I am Hazel

My name is Hazel Grace Lancaster and I have cancer.  But cancer doesn’t define me.

I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was 13 years old. I am 16 now and the cancer has created mets, an impressive and long-settled satellite colony, in my lungs. I have been taking an experimental drug called Phalanxifor which has will help me live longer.

My lungs suck at being lungs. So I have to use an oxygen tank that I roll around on a little steel cart attached to a cannula, a transparent tube that splits beneath my neck, wraps behind my ears and then comes back together at my nose to help me breath.  I've named my oxygen tank Phillip.  I need Phillip because my lungs suck at being lungs.   

I have short, dark hair, green eyes, and chipmunk cheeks from the steroids.  So read my blog if you want, if you don’t want to then don’t. It’s your life after all.

Miserable in Support Group

Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer.  But in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer.  Depression is a side effect of dying.  

I’ll never be a typical teenager but I don’t care. My mom thinks I’m depressed.  She thought it was serious enough to require treatment so she took me to my regular doctor, Dr. Jim.  He agreed that I was virtually swimming in a paralyzing and totally clinical depression and that my meds should be adjusted and I should attend a weekly support group.  

Support group is about as boring as it sounds.  Every Wednesday we meet in the basement of a stone-walled Episcopal church shaped like a cross, where the two boards would have met, and where the literal heart of Jesus would have been.  We all sit around telling everyone else our name, age, diagnosis and how we’re doing today.  Then we talked about fighting and battling, and scanning and shrinking. Patrick, the support group leader would tell us his cancer survival story every meeting. 

This one kid, Isaac was the only reason that support group was bearable, even though we would basically only communicate through a series of sighs, eye rolls, and glances. Then finally the meeting ends with a prayer and a seemingly endless list of kids who couldn't attend support group anymore due to the fact that they were dead.

 I’m so sick of it, I've been trying my best to get out of going, but in the end I just go to make my parents happy.

Augustus

Support group didn't suck today! Isaac brought his friend to the meeting.  His name is Augustus Waters and he was totally staring at me!  He was kinda hot! 

When Patrick asked him to introduce him self he said, " My name is Augustus Waters, I'm seventeen.  I had a little touch of osteosarcoma a year and a half a go, but I'm just here today at Isaac's request." Then Patrick asked him what he feared.  He said he feared oblivion. 

While I’m normally shy and the not the commenting type, I felt I had to say something. 

 I told him, there will come a time when all of us are dead.  All of us.  There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything.  There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you.  Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever.  There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after.  An if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it.  God knows that what everyone else does.  He seemed really impressed by my little speech of encouragement. 

He and Isaac approached me after support group and then Augustus Waters told me I was beautiful and that I looked like this actress from V for Vendetta and then he invited me over to his house to watch the movie. 

I Love to Read

I don’t get out much.  But I love to read. My favorite book, by a long stretch is An Imperial Affliction  by Peter Van Houten.  I’ve read it over and over. 

It's about this girl named Anna who lives in California and has a rare blood cancer, but the book is not all about cancer.  It’s really about her life while she’s going through cancer.  Anna creates this charity called The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure Cholera.  It’s just funny and respectful and reflects the reality of the cancer experience in a way I have rarely encountered.  

But then the book just ends in the middle of a sentence!  And I have some questions!  I’ve been trying to contact the author because I want to know what happens after the book ends. Was the Dutch Tulip Man a con man?  What happened to Anna’s mother? What happened to the hamster?

My 33rd Half Birthday!

My mom’s is really super into celebration maximization. Like “It’s Arbor Day!  Let’s hug trees and eat cake!”  

Today she reminded me that it’s my thirty-third half birthday.  So I invited Kaitlyn to go to Castleton Square Mall with me after school.  Kaitlyn and I have been friends for a long time.  She acts like a sophisticated twenty-five year old British socialite stuck inside a sixteen year old body.  And when Kaitlyn shops it’s with an intensity and focus one usually associates with playing professional chess.  

