annual physical last fall, I was told my cholesterol was sufficiently high to merit a Lipitor prescription. I begged for a reprieve on the premise that I could diet and exercise my way out of it, and my request was granted. I couldn’t tell you what my cholesterol is right now (I’m scheduled for a follow-up soon), but so far I’ve lost sixteen pounds, four short of my pre-cancer weight. I call it the Fear of Death diet.

ZING!
On Sunday, April 18—two days after I was pronounced cancer-free—Didi went to pick up a grocery bag, and—zing!—a jolt of pain shot up her spine. That night, she woke me up at two in the morning. She was crying. She couldn’t move. The paramedics came and took her to St. Vincent’s, where they gave her painkillers and muscle relaxers and diagnosed her with bulging L5 and L6 discs. She had never had back problems before.

Could you read this as an instance of a woman who had been carrying too heavy a load for too long and finally cracked because she could? Yes, you could.

NO MORE HEADACHES
Once you’ve had cancer, as the saying goes, you never have a headache again. That’s true. But my paranoia has manifested itself with Abby. Last summer, she developed a mystery ailment in her left leg. She would try to walk on it and just fall down. None of us, not Didi or our nanny, Patty, or me, had seen her fall or otherwise hurt herself, so after a day or two of waiting, we took her to the doctor. She recommended an X-ray, and when we got to the X-ray room, I lost it. Mysterious leg ailment? Check. Left leg? Check. MRI? No, but an X-ray was close enough. The X-rays, of course, came back negative, and the limp disappeared as mysteriously as it had arrived. The doctor said it was probably a sprain or a virus that got into her joints. Later, another theory occurred to me and Didi. Abby had grown up with a father who had been limping for most of her life. Monkey see ...

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