Note to self: the big C

Some thoughts on the occasion of the two year anniversary of your cancer diagnosis.

On the afternoon of March 16, 2022, you called your doctor’s office to say that you found a lump in your left breast and to ask what the next step was. “The next step is you come here at ten tomorrow morning.” And, so began a journey that has taken longer than you ever imagined and is not quite over. In a way it is never over but it looks like you can finally move it to the background.

Here, in no particular order, are a few thoughts about what you learned.

Anyone can get it. No one in your family ever had cancer of any kind. You had absolutely no fear of getting cancer. Kellys did not get cancer. Apparently they do. You were diagnosed in March, 2022. Your brother was diagnosed in the summer of 2023 and gone before Thanksgiving. Your genetic testing was clean and you still got it. Remind people. Anyone can get it.

Before talking about cancer, assess your audience. Preface any conversation with “I don’t know if you’ve experienced this yourself or been with someone who has . . . .” It is amazing and distressing how often you will find yourself talking to current patients, cancer survivors, or their family members.

One of the greatest revelations was just how many friends you had and how wonderful they were. If able to thank them in an Oscar night speech, the music would play you off before you could name ten percent of them.  To list the kindnesses shown would take the entire show.

Everyone’s cancer is different. Everyone’s reaction to cancer drugs is different. Don’t compare yourself to other patients. There are many reasons Facebook groups are helpful. For one thing, they let you see people who have much worse situations: medical, financial, familial, professional, social. Every aspect of life is affected. If you don’t have the same struggles, feel grateful not guilty. If you seem to be having a harder time than others, it’s not your fault. Do not feel guilty.

Admit you worry about your hair. Losing hair is the least of a cancer patient’s problems but you discovered hair is symbolic. You had no issue with going bald during chemo. Hair of some variety would be back. But thinning hair from long term medications was more upsetting. It could be a warning about what else the drug might be doing inside your body. But, even more importantly, it symbolizes that things are different now when all you want is for things to be the way they were.

You tried to find some humor in a very serious topic. You should be allowed to laugh when your pants drop to your ankles in a public place. Even if no one was there to see it, empirically, it was funny. It’s ironic when your hair starts coming back on your upper lip first, then on your scalp. There were other funny occurrences. Admittedly, not many. You just need time to think of them.

You had to introduce yourself after chemo. You didn’t recognize yourself so how could others recognize you? You never took offense. You took the offense and told everyone who you were. The same person you were before - just smaller and grayer. At least you will be after all the brain fog clears. You hope.  Brain fog is real. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

The Ghosts We Know

A little background. I am a slider. Or at least I claim to be a slider. Sliders can only claim slider powers. There is no scientific proof that we exist. 

For years, I didn’t even know that there was a term for my totally useless super power. I did know there had to be others with similar experiences somewhere out there. I might have met one or two of them in my lifetime. The topic doesn’t come up in conversation easily or often. And, it is not met with universal interest. 

Then, over twenty years after the Internet arrived—being quick on the uptake is not one of my super powers—it occurred to me that I could search for people who turn street lights off. And that is when I discovered the term slider.

Street Light Interference. Scorned by science. Debunked by experiments. A phenomenon whereby individuals by their mere presence cause street lights to go off well beyond a frequency that chance would dictate. 

I demonstrated this ability to a friend one night in the parking lot of a suburban office building making him walk with me back and forth under a street lamp. Walk under it. It goes off. Walk under it again. It goes on. Repeat. Many times. The experiment never failed. I am not sure he was convinced. Actually, I am pretty sure he wasn’t, but he was kind enough not to debate the issue then or when it came up a few times in the course of our friendship.

Within a year or two, our friendship came to an abrupt end. We argued. I assumed I would never see him again.

Then came the worst news possible when you have unresolved issues with someone. He died. Unexpectedly. Before he even got to have a fortieth birthday. 

