Free Cancer Schmancer by Fran Drescher

I confided in her about my health problems. She’d directed many episodes of The Nanny, but we’d been friends for years before that, and I knew I could trust her. She suggested I see her gynecologist, an expert on women’s midlife health issues and hormone replacement. She said this woman had saved her; that she now felt full of vim and vigor. I had to admit, she looked great. Apparently, this doctor had written many books and made countless television appearances on the subject of women over forty. With renewed optimism I made an appointment with Doctor #8.
    In the meantime, John had come up with a clever concept for MTV. I liked it, so I called my contact over there to pitch it. When I gave the guy our one-liner, he said they were already in develop-ment on a similar idea. It’s unbelievable how tough it is to come up with something original. But the executive said we should come in and brainstorm other ideas. John thought that was it for his ideas and didn’t want to take the meeting.
    “Are you crazy?” I asked. “When the head of a network says,
    ‘Come in and brainstorm,’ you go!” Even as I said it I was questioning my sanity over even considering working on a project with John after everything I’d been through with Peter. Separation of 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 61
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    church and state had been my intention for all future relationships.
    Whoops.
    Well, we spent a long, hard day trying to concoct ideas, with few results. We were both hungry and tired, so I ordered in some Chinese. I’ve loved Chinese food ever since I was a kid. Just as I shoveled in a forkful of roast pork lo mein, John blurted out an idea. A show about a local telethon—everything that goes on both behind the camera and in front. The minute he said it, I knew that was it. Oh, I really enjoyed my egg foo yong after that.
    MTV loved the idea and ordered a script. That was the beginning of John’s and my writing collaboration. I never learn. I did love creating a world with John, but creation is very hard, and we fought over everything. Sometimes I wanted to kick myself for getting involved with it. But I guess I’m just a hopeless optimist or a complete idiot. I’ve not yet decided which.
    So, okay, we got along, we communicated, we were attracted to each other, but he someday wanted to have children and I was perimenopausal. Oy. I began to worry that my eggs were getting old and if the day came that we ever did want to have a baby, it would be too late. Between the staining, the cramping, and the leg pain I felt like I had maybe an hour of fertility left. So even though we’d only been together a year, and hardly ready to talk about this, I got it in my head that we should fertilize some eggs and freeze them. Currently, the technology to successfully freeze an unfertilized egg is in the ear-liest, experimental stage. I figured that when and if we felt ready to start a family, we’d already have a few embryos ready to go, no matter what the current status of my ovaries may be. This process is a common technique used among couples with conception problems, or couples hedging against the march of time, as in my case.
    I loved the idea!
    But John hated it. He wasn’t ready. Honestly, we weren’t ready, and he turned me down flat. I mean, I didn’t know if I wanted kids, 9377 Cancer Schmancer 2/28/02 4:18 PM Page 62
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    but I knew I wanted to keep all my options open. There I was, forty-two years old, my eggs withering away with each menstrual cycle, and my last-ditch attempt at reproduction was being squelched by my twenty-six-year-old boyfriend. I felt trapped by circumstances and anxious about the impending menopause and all its ramifications. Here’s where I think our age difference became a major problem. John and I weren’t on the same page—hell, we weren’t even in the same book!—and I felt hurt and alone.
    One word led to another and I, who by now was feeling not only