Anyway I bought a pair of flip-flops and Kaitlyn got three pairs of closed toe shoes, because she hates the way her second toe is longer than rest. Then I told her I had to go and I found a quite place to settle down and read the sequel to The Price of Dawn. While I am reading a little girl came up and asked what my cannula and oxygen tank were.  I explained how it gives me extra oxygen and I let her try it.  I really liked that little girl. 

Isaac Goes Beserk

When I called Augustus today, I could hear violent sobbing in the background.  He asked me to come over because Isaac was having a breakdown.  

When I got there, I saw Isaac and Augustus in the basement playing blind video games and Isaac was not doing well. 

 Isaac is losing his eye, the only one he has left. He has to have his eye removed so that he can be cancer-free.  When his girlfriend, Monica, found out she broke up with him because apparently she can't deal with having a blind boyfriend. You might think that Isaac would be devastated because he was going to be blind, but all he could talk about was Monica.

 “Pain demands to be felt,” Augustus said, which was a line from An Imperial Affliction! Isaac was very upset but he kept playing the video game and bawling. Then he went berserk and started kicking things until Augustus sort of encouraged him to start destroying all of Gus’s basketball trophies. I guess it helped get his anger and sadness out, and Augustus didn’t mind.

Okay? Okay

It’s been a week since Augustus called me!  We talked about Imperial Affliction. Then he dropped a bombshell on me. He had somehow managed to email Peter Van Houten and he gave me the email address!

 We talked about everything from books to Gus’ ex-girlfriend, Caroline Mathers, who died of cancer. I almost felt like he was there in my room with me, but in a way it was better, like I was not in my room and he was not in his, but instead we were together in some invisible and tenuous third space.  

Then we kept saying “okay” to each other and somehow it has become our word. It's kind of like how Monica and Isaac would say "always" to each other.  But always just seemed inherently ridiculous. Since you won't always be there, because at some point you'll be dead, or in traffic, or in love with someone else.  But okay seemed just right for us.  

Gus’s Genie Wish

You won’t believe it! Van Houten has responded to my email and he has invited Gus and me to Amsterdam, to talk with him about An Imperial Affliction.  I didn’t think we could go because with all the medical bills and stuff, we can’t afford to. It occurred to me that the reason my parents had no money was me. I'd sapped the family savings with Phalanxifor copays, and Mom couldn't work because she had taken on the full-time profession of Hovering Over Me.  

But Augustus showed up in the driveway with a bouquet of orange flowers and we went on a little picnic with a bunch of orange foods.  I knew he was up to something, but then he finally spilled the beans. 

He told me he hadn’t used his Genie wish from the Genie Foundation, an organization that helps sick kids get one wish, and that he was going to use it to take us both to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten. I can’t believe it!  I’m going to Amsterdam with Gus!!

My Lungs Suck at Being Lungs

A week ago I woke up with this horrible pain in the center of my head.  I thought I might have a brain tumor or something.   

My parents were helpless to do anything about the pain so they rushed me into the car and I passed out on the way to the hospital.  I don’t have a brain tumor, it was just that my lungs had a bunch of fluid in them and they have had to be drained.  My head hurt because it wasn’t getting enough oxygen.  

They had me hooked up to this machine called the BiPAP which basically took control of my breathing away from me, ... I kept thinking that it sounded like a dragon breathing in time with me, like I had this pet dragon who was cuddled up next to me and cared enough about me to time his breaths to mine. 

So I spent six days in the hospital before they’d let me finally go home.  But Augustus was there in the waiting room every day until they finally let him see me. I didn’t want him to see me like that, totally not attractive.  But he looked at me, in that Augustus way and he told me he’d missed me.  

Amsterdam, here I come!

