I had cancer. It wasn’t fun, but I’m fine now. I had Hodgkins’ Lymphoma, which is VERY treatable. It’s the cancer you want to get if you have to get cancer. As Larry David said, it’s “the good kind.”

I had “Stage III-B” lymphoma, which means yes, it had spread, and I would require a bit more aggressive treatment – but at no time did any doctor tell me that this was horrible, or that there was any real chance I would die from this. All the doctors I spoke to said that most people survive this. Statistically, there is a 70% survival rate after 5 years for this type of cancer at that stage, so odds were in my favor. All I had to do was endure chemotherapy, and I’d be fine.

Not that chemo is something I would suggest as a weekend activity. It was all the things you hear about, but it worked, and it only lasted six months. To be honest, it was probably harder on Rachel, since she had to WATCH.

What really helped me over those months and in the subsequent years, however, was learning just how horrible it could have been, and just how lucky I was to get the cancer I had. I found myself up close and personal to so many heartbreaking stories of people with NO chance of survival, but whose outlook remained positive, and who – in some cases – actually defied the odds and got better. 

I saw people go through REAL pain in chemotherapy, and I felt guilty that I “only” had Hodgkins. Cancer-lite, I started calling it. (“Whatever helps you through it,” was my oncologist’s response to that one…)

When the pandemic first began, I started saying that if my grandfather can survive the Holocaust by escaping from a concentration camp and hiding in a Polish potato pit for 18 months, then surely we can survive a lockdown in the comfort of our homes with a good internet connection. I had the same attitude with cancer, but instead of my grandfather, my role models were other cancer survivors who were pushing through and living their lives, cancer survivors who refused to let their treatments destroy their souls even as it ravaged their bodies. 

Cancer survivors like Elisabeth Finch – the Grey’s Anatomy writer whose story was immortalized in Vanity Fair, which is what prompted me to write all of this.

As it turns out, I knew Elisabeth Finch in high school, and while I can’t say we were very close friends, we interacted often both in-school and out, occupying our places in the same theatre-and-music-nerd enclave of D-Wing at Cherry Hill High School East. She was more Team Drama, I was more Team Music, but we occasionally joined forces in plays and musicals. My first non-musical acting role ever was in an Elisabeth Finch one-act play called Daddy’s Home, which was just as maudlin of a play as the title suggests but was also – as I recall – surprisingly mature for a 15-or 16-year-old. She was a decent writer, and clearly a deep thinker who felt all the emotions, which was something to be admired in our little world of wannabe-artistic souls. 

So, when she started getting famous as a TV writer, it made sense. I didn’t think for a second that her cancer diagnosis had anything to do with her career success. I thought she just made it because she was very good, and when she started writing for Grey’s I figured it was in part due to her own experiences, but was really because she was a good writer. I was, in fact, glad that something positive came out of cancer. 

We didn’t really keep in touch over the years, but before Facebook was an insidious blight on the world, it was a very efficient way to reconnect with high school friends, and I was honored to be included in the occasional group reminiscence among my lovely and ridiculously talented high-school acquaintances. 

I can’t remember exactly how or when I first heard about her cancer diagnosis and her struggles. It was almost certainly through those Facebook posts, but I do, however, recall the swiftness of the emotional-support machine. She ran in a lovely circle of overly-empathic artists who want nothing more than to create Beautiful Things and ease people’s suffering through their Work, so it makes sense they would spring into action when one of their own was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer. 

So, in March of 2015, when she “relapsed,” I found myself included on a “Team Finch” email chain, which had bracelets for sale and calls for Girl Scout cookie purchases and updates on her progress and everything. I didn’t feel as if I knew her well enough at that point to deserve to be on this list, but I was very grateful. I was glad to receive the updates, and happy to see she was going to pull through.

By 2016, she was out of treatment and living with this condition, but it had destroyed her, and – from what I heard – the way she was handling her daily pain was just miraculous. 

