FITNESS CONFIDENTIAL (14 page)

It was Deborah. “Hi sweetie,” she said. “I know you’re on your bike—”

“Yeah,” I interrupted, grumpy.

“Get off immediately and take a cab to my house.”

“What the hell?” I said. “I’m in the middle of nowhere.”

Her voice quavered. “Do not ride another inch. Get a cab to my house as soon as possible.”

Everything about this was wrong. Deborah’s voice quavering? She was a tough broad, she never quavered. Calling me on a Saturday in the middle of my big ride? Telling me not to go another inch? I knew something was up, but Deborah was prone to exaggeration and, for my sake, I was really hoping she was exaggerating.

I turned around and biked the many miles back to my car.

As soon as I got to the Calabasas Commons, I grabbed myself a large iced coffee at the Starbucks, then drove to Deborah’s. When I arrived, I was faced with a dilemma. I hadn’t finished my coffee yet, but I didn’t think I should bring it in because I didn’t want to hear Deborah yelling at me for stopping to get a coffee after I’d promised to get to her place as quickly as possible. While I was debating what to do, I noticed my best friend Andy’s car in the driveway.

For the first time during this entire ordeal, I got nervous. What the hell was Andy doing there?

When I walked in, Deborah gave me a big hug. I glanced at Andy. He was stone-faced, pale. This was not going to be good news. I felt like I needed to break the tension.

“No matter what happens here,” I said, staring at Andy, “you’re still gay, Jewish and balding.”

“And you’re still an asshole,” he replied.

What a relief, I thought. Andy would never tell a dying man he’s an asshole!

I was wrong.

Deborah sat me on the couch. “I just want you to know that what I’m about to tell you is, possibly, curable.”

I could see in her eyes that she’d rehearsed ten ways of breaking this to me, but I couldn’t wait for all that.

“Just give it to me straight,” I said.

“You have leukemia.”

Chapter Eighteen

I CAN DO BETTER THAN DANIEL DAY LEWIS

We had the largest graduating class my high school had ever seen, just under one hundred kids. We were together through every year of school, from first grade through twelfth. Of those hundred kids, five of them died before graduation. That’s a huge number. To put it in perspective, my dad’s graduating class had no deaths, even twenty years after graduation.

The first to die was a girl named Anne. She rode her trike into the street and got hit by a car. She was in the first grade.

The next two were named Ella and Amy. It was seventh grade and they were driving to a friend’s house to pick up hand-me-down cheerleader outfits after finding out they were going to be on the cheerleading squad the following year. They were very excited when the Mac truck hit them head on.

The fourth was a guy named Charles. He went duck hunting. While at the lake, he brained a beaver with the butt end of his shotgun. It went off and blew a hole through his chest. He died instantly.

Louise was the fifth one. The police discovered her in her car after it had drifted off the road and into a ditch. She wasn’t drunk or speeding or even a bad driver. She’d had an aneurysm. I was one of the few people to see her in the hospital during the twenty-four hours they kept her on life support. I held her hand.

Later, at her funeral in the tiny bayou town of Belle Rose, Louisana, I wept as they put her in the ground. And, standing there in the rain, I realized something. All of us know our birthday but none of us knows our death day. Youth doesn’t protect you. Good health doesn’t stop it from coming. So I decided, right then, that I wasn’t going to be afraid of death. We can’t control it, so why be fearful of it?

And that’s how I live my life. I rock climb, I ride motorcycles. Can these things kill you? Sure. But something’s gonna kill you, so why live in fear?

So, after Deborah told me I had leukemia, my reaction to it was this: a giant sense of relief. Now I knew how it was going to end. The monster was in the room and I could see it.

It also explained a lot of things I’d been wondering about. There were the phantom pains I’d been experiencing. The year before, I was in Big Sky, Montana skiing with Deborah. In the middle of the night, I doubled over in pain with what felt like a knife in my stomach. I would have thrown up if I could have, but only bile came out. It lasted until the afternoon of the next day and then went away without a trace. Over the next year, it happened two more times, finally prompting me to go to a gastroenterologist. After knocking me out and putting a scope down my throat, it turned out that they couldn’t find a thing wrong.

Then there were what I called “bicycle comas.”

It felt like I had the flu, but without the fever. Usually I would follow up my long ride on Saturday with another long ride on Sunday. But when I was in the grip of one of these “bicycle comas” I literally couldn’t get out of bed. At the time I just thought I was getting older. Who rides a bike that long anyway?

And then there was the weight loss.

