Manhattan Tales: Life Had Changed
After my multiple myeloma diagnosis two years ago, I started my bi-weekly chemotherapy regimen. I quickly developed a routine.
Tuesdays and Fridays, I would take a ten-minute subway ride from our home in lower Manhattan to Greenwich Village, spend an hour at the clinic getting my “infusion,” and then stop off at one of the many great food stores at the cavernous Chelsea Market, a block from the clinic.
I’d then hop back on the subway and get to work, usually by 11 a.m. I was upbeat. This seemed bearable.
An early hint that I might be involved with more than just the physical side effects that I had been warned about occurred a few weeks after beginning the treatments.
One Friday evening, I slipped into an open space on a very crowded subway car just as the doors were closing. I found myself next to a passenger who was very visibly distressed at being pressed against other travelers. The car was too crowded for me to move away from him. I gave a glare back at him to warn him to stay away and pretended to wander into an anonymous reverie.
As I pushed by him to leave the subway car at the next station, the angry passenger gave me a quick shove. I lost my balance and ended up with one of my legs fallen into the gap between the subway car and the platform, the other stretched straight out on the platform itself.
Several passengers waiting to get in the car immediately lent a hand and lifted me up – I never could have worked my jammed leg out from the gap without help. I limped off and started to shake, not just from the pain and the danger.
I sensed that my judgment had been way off: not only should I not have squeezed into the crowded car, I never should have made direct eye contact in a crowded subway car with anyone who appears so odd.
I stopped limping a few days later, and my scraped leg quickly healed. However, a couple of weeks later I had another hint that my judgment was amiss.
On yet another Friday evening after my chemotherapy, I grew frustrated with a close friend late at work when I was eager to leave. He kept changing his mind on some issue we were discussing, and I ended up yelling at him to make up his mind and slammed down the phone.
When I apologized to him on Monday, he told me to forget about it – he told me his wife had gone far more berserk the previous year when she had been prescribed a light dose of steroids, and he knew that my doses were much heavier.
But this event really shook me up. My job as the legal counselor to the New York City Buildings Commissioner was high pressure – New York City real estate developers and their contractors and labor unions were constantly calling, as was the press office, community groups, elected officials, and the mayor’s office.
I couldn’t afford to lose my cool. In addition, the physical side effects were getting significant. I needed a nap almost every day. A stem cell transplant appeared to be on the horizon in the late fall anyway.
For the first time, I began to seriously think about retirement -- something I had given very little thought to.
A year and a half and a few "exciting" incidents later, I know I made the right decision to retire. All these incidents were too odd and numerous to be by happenstance. New York seems not to be a laid back place.
Stephen Kramer is a multiple myeloma patient and columnist at The Myeloma Beacon.
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My husband is still working and one of his co-workers casually mentioned how revved up Dave seemed to be on Monday mornings. I smiled and laughed and said, "OH! Dex Day!" He inquired and then had the lightbulb moment, spread the word in the office and they were always ready for him.
For us, it was the death of the Dex in his regimen that made things easier going. He built up too much toxicity with it, so it ended. Stats show it's better to keep it in the mix as it seems to enhance the other stuff, but we're happy it's not part of our regimen anymore.
I'm glad you didn't suffer a broken bone with the subway incident! I was really expecting to read that next. Whew!
Stephen: Thanks for sharing your compelling real-world experience with us. Not that misery loves company, but stories like yours show me that my dex fueled mini-rants are not just a by-product of me being me. After my extensive treatment in Arkansas, I came back home to continue three years of VRD (Velcade/Revlimid/low dose dex) and found that I couldn't function well in the corporate, 9-5 world. My hats off to and admiration for those whom can handle the rigors of such a life. I am more productive and efficient by working from my home. On dex nights I can go to the 'office' at 3am and get something done! Although it has been emotionally difficult to see my 'normal' life be affected so greatly by MM, out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new is not such a steep price to pay for still being in the game. Good health to you!
Hi Stephen, Am also glad you were not physically injured on that subway fall...the mother of a friend of mine in London, England did break several bones in such a fall, caught in the gap between the subway car and the platform. It was a very serious injury!
Have had several trips to New York and always found the subway system to be really a good way to get around, but maybe not in rush hour. Taxis sometimes don't get you where you want to go, and driving would be impossible! It's a good town for lots of walking actually. The first time we went, in 1980, New York was full of very interesting characters, on the subway and the streets, but more recently it is quite business like! My favorite place in NY is the Metropolitan Museum..the last time we went,in 2008, we did MOMA on Monday and the Met on Tuesday...awesome! Relatives of ours live in Connecticutt, so that is what gets us over to your area of the continent every couple of years or so. There is a good train from NY up to the Hartford area. It is a real contrast to the west, and it's nice to see different places. I feel that I could not live in such a highly urban environment, but it is a great place to visit!
Thanks for writing a column and providing another persective on things.
Hey cool dude! Great to hear your story, man. like nowsville! No seriously, cooling down with early retirement is a smooth move, and I bet you are enjoying life a lot more. Being in the moment is the best. Namasté!
Lori -- no broken bones while on the dex -- whether I will be brave enough to write about my incident on prednisone (which resulted in three broken ribs) is another matter. The prednisone let me go to sleep at a decent hour (I'm often awake till 3 or 4 AM on my nights after I've taken dex) but it had really insidious psychological affects. I was quickly put back on dex.
And Nancy, yes, the museums make Manhattan a playground for the early-retired (there must be 10 within two miles of Mt Sinai Hospital, a place I frequent a great deal). I try to blend in with the out of towners, but considering the number of times that tourists stop me and ask for directions, I must exude a certain New Yorker perfume...or confidence, or something of that ilk.
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