When my diagnosis came in (August 4th, 2016), I had the requisite crumbling meltdown on my wife’s shoulder, but my thoughts immediately went to Beth Finch and her struggle. By that point, she had published several personal essays, and my wife and I devoured them all. Here was someone who had cancer MUCH worse than I did, I thought, who went through absolute hell and came out on the other side with a smile, and OH did I mention that she was also a successful TV writer, a career for which I had yearned over the last 5 years?

Strong, successful, a shining example of resilience and talent: this woman was my fucking hero…and I actually knew her. 

I wanted to reach out, but I hadn’t spoken with her except for Facebook groups in several years. But you know…I had cancer. What’s the worst that could happen? So I wrote to her.

In a bit of irony given what’s happened, I remember being terrified that she might think I was trying to use my cancer diagnosis to get her to read my scripts and then – since they were sobrilliant – hire me, so I tried to keep it short.

I simply told her that I had just been diagnosed with cancer too, and I’m grateful that she shared her story because it was really inspiring to me, and I knew that it would help me through my coming treatment.

We struck up an email exchange: I tried to be funny and clever so she would see what a great writer I was…because honestly I was secretly hoping she would offer to read something of mine…and she sent large chunks of advice in that very distinct style of hers in which she capitalized things and put periods between each word to emphasize the fact that I. GOT. THIS.

These emails were sustenance to me through the first months of chemo. Here I was, getting personalized advice from one of the most impressive cancer survivors anyone has ever met, and it was HELPING. I was GALVANIZED. She brought tears to my eyes when she wrote stuff like this, in response to me worrying that I wasn’t handling cancer well:

I believe in people doing whatever the HELL they need to do to get through it — be that anywhere from stoicism to screaming lunatic — and anyone surrounding them that doesn’t understand that?  TOO BAD.  Do what works for YOU.  And if that changes day to day, moment to moment, so be it.  I don’t know anyone who handled things “right”  or “well” — because I literally don’t know what that means.  …..  Cancer brought out myriad feelings and phases, not all of them pretty.  And even though I had a lot of awesome people in my corner, I had moments of loneliness simply because some things you can’t get about cancer unless you have it.  

Inspiring stuff. It rang so true. Especially the last line.

I was so, so grateful…and I felt special. I felt as if I was getting some sort of hallowed, cancer-guru insight that no one else could get. She was so strong, so brave, and I resolved to be the same.

By February, 2017, I was finished chemo, and all was going to be fine. I was cancer free by May, and all I had to deal with were the annoying-but-minor side effects of the treatment, and the never-ending fear that it will come back.

She was so happy for me. Later that year, I went to LA, and she and I met up – the first time I had seen in her over 20 years. We were both elated to reconnect in person, and we bonded instantly with our shared trauma. I remember her not really going into details about her treatment, but I just chalked it up to her not really wanting to spend the time reliving it. 

I couldn’t stop telling her just how easy my treatment was compared to hers – apologizing, almost – and I gushed over how inspiring she was to me. She took it all in, and graciously deflected: “We all have our own Everest,” she said as I compared chemo to climbing a mountain. We decided that “Everest” was now a verb, and we giggled.

Knowing what I know now – that it was all a lie – do I think that she helped me any less? 

No. 

I had no idea it was a lie at the time. The net effect was the same. Which is weird, because

it’s hurt me now that I’ve discovered it was all fake. I don’t know that I have a right to be hurt, given how many people she’s truly hurt with her lies, but it still hurts. 

It’s as if I had been a pilot going into battle, and before the group set out, our Squad Leader stood on a ladder and gave the most rousing and inspiring address any of us had ever heard. Emboldened by the speech, we went out there and kicked the enemy’s ass…but when I got back to real life, I just happened to watch Independence Day for the first time and discover that the guy had just stolen Bill Pullman’s speech.

Yeah, it helped…but, I mean…couldn’t you have come up with your own shit to inspire me?

