Free It's Always Something by Gilda Radner

see her. She would come to the hospital to meet me. The Alchemist understood that he was treating the mind as well as the body.
    I had private nurses around the clock in twelve-hour shifts. Not only did I need them medically, but I needed the protection within the hospital—like a guard. That made it easier on Gene and everybody else, knowing that somebody was there with me. And there were other doctors who entered the case. One was a doctor who decided what went into the feeding bag that dripped into my veins. I would wake up in the morning and he would be the first one I would see, standing there fixing my feed bag, deciding what balance of nutrients I needed.
    The doctors decided that the veins in my arms were not easily accessible, which wouldn’t be good for my chemotherapy. They would have to put the chemicals in my veins, but it would be difficult to keep finding a vein to put an IV in. Fortunately there is an amazing new invention called a Port-A-Cath. It’s like a small plastic bottle with a long wire neck that runs into a vein. It is put under your skin surgically like a pacemaker, usually in the chest area. Once it is in place, to give you an IV they just stick the needle into the Port-A-Cath, which hurts much less than sticking the vein. You can do anything with it, even go swimming with it. At first, Port-A-Caths were open and you would have to clean them all the time, but now they are covered over with skin and very safe and less likely to get infected. I have mine to this day, above my right breast. So eleven days after my initial operation, I had to go back down to surgery to have the Port-A-Cath inserted.
    I spent three weeks in the hospital. Though I’d had major surgery for removal of a grapefruit-sized tumor, a complete hysterectomy and a scraping of many of my internal organs, I spent the first week out of intensive care in a dreamy state of happiness. I was on a very potent painkiller called Dilaudid which kept me stoned out and calm. I remember I spent one whole day watching a lamp. I thought it was the television set. I could hear the television set in the background, but I watched the lamp and I was quite content. It never entered my mind that there was no picture and it wasn’t worth moving where my head was, so I just stared at the lamp all day. I would make phone calls to people I knew—to my childhood friend Judy, to my other good friends and to my mother and brother. I was happy and I was very eager to tell everyone I was all right. So I talked to the people closest to me during that time, and made jokes and laughed.
    They weaned me off the Dilaudid, but I had an awful withdrawal. I spent two nights with sweats and chills. I became anxious, paranoid, on edge. I hated everybody. I didn’t want to make any phone calls. When the Alchemist phoned to see how I was doing, I told him I hated him and never wanted to see him again. I told my night nurse that I was mean and she should just do her job and not talk to me. I phoned Gene and told him not to come and visit me. Fortunately everyone realized that the medication was influencing my behavior. But coming off the pain medication was one of the hardest parts of the whole recuperation.
    Gradually my spirit revived. I knew I had to take one step at a time to get well. I am good with strangers so when a new nurse came in, I would make her laugh and want her to like me. It was psychologically good for me to have round-the-clock nurses. I remember them, and owe a great deal to them. I don’t think they get enough credit for what they do in terms of passing spirit along. They were all concerned with me being relaxed, and all of them, of course, knew more about me than I did, from reading my charts.
    One nurse would bring me relaxation tapes or the soundtrack from Out of Africa to listen to because I wasn’t sleeping well at night. I would be listening to the Out of Africa tape and pretending I was just falling asleep when suddenly I’d say, “Is