I can’t believe we were able to pull off this trip to Amsterdam, thanks to the wish-granting genies.  It is an amazing cancer perk! Dad gave me a sentimental goodbye just before mom and I picked up Augustus from his house.  
We get onto the plane after a lot awkward airport checkpoints and security.  Augustus and I watch the movie 300 and talked during most of the flight.  

Then out of the blue, he tells me, " I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things.  I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed an that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth will ever have, and I am in love with you."

Magical dinner

We got to Hotel Filosoof in Amsterdam where they’ve named each of the rooms after a famous philosopher.  My mom and I are staying in the Kierkegaard and Augustus stays in the Heidegger room.  I was so tired I had to take a long nap.  When I woke my mom explained to me that Augustus was going to take me out to dinner at a fancy Amsterdam restaurant called Oranjee. 

Augustus showed up at our hotel room in a very handsome suit and I wore my best sun dress, but I immediately felt under dressed. We took the tram to the restaurant and we saw the old architecture, cobblestone streets, scenic canals, quaint coffee shops, bicycles and boats of the people that moved so freely through the city.  It was a totally different life from the one we live in Indianapolis. It looked nothing like America. It looked like an old painting, but real—everything achingly idyllic in the morning light—and I thought about how wonderfully strange it would be to live in a place where almost everything had been built by the dead.  

At the restaurant we drank champagne and had a delicious meal.  Gus told me he wanted to live a meaningful life and do something extraordinary, making his mark on the world.  But I rather feel that it’s unfair of him to say that the only lives that are meaningful are the ones where people die for some cause. 

 I feel like I need to tread lightly on this world. I am grenade and I don’t want to explode on him.  I never want to hurt him, but Gus told me it would be a privilege to have his heart broken by me.

Disappointed in Amsterdam

We went to visit Van Hooten.  I got dressed in my Rene Magritte print t-shirt, jeans and converse sneakers like the character Anna does in An Imperial Affliction.  

When we rang the bell, this heavy older man with sagging jowls opens the door and was so rude!  He said the invitation to visit him was rhetorical and he didn’t expect us to show up.  Then he went on to say that I was being dependent on people’s pity and I was a side effect of evolution!  I couldn’t help myself I smacked that scotch glass right out of his hand!  He is a pompous drunk! 

His assistant, Lidewij, who had been nothing but polite and apologetic tried to stop him from being such a jerk.  We left disgusted and disappointed.  But I guess he just wasn’t the same man he was when he wrote An Imperial Affliction.    

A First

So after that craziness at Van Houten’s house, his assistant, Lidewij, comes running out and tells us that she’s quit and that she’d like to take us to tour Anne Frank’s house to make it up to us.  

The house of Anne Frank contains a lot of steep stairs, an extremely difficult task for my sucky lungs. But I knew I had to conquer the stairs for Anne Frank. Somehow it felt like an insult to her if I backed out of it. I made it to the top of the house where the Franks lived for all that time. 

 I wondered how Otto Frank, the only survivor from the family was able to carry on after the rest of his family was gone.  I mean he wasn't a father anymore. 

Then Augustus started talking about how we should team up to hunt down the evil-doers around the world and protect the weak and tales of our exploits would live on as long as the human voice.  But all I could think about was kissing him, and then suddenly we were kissing.  

When I opened my eyes, there was a crowd of people watching us.  I thought they were going to be angry, but the just started clapping and shouting “Bravo!” I felt my face turn so red. 

Then we went back to his hotel room where we were together and I told him I loved him.  

Not Again, Augustus!

Today Augustus told me that recently went in for a PET scan…and it wasn’t good.  His cancer has returned. I am devastated and heartbroken. 

Augustus is sick the cancer in his bones spread all the way around his body. He is very sick and he starting to have pain. His parents really didn’t want him to go to Amsterdam but he did anyway for me.  I can’t stop crying. 

 I’m in love and I’m so sad!  Augustus promises that he’ll fight the cancer as hard as he can for me.  But he is worried that he will never have his epic fight, the thing that will give his life meaning.  Then we had enough talking so we kissed and kissed.