I’m 5’11”. At my leanest, I weigh a hundred and sixty-five pounds. But during that period, I was down to around one-fifty and that was in spite of eating everything I could get my hands on. Again, my rationale was that I was getting older, maybe even riding too much.

On top of all that, there was the fact that I was shivering all the time. Not to mention that I’d lost my sexual drive, which, for an Italian, is like losing a limb. Believe it or not, in spite of all that, it never even occurred to me that there might be something truly wrong with me. In retrospect it seems so obvious but, as an athlete, I was used to enduring all kinds of strange body issues and behavior.

I know, I know. Earlier, I told you that, when any of my clients complain of an ailment, I’m quick to cancel their workout to protect their health, so why wouldn’t I do the same for myself? I think you know why. Do what I say, not what I do. We treat others better than we treat ourselves.

But even though I’d been doing my best to ignore all those weird problems, I still wondered why they were happening. Finally, all those unexplained pains and body issues had an explanation.

Leukemia.

Deborah went on to tell me that I had a rare form we might be able to knock into remission. The problem was that I had so much cancer in me—my bone marrow was about 80 percent leukemia—that they didn’t know if my system could survive the amount of chemo it would take to get it into remission. And, as oddly relaxed as I was about hearing the leukemia diagnosis, it was the opposite of how I reacted when I heard the word chemo.

Back in the seventies, my grandmother on my mom’s side, Tina Giardina, was diagnosed with breast cancer. They treated it by pouring tons of chemo into her. Over the next couple months, I saw her waste away. At the end, she looked like the Crypt Keeper. She was in terrible pain, both from the cancer and the chemo. There was no life left in her eyes. I was so angry. They’d pumped her full of poison, which left her weak and sick, and she died anyway.

So when I heard the word chemo, all I could picture was suffering through the treatment and then dying anyway. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. I’m ashamed to admit it but, when my grandma was dying, I couldn’t stand to be around her. Mostly because of the smell. She smelled like death. And I realized that if I had the chemo and wasted away like she did, I wouldn’t want anyone to be around me at the end. I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone having to endure the smell.

And that was going to be very lonely.

So all of this was going through my mind, but I was sitting there in front of Deborah and Andy and I didn’t want to let on how I was really feeling, because real men don’t eat quiche or show emotion. So when Deborah said that I was going to have to get on the chemo right away, I told her, “Well, there’s only one thing we can do. Throw a chemo party.”

Later that night, Deborah and I arrived at an Italian restaurant called Mulholland Grill, where we met a few of my closest friends. The restaurant only served wine, so I made sure we brought our own tequila and scotch.

It was, after all, a party.

Now, I’m not above playing practical jokes and, after I told my friends my diagnosis, I could see that they were hoping this was one of them. But, as the night wore on, and Deborah explained the course of treatment I was about to follow, I could see the truth dawn in all of their eyes.

This was no joke. My leukemia was real.

They stared at me like they were looking at a dead man. I don’t blame them. They’d only just found out and weren’t sure how to handle it. Hell, I’d only just found out. I was still in shock.

The night ended with each of them hugging and kissing me as they left. When they were gone, I drove down Mulholland and, for the first time, a wave of emotion hit me as I realized that we’re all on this planet alone. Even though my friends pledged their love and support—and I was sure they meant it—I realized that none of them could help me get better. I was on my own.

It was a sobering thought.

I spent the better part of the next day trying to figure out how I was going to break the news to my family without getting them too concerned. They were going to want to fly out immediately to help but, if they did, I knew I would feel like I had to entertain them and I didn’t want that obligation. I had a lot on my mind. So I told them that the type of leukemia I had was no big deal, the “common cold” of cancer.

As expected, my mom wanted to hop on a plane right away, but I struck a deal with her. I told her if she stayed in Louisiana, I would promise to let her know if things turned bad so that she could come be with me. Reluctantly, she agreed. But now I was going to have to keep the true seriousness of my condition away from my entire family, because I knew they would all talk to each other and I didn’t want my mom to get on that plane.

I spent the next two days explaining to each of my clients that this was going to be their last session for a while. When I told them why, most people couldn’t believe it. Everyone tried to help in their own way. My Hollywood big-shot clients offered to put me in touch with the best doctors. Others wanted to know if I needed to get off my feet and sit down. Some offered to write checks to hold me over, which I appreciated but never accepted. Some even cried, which really surprised me.

I’ve been a personal trainer for twenty-five years and, quite honestly, I never thought anyone really cared all that much about me. Like I said, I always thought of myself as the help. I come in, do my thing and then go away. But, almost to a person, everyone’s reaction was surprising and touching.