So, although I do not routinely try to communicate with the dead, one winter night on a cold beach I sent an unspoken message. “I know you have a big family and a lot of closer friends to get around to, but when you have a minute, could you drop by and give me a sign that things are good between us?” I did not expect a response. I didn’t even feel sure about the whole afterlife thing.

Not long afterwards I was at a restaurant in Boston that we had visited together. I saw the seats at the bar where we sat were open and took one of them. He had only been dead for a short time. Maybe only weeks. 

So, he was on my mind when I was in the restaurant and when I went to retrieve my car from a multi-level parking lot. 

I got in the elevator with one other person, a businessman who positioned himself in a back corner as far away from the button panel as possible. I stood in the middle on the opposite side nowhere near the panel. The doors began to shut and suddenly bounced open, the way they do when they hit the arm of a latecomer trying to hold the elevator. But there was no arm. There was no latecomer. No one got in. We could see no one was in the lobby. We were alone. Or were we?

The other passenger uttered a sentence I’d never heard before. “Looks like we’re riding with an invisible man.”

“Don’t worry.” I told him. “I think he’s with me.”

We both chuckled.

I exited the elevator liking the idea that I had an invisible man in tow. 

Smiling, I walked forty yards down the ramp before I realized I was going in the wrong direction. In the instant that I turned to reverse direction, undeniably simultaneously, the overhead light at the top of the ramp turned off. Not my doing. I was too far away.

An overwhelming feeling of relief washed over me. 

Do I believe the light going out was my friend telling me all was good, we were good? I did at the time. Over the many years that have passed, did I consider that the light’s snapping off was a mere coincidence? My brain did. But I remember the warm feeling I experienced. Do I believe I got a message from the other side saying all was okay?

I choose to believe I did.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Some Thoughts on Cancer

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer and told that the largest part of 2022 would be devoted to chemotherapy and then surgery, I told myself—and anyone who would listen—that 2022 was going to be the best year of my life. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

Having no recent experience with friends or family members going through cancer treatment, I was somewhat naive. No, let’s face it. I was an idiot.

I had two major misconceptions about the process. I knew it was tough but:

1) I thought I would get chemo, feel horrible for a few days and then take off to visit friends, return to chemo, feel horrible, go visit friends . . . . You know, as the shampoo bottle says, lather, rinse, repeat. That is not how chemo worked for me.

2) I thought I would do my five months and the experience would be over. It was not. 

As many of you know, cancer is what brings us to the doctor’s office but, for many of us, it is the side effects of the drugs that keep us coming back. 

I have found myself disabled in a variety of ways for two solid years. I should have been out and about months ago but, although my cancer responded well to the treatment, my body did not. It has been a long haul. I have declared my period of physical limitations over before and found I was mistaken. Nonetheless, as I approach the two year anniversary of my diagnosis, I am declaring my restricted lifestyle over once again. 

I feel silly complaining because I realize many have worse side-effects for a much longer time—all the while trying to maintain a full-time job and raise a family. The timing was lucky for me. I just had to worry about myself.

People often ask what I learned from a bout with cancer. My standard reply is I discovered that either I have an incredibly positive attitude or I am the dumbest person on earth. Possibly both. Turns out I am an optimist. No one was more surprised than I was. 

Maybe I am more of a pragmatist than an optimist. Many people have grown to hate the phrase “it is what it is.” But you know what? It is what it is. I don’t think about cancer very often. I am forced to think about the treatment. 

Anti-cancer drugs inflict indignities on a body that I could not have imagined but don’t ask me to list them. As the side-effects fade from my body, they also fade from my memory. Turns out there is a whole world out there beyond the hospital grounds.

I saw an old New Yorker cartoon where the doctor tells the patient that, excuse the paraphrase, I can cure your back problem but you might find yourself with nothing to talk about. I can’t wait.