Last Good Day

Gus is very sick now. I haven’t been able to see him as much lately because he has spent a lot of time in the hospital. So when he called me while I was watching TV with my parents I immediately answered fearing the worst. But it was Gus asking me to prepare a eulogy for him and bring to the heart of Jesus where our support group meetings take place. 

So I did wrote Gus's eulogy, although it was pretty difficult. When I got to the literal heart Gus explained that he wanted to attend his own funeral.  

Isaac shared razed Gus for his eulogy.  He teased that Gus knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, and that he got seventeen years when he should have gotten more, and that he was vain, pretentious and physically attractive and he knows it.  Then he said that if scientists create robot eyes for him in the future, he turn them down because he doesn't want to see a word without Augustus.  I was kind of crying.

Then I shared my eulogy for Augustus.

 “My name is Hazel.  Augustus Waters was the great star-crossed love of my life.  Ours was an epic love story, and I won’t be able to get more than a sentence into it without disappearing into a puddle of tears.  Gus knew.  Gus knows I will not tell you our love story, because- like all real love stories- it will die with us, as it should.  I’d hoped that he’d be eulogizing me, because there’s no one I’d rather have…  I can’t talk about our love story, so I will talk about math.  I am not a mathematician, but I know this: There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1.  There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others.  Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million.  Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.  A writer we used to like taught us that.  There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set.  I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Water than he got.  But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world.  You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.” 

We all cried knowing that Gus was going to die and there was nothing we could do to stop it. This was the last good day with Gus, when for a moment the pain seemed bearable.  

Gus is Gone

Augustus Waters died just eight days after we held our own pre-funeral to read him our eulogies. I got the phone call from his mom in the middle of the night.

The only person I wanted to talk to about Augustus Waters dying was Augustus Waters. 

My parents and I went to Augustus’s funeral, which was held in the sanctuary next to the Literal heart of Jesus where support group meets.  I removed my cannula and walked up to Augustus’s casket.  His face looked plastic and he was wearing the same suit he wore when we went to Oranjee.  I said, okay.  I knew he’d know what I meant.  Then I snuck a pack of Camel Lights into the casket and I whispered to him that he could light them.  I wouldn’t mind.  

The minister talked about Augustus’s courage, Isaac gave his eulogy and then it was my turn.  I started with a quote that hung in Augustus’ house, “Without pain, we couldn’t know joy.” It was one of the most difficult days of my life.

Peter Van Houten!

Guess who took the time to fly all the way from Amsterdam to come to the funeral of a cancer-infected boy who he screamed at on the boy’s one and only wish. Peter Van Houten!  

As if that, could make up for it. That slob never cared about anyone but himself, and he even treated himself badly. He appeared behind me at some point during the service for Augustus.  

After the funeral he tried to talk to me about what happens to the characters in An Imperial Affliction after the book ended. I just couldn’t listen to him.  

But I finally realized that the reason Van Houten has become such a miserable person is because he had a daughter that died of cancer.  I still don’t like Van Houten as a person, but I guess I understand why he is such a tortured and miserable soul.

My Eulogy

Today Isaac told me that Augustus has been writing something for me.  I looked everywhere to find where he might have left it.  I looked in his room, in the basement and even in the literal heart of Jesus.  But I couldn’t find it.  

Then I learned that he was still in communication with Van Houten.  So I emailed his assistant, Lidewij, asking her to find out if Van Houten had gotten anything from Augustus.  Unbelievably, she found a letter sent from Augustus asking Van Houten to write me a beautiful eulogy.  Lidewij  made Van Houten read it and he said that he had nothing to add to it. Lidewij scanned it and emailed it to me. 

It was a eulogy he wrote in his dying days for me. At the end he wrote, “She is so beautiful.  You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her.  I am so lucky to love her, in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you.  I like my choices.  I hope she likes hers.”  I think he knows I do.  I do, Augustus.  I do.