Then there was Dean, my writing partner on this book. He wanted to figure out who was going to play me in the movie based on my life after I was dead.

“Daniel Day Lewis,” he said. “He looks kind of like you and he’s a great actor.”

“Nah,” I replied. “I think I can do better.”

Dean seemed shocked. “Better than Daniel Day Lewis? He’s great looking. He’s an Oscar winner!”

I shrugged. “Let’s not settle. Let’s think about it.” We were both trying to ignore the PICC line that was inserted into my arm, giving the hospital a place to attach the chemo pump. “I know who should play you, though,” I said.

Dean brightened. “Yeah, who?”

“Paul Giamatti.”

He stared at me. “Paul Giamatti? You reject Daniel Day Lewis and I get stuck with Paul Giamatti? Are you crazy!”

“Of course I am. But are we talking about my mental state or trying to cast this movie?”

We never did resolve the argument … although I still think I can do better than Daniel Day Lewis.

The next day, I went to the hospital to begin my chemo treatment.

Cedars-Sinai is an ugly two-tower factory for treating sick people. Deborah and I arrived on a Wednesday morning in her overpriced European sedan. We gave the car to the valet. It’s Los Angeles, so even hospitals have valets. I was dreading the admissions process. It always takes forever. There’s usually multiple lines and lots of waiting.

What I didn’t realize was that I was in the presence of a rock star.

As one of the top radio oncologists in Beverly Hills, Deborah sashayed through Cedars like the headliner at a high-end New Orleans strip joint. All eyes were on her. Usually, checking into a hospital involves lots of little hassles. Your insurance card isn’t right. Your name is spelled wrong on a form. You can be delayed for hours.

Not with Deborah.

Every time something like that came up, she gave the person a
look
. Problem solved. In fact, I heard this sentence a lot from the people she dealt with: “We’ll take care of it.” Within minutes, they put a plastic hospital band around my wrist and led me into the chemo ward.

That’s where the star treatment ended.

The light was dim, almost dingy. A fluorescent green. They were probably trying to avoid harsh hospital lighting, but it had the effect of making the sick people there look even sicker. The patients sat in what looked like La-Z-Boy recliners arranged in semi-circles—there had to be over twenty. Maybe as many as forty. It was like a garden of sick people. Next to each recliner was a metal stand that held the chemo for the person in the chair.

From what I could tell, people got their chemo in two different ways.

One was a port in their chest that could be capped between sessions. I found out later that it was for people getting chemo multiple times. It gave the nurses easy access. The other type was for people like me who had PICC lines inserted for a steady supply. But what really struck me was the smell. It reminded me of the smell of my grandmother as she was dying. The smell of death.

This was not something Deborah could fix with a look.

I wanted to turn around and leave. Many of the people in those chairs were bald or wearing scarves on their head. None of them had eyebrows. That’s a detail that the movies always seem to get wrong. I think I know why. Eyebrows give people expression, make us look human. Take them away and something suddenly seems off about the person, alien. I doubt actors like to look that way.

The faces around me were pale, with sunken cheekbones. Drawn. It was quiet in there. Library quiet. Whenever someone spoke, you noticed. In the distance, I could see several private rooms with beds. Those were for the truly sick people, the ones who couldn’t even sit in a chair.

Deborah led me to a nurse, who started explaining what was going to happen. She held up a machine about the size of a paperback novel.

“This is the pump that’s going to administer the chemo,” she said.

She pulled out a plastic canister about the size of a thermos in a school lunchbox. There was a bag inside it.

“This is the drug that’s going to be administered,” she continued. “Now please pay attention, because this can be very dangerous. If this drug leaks out, we need to know right away. Do not touch it with your bare hands. And don’t let anyone else touch it. It is not to be touched, understand?”

I said I did. She asked me to sign a piece of paper confirming that.

My God, I thought. They’re about to start pumping a drug into my body that can’t even be touched by human hands? What am I getting myself into?

Then, almost as an afterthought, the nurse gave me a mini hazmat kit that I could use to safely clean up a spill if one occurred. I grew up near the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and there’s one thing you learn when you live there—if a hazmat team is called in, there’s a real problem.

But there was a small silver lining. My chemo needed to be administered over the course of a week, which required a hospital stay. Luckily, they agreed to allow me to receive it at Deborah’s house, because she was a doctor.

The nurse plugged the medicine into the machine, strapped the machine around my waist, like a fanny pack, and then connected it to the PICC line in my arm. The chemo made a slight sipping sound as it went up the tube. As soon as the line was full of liquid, it began to flow into my veins.

Well, I thought, at least I don’t feel nauseous yet.