As I approach my two year anniversary, I will try to record some more thoughts. With any luck, I will be able to look back at my notes with surprise. All that happened? It was so long ago, I barely remember.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Newspapers & Breaking News

There was a time if you saw “Breaking News” flash across your television screen, the words meant hold onto your hat. Something big has happened. Think Kennedy assassination. The first one. Disrupting American life in the middle of the afternoon. JFK’s death in 1963 was my introduction to breaking news and that news came via television. I had no smart phone to receive the information. No one did. Big stories broke on television.

During the weekend of the Kennedy assassination, people would turn away from their TVs to pour over print coverage. Newspapers retained an important position in the dissemination of information, but movies no longer included montages of bundles of papers with huge headlines being thrown from the back of a truck to a waiting public. More likely, a movie included a scene where crowds gathered outside a shop window to watch a television report. As the years went on, newspapers shared their role as town crier with television news.  

As a kid who never lived in a house without a TV, I only recall getting breaking news via newspaper on two occasions. 

The last time was when Princess Diana died in 1997. That happened because I was visiting friends whose copies of the New York Times and the Washington Post arrived before they turned on their TV. Once we saw the headlines, we gathered around the television. 

The only other event I learned about through a newspaper was the explosion of the Challenger.

In 1986, I was in Hong Kong on a business trip on January 28th. I’d called our office shortly after 11am, New York time. Around 11:30 I hung up and basically collapsed into sleep. Less than ten minutes later, the Challenger blew up over Florida.

When I awoke in the morning, I stumbled out of bed towards the bathroom. My eyes were barely open but I saw, as usual, a newspaper had been slipped under my door. I glanced at it and kept going. After a few steps, I stopped. That headline was huge. Something had happened. I reversed direction and saw there was, in fact, breaking news. 

I remember that moment clearly. Yes, because of the tragedy. But, also because of the way I learned about it. I felt as if I’d traveled back into another era. Reacting to that headline—not sure if it said Challenger Disaster or Challenger Explodes—made me nostalgic for an era that my parents had lived through but I had only seen in movies.

I grew up with television but I loved newspapers. Still do. I know that online editions have made it possible to report breaking news twenty-four hours a day, but it isn’t the same. I could go on and on about how valuable back copies of newspapers are when trying to get a full picture of an era, but that is not what I am thinking about. I am not really thinking. I am feeling. I am feeling sentimental. And, in a strange way, grateful that I had an experience that was not of my time.

© 2024 Jane Kelly

Hanging with Stalkers

Tony Bennett died a few weeks ago. I had never seen him perform. The only encounter we ever had was in the basement of 30 Rock. I noticed him but didn’t pay too much attention because I had just discovered that I was sitting at a table with two lovely and intelligent women who had, on that day and that day only, elected to become stalkers. 

Who were they stalking? Arthur Kent, NBC international correspondent and over night sensation dubbed the Scud Stud. At least the two made a good choice when deciding whom to stalk. Did I mention he was very handsome and exceedingly sexy in his brown leather bomber jacket? He also had great hair. I was happy to watch him give me the news from the Middle East during the Gulf War.  That was enough for me.

Apparently not enough for my two co-workers. A friend and I had run into our colleagues, aka the potential stalkers, when headed for an after-work drink. They were on their way to the same bar because, as I would soon discover, Arthur Kent had just gone in there. 

We joined them and noticed they had picked a table with a good view of - you guessed it - Arthur Kent. Okay. Not a problem. I assumed they simply wanted a look at him. I assumed wrong. I discovered that when they brought out pictures showing pretty much everything Arthur had done that day. (How I now wonder since this was before we had cameras on our phones? But they had photos. One hour film developing? Must have been.)

Anyway, they had shots of Arthur Kent walking up and down the street (Madison Avenue as I recall) and going in and out of his hotel (completely forget which one). All the photos were taken as they shadowed him from across the street. I assured myself that they were being discreet. 

