SURVIVOR’S GUILT
I’m aware that I’ve gotten off relatively easy so far. I actively had cancer for just five months and twelve days. I didn’t have brutal treatments, and my prognosis is reasonably encouraging (though it’s hard for me to even type that). I live in a city with world-class medical care, and I can afford health insurance. As Dr. Weiner has pointed out, that slip on the ice was a stroke of luck—“an angel’s kiss.” It tipped me off to the cancer before it had a chance to spread.

I try to appreciate my good fortune for what it is, but sometimes that’s hard. Sarah Jewler, this magazine’s managing editor, who’d been especially kind to me during my illness, died two years ago, at age 56. My cousin Julie was born with congenital heart problems, and died when she was 9. I have childhood memories of her playing the violin in her family’s living room on Long Island, and of my parents leaving us with a babysitter for her funeral. Hanging on a wall of our apartment is a picture of Didi’s father smiling proudly next to a trophy marlin. He’s a fisherman, and so am I. Why am I still here? Why aren’t they?

AN UNWELCOME HOUSEGUEST
Cancer is like an unwelcome houseguest. You don’t want to be too friendly to it, or it might come back. That’s the fear, anyway. That said, there are ways in which cancer has made my life better.

I have a greater capacity to enjoy life. Small things—work problems, midtown gridlock, late trains—bother me less. I spend more time around the people I love, and less around people I don’t. I’m less afraid of death. If you stare into the face of the biggest fear there is, and come out alive, nothing else seems as frightening by comparison.

Cancer is also an excellent corrective for narcissism. If you’re so important, why is the world so indifferent to you? If you’re so powerful, how come you can’t control this? Therapy helped my cancer, but cancer also helped my therapy.

Cancer also seems to have sped the onset of my midlife crisis. In the past six months, I’ve gotten my teeth whitened, had my first-ever facial, and had two moles removed for strictly cosmetic reasons. I think it was about wanting to feel whole again—now that I’m cancer-free, now that I can walk without a limp, now that I’m somewhat fit again, why not keep going?

Like anyone else, I used to fantasize about changing careers—move to Wyoming and become a fishing guide, go to cooking school, teach. But I rarely think about that anymore. When I got sick, I took the same long, hard look at my work life that many cancer patients do, and instead of discovering my true calling, I realized I like what I’m doing now.

Yes, I take better care of myself, but I haven’t gone monastic. I don’t eat faux-orange foods anymore (much). But I use a cell phone and get dental X-rays and still eat and drink too much on occasion.

Didi says I speak differently—slower and less distantly, with more sincerity and emotion.

DIDI AND ME
Someone once said that cancer either destroys a marriage or makes it stronger. In our case, it did both.

Didi was a superwoman. She worked, took care of Abby, came to my appointments whenever I wanted her to, and put up with my moods. Still, we started having problems, and her lack of a meltdown was only one of them.

As brave a face as we both put on, as much as we resolved to “fight this thing” and “go forward” and “stay positive,” the fact was that I had cancer and might die. That reality made it tough to have fun. We stopped going out. Even garden-variety conversation was loaded. “How was your day, honey?” “Great, I had another bone-marrow biopsy. You?”

In retrospect, it’s clear that we were afraid to love each other. The closer we got, the more difficult things would be if I died. It’s as if we were trying to get a jump start on life after my death.

At one point, I told Dr. Gol that I noticed I was withdrawing from Abby. My logic was that it was better for her to never know her father than to miss him. Dr. Gol said to me, “Wouldn’t you rather be around her as much as you can, regardless of what happens? Why not enjoy it?” For reasons that are mysterious to me, I was able to follow that advice with Abby, but I wasn’t able to follow it with Didi, and she wasn’t able to follow it with me. We withdrew.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Table of Contents: May 28, 2007 issue of New York | Subscribe!