CHAPTER 48. CANCER IS A DISEASE
OF DEPRESSION
I had some sexual partners, but not many. There were still no cases of AIDS in Costa Rica, and some friends had the same strange ideas that were familiar to me: “Costa Ricans are healthier than Americans -
said an insurance agent - and we drink a lot of natural juices.” The man believed that blackberry smoothies were the antidote to AIDS. Wasn’t it southern chicken or Spanish cod?
I called a group of friends to a meeting at Mario Losano’s house. I explained what I had experienced in the United States: denial and apathy. The consequences were clear: homosexuals were dying like flies.
Although I wanted to do something and was terrified of the prospects of an epidemic in my country, Elena’s situation was my priority. The experts told me that if there were no traces of cancer five years after the operation, my mother would be cured. It was only one year away, and I counted every day.
It wouldn’t be. Exactly on the fifth anniversary, a spot appeared on the lung X-ray. The oncologist wanted a repeat. I ran home to accompany Elena, who had received the news. There was nothing to do but wait until the next day; a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. The results were adverse: there was pleural effu-sion; it was a metastasis. There was nothing left but to 173
rush back to Stanford. Maybe they would tell us it was a mistake, but the family doctor warned me that this was not good: “If there is metastasis, the life prognosis is a few months.”
The day before the trip, I went to have a drink at La Taberna, a gay bar near the Hotel Europa. I entered and all I wanted was a whiskey to forget. When they served it to me, I looked at the bar and there was the most beautiful Costa Rican I had ever seen; he had a dark skin color, a long Semitic nose, curly black hair, big and deep eyes, a Mediterranean mouth full of white teeth like big fresh garlic. He looked Jewish, I almost swore it, and he reminded me of King David from biblical movies. He was going to be, as they say in English, my life partner.
As soon as we exchanged phone numbers and promised to see each other again, I took the plane to San Francisco the next day. This time, Stanford had no better prognosis. Elena had to start hormonal treatment and since we were devastated, we were recommended to go to Los Angeles where the Simontons, two doctors who had started a famous alternative treatment, were located.
The technology against cancer was so powerful that it was hard to think that its effect, in an advanced stage, was so limited. During our consultations abroad, I found gigantic machines that made and emi-tted all kinds of sounds; they searched for signs of the 174
disease throughout the body, and burned or radiated the affected tissues.
However, none of them promised a cure and their failure made me perceive cancer as an increasingly powerful, treacherous, and lethal enemy. “The bigger the machines, confessed a patient who was waiting for her turn for radiation, the more afraid I am of cancer and the more vulnerable I feel.”
The Simontons interpreted cancer as a disease of depression. According to them, we all produce cancer cells, but only those of us with weakened immune systems develop tumors. According to studies on personality and cancer, depressed people without a way to express it were the most prone. If this was the cause of the disease, the solution was to get out of depression.
These doctors asked the fifteen participants and their companions if they remembered a traumatic episode that occurred between twelve and eighteen months before the diagnosis. Elena had no problem: her sister’s death. In addition, according to her, there was another factor: the discovery of my father’s relationship with the employee; she couldn’t handle the humiliation.
The course taught us to use meditations and visua-lizations against cancer, exercises for pain and anxiety control, proper nutrition, and facing death.
Elena was a fighter. That last year, she wrote her thesis on the topic that was killing her: breast cancer.
She graduated as a Bachelor and promoted changes in 175
hospitals. She founded a self-help organization: from this association, no woman would leave the hospital with a paper lump instead of her breast. A few months of hormonal treatment were acceptable, but with the discovery of metastasis in the bones, radiation therapy was initiated. This would leave her in a wheelchair.
Then, the cancer spread to the brain and the fainting spells began. Finally, weight loss and a gradual decline in energy occurred; mom - quickly - was wasting away.
Antonio continued in his store and never even met his primary care physician; my brother never called again and didn’t do so until the day my mother died.
My sister arrived on the day of her death and went straight to a motel with her current lover, the hateful Beto.
Elena died after hours in a coma. I got into her bed and now her heart stopped, making a distressing noise, I held her: “Mom, hold onto my hand and don’t be afraid,” I whispered in her ear.
I felt like someone had cut my internal organs.