In thinking about the “why” of this, however, I have discovered that I can, in a weird way, understand her a bit. I can understand the addictive power of sympathy from others, which I guess makes me either an empathic soul for sociopaths, or a sociopath myself.

I’m (fairly) confident it’s the former, however. I mean, yes…I did the time, but does that entitle me to a lifetime of never-ending sympathy, in which every time I walk in a room, I get to be the center of everyone’s hero-worship? Of course not. 

But I understand the allure. Life is simple when you’re going through something like that. People treat you more gently, and success has a new meaning. Your goals go from “create brilliant pieces of work, succeed in an impossible career, and make shit-tons of money” to “try to walk across the room without collapsing or throwing up, and bonus points if you can do it with a joke.”

I can’t speak for cancer survivors everywhere, but if I’m totally honest, I sometimes LIKED walking into a room with my bald head and sunken face and surprising everybody by putting on a smile like nothing was wrong. “You’re handling this so well…you’re so brave…I’m so impressed…” The platitudes flew at me, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it sometimes. It softened the blow of how I was actually feeling, and now that I’m better and everyone has forgotten I even went through it, I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t miss it a little. The attention and adulation that you receive as someone who is actively fighting cancer is intoxicating. 

Intoxicating…but also toxic. It’s right there in the word. It’s toxic especially for certain types of people who want to make a living in the arts – people whose entire self-worth is predicated on others finding them interesting. For them, that type of attention is addictive, because it means you’re FINALLY special. We can feel loved, and needed, and paid-attention-to. Instead of needing a hit, or a drink, we need that feeling – because sympathy means attention, and attention means “you really like me!” Which is all we really want.

It’s not always a completely conscious thing, either. I remember being at dinner with new-ish friends recently, and laughingly saying “yeah, that was like when I was in chemo” in response to whatever had just been said. You could almost literally hear the record-scratch, and I just had to tell the story, of course. So what would have otherwise been a normal conversation between a group of couples became my monologue followed by a Q&A. Once again, I was the center of attention. 

Did I do that on purpose? I like to think not, but perhaps.

I have this weapon, after all. This rare weapon of a sympathetic story, which also happens to be true. Cancer is many people’s greatest fear, and I’ve found that people almost enjoy being around people who’ve been through something they don’t want to go through. They feel bad for the person, of course, but there’s also a certain relief that comes with being able to point and say, “at least I didn’t have to go through THAT.” Those are the two sides of the coin of empathy: the sadness we feel that someone else has to feel pain, and the comforting fact that we didn’t.

This is why social media has taken off…or, rather, brought us all down. It leans into that base tendency we have for attention. We need to be special, and when our real lives aren’t special enough, some of us need to fib to make it so. For many, these fibs are harmless. They only serve to make people think we’re more important, or more brave, or more interesting than we actually are, but they don’t really hurt anybody except (eventually) the liar.

Occasionally, however, those lies can lead to real pain…as seems to be the case with Elisabeth Finch. In her search for attention and the need to be more special than everyone else, she really, REALLY hurt people: her wife, her Grey’s Anatomy colleagues, her team of supporters, the amazing artist who crafted the “STATE” bracelets, all the friends from her life who were rooting for her to push through…all of these people were completely bamboozled, and they are now left with nothing but emptiness in that place in their heart where their love and empathy for Finchie used to be. I feel terribly sad for them.

For me, however, I find myself struggling with the confusing reality that I was inspired by a horrible lie, but that lie also happened to help me through some of the toughest moments of my life. It’s a minor struggle, but confusing nonetheless.

Cancer, however, is still with me, at least on an emotional level. Just last month we were convinced it was back, even though it wasn’t and will likely never be, given the statistics for my particular cancer. I’m lucky in that sense, because there are many who DO recur, and who DO still struggle with it years after treatment, and I’m back to living a pretty normal life. 

I just have to deal with the completely irrational fear that every twinge in my lower back is a cancerous lymph node, and much of my time is spent talking myself off the ledge…

But that should be enough to get a job in a writer’s room, no?