Or so I thought. While we were looking at the photos, we failed to notice that Stalker 1 (no names) had sent a drink to Arthur Kent. This was a bridge too far for me. Somehow, I came up with an excuse to get my friend alone outside the bar. “They’re stalking him! What do we do?” What could we do? We returned to the table and finished our drinks. I tried not to notice that Arthur Kent was ten feet away. 

But it was kind of hard to ignore him. That guy was really hot.  I’m not a stalker and don’t anticipate becoming one. However, I had to admit that by choosing Arthur Kent as the object of their affection, my stalker/colleagues did show good taste.

Arthur threw a smile our way as he passed our table on his way out. The stalkers did not follow. Maybe they were done for the day. Then again, maybe not. They knew where to find him. 

NOTE: Kent often reported standing beside Mile Boettcher a competent reporter who did not have stud qualities. Years later, I got on a flight from New York to London with him. He looked neat and well-groomed. He wore a great looking camel hair coat, Oddly enough, he was also on my return flight a week or so later. He looked beat. Whatever he’d been doing, grooming wasn’t a high priority. His beautiful coat appeared to have been through a lot. He might not have been glamorous - at least compared to Arthur Kent - but, if one can judge by experiences, he certainly worked hard. 

© 2024 Jane Kelly

My father’s $200K Weekend (Adjusted for inflation)

My brother did not want an obituary but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell a few stories about him. This is more of a family story but it explains how he ended up in the hotel business.

My mother loved hotels. So when the family spent the weekend in New York (something else she loved), she preferred to stay at the Waldorf-Astoria. In the Towers. If a place was good enough for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor who lived there for the New York Social Season, it was good enough for us. (It was not yet known just how much of a Nazi the Duke was.) 

It was on our first stay there, as I recall, that Rick became interested in how hotels were run. He was a freshman or sophomore in college without much direction but suddenly he had an interest and the next thing I knew he was off to Cornell, to the School of Hotel Management.

After graduation (and a brief stop in Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania) he was next off to Bermuda, the Bahamas and Marco Island before moving north to ski resorts like Mount Snow and Mount Washington. I was generally close behind. He and his wife, Beth, graciously made room for me and my friends. We took full advantage.

My father liked to say that one weekend at the Waldorf cost him $20,000 which, even with lower tuition rates adjusted to 2023 dollars, comes out to roughly $200,000.  Shortly after doing that calculation, he convinced my mother that the Taft Hotel was more convenient. To what I am not sure.

I got some career training at the Waldorf myself. In the age of manually run elevators, the operator let me drive the car. It required skill in those days. There was a handle to be manipulated to make sure the elevator stopped even with the floor. I got pretty good at hitting the mark although looking back I might have been allowed to operate the car only when my family members were the sole passengers. None of them were maimed or injured exiting the conveyance on my watch although I do not believe I was authorized to open the door. 

Sadly while my brother found a home in the hospitality business, my career dreams were dashed by the advent of self-operated elevators. Technology, not a uniformed operator in white gloves, decided where to stop the car. My expertise was no longer valued. In the wider world, I was replaced by a button.

My father told me not to be too upset. After all being an elevator operator had its ups and downs. I thought that was hysterical. I was nine.

© 2023 Jane Kelly

A Baseball Memory

Baseball posts tonight reminded me of what I was doing during the 10th inning of Game 6 in the 1986 World Series: flying into LaGuardia (neighbor to Shea Stadium) where the Mets were hosting Game 6. 

New Yorkers watching on the plane were feeling sad when the pilot turned off the screens for landing. The end of the game was a forgone conclusion. Boston would win. Not just the game, the Series. So, I was surprised to deplane into a concourse filled with jubilant New Yorkers. 

Why? Two words: Bill Buckner. He didn’t make the play Boston needed to clinch the series. There would be a Game 7 which New York would win.

The other day I saw an article “celebrating” the occasion. I still feel sad that flubbing one play at first base was the defining moment of Buckner’s career. 

I could never be an athlete. I could not have shown up on the field again. I lack the mental stamina. And, I have no talent.

© 2023 Jane Kelly