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CHAPTER ONE

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit ofabout death

Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression a the side effects of cancer But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer Depression is a side effect of dying (Cancer is also a side effect of dying Al is, really) But my moular Doctor Ji and totally clinical depression, and that therefore my meds should be adjusted and also I should attend a weekly Support Group

This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying

The Support Group, of course, was depressing as hell It met every Wednesday in the basement of a stone-walled Episcopal church shaped like a cross We all sat in a circle right in the middle of the cross, where the two boards would have met, where the heart of Jesus would have been

I noticed this because Patrick, the Support Group Leader and only person over eighteen in the roo, all about hoe, as young cancer survivors, were sitting right in Christ’s very sacred heart and whatever

So here’s hoent in God’s heart: The six or seven or ten of us walked/wheeled in, grazed at a decrepit selection of cookies and lemonade, sat down in the Circle of Trust, and listened to Patrick recount for the thousandth tily miserable life story--how he had cancer in his balls and they thought he was going to die but he didn’t die and now here he is, a full-grown adult in a church basement in the 137th nicest city in Aa by exploiting his cancertastic past, sloorking his way toward a ree that will not i, as we all do, for the sword of Daive hio when cancer took both of his nuts but spared what only the enerous soul would call his life

AND YOU TOO MIGHT BE SO LUCKY!

Then we introduced ourselves: Na today I’inally but with an is And I’ot around the circle, Patrick always asked if anyone wanted to share And then began the circle jerk of support: everyone talking about fighting and battling and winning and shrinking and scanning To be fair to Patrick, he let us talk about dying, too ButMost would live into adulthood, as Patrick had

(Which meant there was quite a lot of co to beat not only cancer itself, but also the other people in the room Like, I realize that this is irrational, but when they tell you that you have, say, a 20 percent chance of living five years, the ure that’s one in fiveso you look around and think, as any healthy person would: I gotta outlast four of these bastards)

The only redee-faced, skinny guy with straight blond hair swept over one eye

And his eyes were the problem He had some fantastically improbable eye cancer One eye had been cut out when he was a kid, and noore the kind of thick glasses that lass one) preternaturally huge, like his whole head was basically just this fake eye and this real eye staring at you Froather on the rare occasions when Isaac shared with the group, a recurrence had placed his re eye in mortal peril

Isaac and I cohs Each tiround-up shark fin or whatever, he’d glance over at htly I’d shake my head microscopically and exhale in response

So Support Group blew, and after a feeeks, I grew to be rather kicking-and-screa about the whole affair In fact, on the Wednesday I ustus Waters, I triedon the couch withof a twelve-hour marathon of the previous season’s America’s Next Top Model, which admittedly I had already seen, but still

Me: "I refuse to attend Support Group"

Mom: "One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities"

Me: "Please just let me watch America’s Next Top Model It’s an activity"

Moh, Moer You’re not a little kid anyet out of the house, and live your life"

Me: "If you want er, don’t send o to clubs, drink vodka, and take pot"

Mom: "You don’t take pot, for starters"

Me: "See, that’s the kind of thing I’d know if you gotto Support Group"

Me: "UGGGGGGGGGGGGG"

Moh I failed to see how attendance at Support Group otiating the right to record the 15 episodes of ANTM I’d be

I went to Support Group for the sahteen raduate education to poison me with exotically named chemicals: I wanted toin this world shittier than biting it fro a kid who bites it from cancer

Mom pulled into the circular driveway behind the church at 4:56 I pretended to fiddle with en tank for a second just to kill time

"Do you want me to carry it in for you?"

"No, it’s fine," I said The cylindrical green tank only weighed a few pounds, and I had this little steel cart to wheel it around behind h a cannula, a transparent tube that split just beneath my neck, wrapped behind my ears, and then reunited in s sucked at being lungs

"I love you," she said as I got out