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REFLECTIONS

Chemos: A Caregiver’s Thank You

Center for Child and Adolescent Development, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance, Medford, Massachusetts, USA

Karen Levine, Ph.D., Center for Child and Adolescent Development, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge Health Alliance, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, USA; Telephone: 781-306-8651; Fax: 781-306-8646; e-mail: klevine{at}challiance.org

Received October 9, 2006; accepted for publication November 27, 2006.

I am always drawn to the chemo names,

Reading through the possibilities

Before each oncology visit designated for

The nomination of a new one.

Offered so caringly and with such fluency by the oncologist

To whom they already carry great meaning

Maybe it’s the knowledge of the completely predictable impending transformations,

From random syllable strings,

To names with extraordinary meaning,

As familiar as our own,

Threads upon whose lives my loved ones will hang,

Maybe it’s a way of gaining some illusion of control

I read up

On Gemcitabine, enough to know it might be referred to by its trade name Gemzar,

Or just Gem for short by those who know it well or all too well,

I read enough to know the chemo names and the trade names

Even when they have nothing in common.

So I know that Irinotecan is the same as Camptosar and CPT11,

At first each strange word holds out New Hope,

Doing maybe, just maybe,

What others before have been unable to do,

The meaning of the names so mysterious and seemingly arbitrary,

Their impact meaning everything.

When ultimately they tire,

Having done all they can,

Or perhaps not having done much at all,

Or storming through, wreaking havoc, before being hastily escorted out,

They are quickly replaced with a newer shinier lighter model

Or with an older but more secure

Solid but clunkier option.

Some names I am fond of based on true experience, Iressa,

Which not only of course evokes lavender purple Iris flowers,

And is itself a lovely off-white perfectly oval pill, no seams, no edges,

But which also shrank my late husband’s brain tumors

For many unexpected months of happy lucidity.

(The name that also evokes the ironic horror of the day he held it up

That perfect oval, between thumb and forefinger,

Looked at me puzzled and asked which one was this again?

The question that held within it the sad answer,

That this name no longer mattered.)

I discover with surprise that eventually, years later,

I can’t recall many of the names

That became as important as life itself,

Loving them, then tossing them aside when they were of no more use

But I remember each name with a jolt,

When it is brought back into daily life again

For another loved one.

As a family,

To them I am grateful,

As they work their hardest

To save mine.

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