Donna Trussell

I know only too well the interior monologue of the cancer patient, but I wonder how accurately I can depict the mind of the friend or caregiver.

I’ll start with the patient’s semi-coherent, conscious or subconscious cry of pain:

Noooooooooooooo! Get me out of here! Save me! Don’t let the bad man come in my room! I don’t want to die! I’ll do anything! Give cancer to someone else, anyone but me! I’d rather die than go through this! Easy for you to stay positive — you don’t have cancer! I’m sick of you all! Go away!!!! Hey, where’d you go??!! Help me! I don’t have the strength for this! God, pick on someone else, why doncha? I’m falling apart! Oh so you have a microwave on the blink — try a broken microwave and cancer! God, please make the platitudes stop! I’ll trade no hair and no sex for the rest of my life in exchange for no recurrence! Oh spring is so beautiful, will I live to see another? Somebody shut up those damned wind chimes! Look at that old man, healthy as a mutt, and he smokes! Look at that fat-assed bitch — she can lose weight, but I can’t lose cancer no matter what I do! I wish that sad sack would shut up! He thinks his cancer is soooooooo much worse than anyone else’s! You call this a support group? More like a round robin in Hell!

And now the silent scream of the caregiver/coworker/friend/family:

Cancer cancer cancer! That’s all you ever talk about! I don’t even know you anymore! I can’t help it that you got cancer instead of me! Why can’t you be more like the patients in Victorian novels, where they just cough now and then and say thank you? I hate this! Why can’t you be more like the cancer patients on TV? They crack jokes. They sure aren’t crying all day long! They’re lifting weights and riding bikes and raising money for some godforsaken cause. Hey, I don’t want to hear about your hospital adventures! I don’t care about your cell type or any other minutia you’ve got slogging around in that brain of yours! What makes you think you’ve got a patent on suffering? This is no picnic for me! Yes, you have the cancer, but I have to deal with your cancer and I’m not on any of the opiates you’re on! No, I don’t want to help plan your funeral right now! Christ, you’ve become the most morbid person on earth! No, I’m not going anywhere! I just want to wander around the basement for a while. Go play your tranquility CD!

Or, if you can’t find your tranquility CD, you could play Avenue Q: It Sucks to Be Me.

My theory on Avenue Q is that it’s Death of a Salesman for Gen X, who grew up in the age of Sesame Street and child-abuse hotlines. They grew up believing children should be not only seen and heard, but praised and validated on a daily basis. Then they graduated from college and discovered that once their parents were out of the picture, no else cared about their potential or anything else. And no, they don’t get to live on Avenue A, but rather all the way down the alphabet on Avenue Q.

Original Broadway cast of Avenue Q sings "It Sucks to Be Me"

I was lucky enough to see Avenue Q on Broadway with the original cast, who were selling buttons in the lobby as a fundraiser. I bought “It Sucks to Be Me” (in case I ever went back on chemo) from John Tartaglia. I asked if he’d ever worked in children’s theater. “Oh my god yes. Forever!”

Children’s theater professionals no doubt get sick of being ignored by the theater establishment, of being treated as though they’re not “real” actors and directors, of singing clean, happy songs about a just world. I suspect they love to get drunk together and improvise “children’s songs” that tell the truth. In Avenue Q song after song pairs a bouncy melody with gritty, bitter lyrics.

There Is LIfe Outside Your Apartment has friends encouraging the puppet Princeton to come outside, but as soon as he does, he has to run for cover because of the violence and chaos. In For Now the cast warns the audience that although such things as George Bush are “only for now,” so is love, so is friendship, so is life.

The Tony Award nomination for actress Stephanie D’Abruzzo, who played Kate Monster, must have been especially gratifying. Like castmate Tartaglia, D’Abruzzo had paid dues aplenty in children’s theater — on Sesame Street itself, in fact — and she probably attended parties where actors treated her like a wannabe. Sweet revenge, that Tony nomination.

I can’t imagine a more appropriate soundtrack for cancer patients, who must leave the lives they’ve built for a patronizing, pain-filled landscape of bright colors and cheery volunteers. And even that is “only for now.”

Early in the show the Avenue Q casts addresses the audience with the question: Is there anybody here it doesn’t suck to be? Everyone in the world is standing on a precipice. They’re just not looking down as much as cancer patients. But for patient and non-patient alike, for good or bad, it’s only for now.