Life, on the Line (47 page)

Having someone's hand in your mouth is never a pleasant thing, but when your tongue is 80 percent tumor, it is agonizing. Tumor tissue is firmer than regular tissue, so Dr. Singh used pressure to determine the size, shape, and texture of the tumor. He took steady notes, indicating density so he could track any changes. Since the cancer had engulfed the majority of my visible tongue, it was difficult to find where the tumor ended until he had his hand pushed firmly down my throat.

He sat back, snapped the gloves off, and looked at the three of us.

Keith was the first to speak. “Well?”

“It is as we expected from looking at your scans. The cancer has been very invasive. I cannot feel where the tumor ends as we move from the oral tongue to the base. You cannot wait, cannot delay, this needs to be treated immediately.”

“And what do you recommend for treatment?” Heather asked.

“We will remove most of the oral tongue, the lymph nodes in both sides of your neck, and I would like to take a portion of your lower jaw, to be safe.” Just like that.

Keith lowered his head for a moment, then he snapped back. “Well, Doctor, let me take a second to tell you who this guy Grant is. He is a world-famous chef. His restaurant was named the best in America by
Gourmet
magazine. His tongue is his livelihood and his passion. You can't just cut it out.”

The doctor paused for a moment, stared at me for a second, then did a double take. Clearly, by the way he was looking at me, he didn't think it was possible that I was a chef, let alone a good one.

He turned back toward Keith and said firmly, “It doesn't matter who . . . he . . . is. This is about life and death. If he doesn't get this treatment within a couple of weeks he will be dead in a matter of months. Period.”

“What is the survival rate after this type of treatment?” Heather asked. She fired out the one we were all thinking. I guess I didn't need to worry about her.

“Around fifty percent. Maybe sixty percent for two-year survival,” the doctor answered.

I hadn't said a word since the doctor began his examination, letting Heather and Keith ask the questions, but now I had to speak up.

“Wait a minute. You're telling me that even if you rip out my tongue, chances are good that I will die within the next year or two? What is my quality of life? Can I eat or swallow?”

“Unlikely.”

“Can I talk?”

“Not really. With therapy you might . . .ʺ

“The tongue will be reconstructed, right?” interjected Heather.

“Yes. Typically we take tissue from the arm or leg and fashion a tongue from it. But it is not a tongue, obviously, and speech will be severely compromised.”

The doctor then proceeded to imitate what a patient would sound like. The noises tumbling out of his mouth were unrecognizable as speech.

Heather closed her eyes. Keith, always upbeat, always chipper, was deflated. “Well, quite simply, that is not going to happen. I'm not going to get that surgery.”

“You don't understand. If you do nothing, the tumor will grow rapidly. It will be impossible to eat anyway. It will block your ability to breath. It will take your life in a matter of months. You must drop everything now, have surgery, and hope it saves your life.”

“Are there any other options for treatment? Any at all. Anything.”

“No. No good ones. This is what you must do.”

The elevator ride down took three hours, or so it felt. The walk outside took another hour. I gathered the courage to look at Keith and Heather, let out a sigh, and said, “Well, there you go.” I smiled, but just for a moment.

Heather wrapped her arms around me.

“What are we doing for dinner tonight?” I asked. “Let's go somewhere great.”

They looked at me oddly at first, then understood. “Can you eat?” she asked. Heather had noticed that lately she did most of the eating and I did mostly grazing. I hadn't had a proper big meal in weeks.

“I'll pump myself full of Vicodin and I'll get through it. I want to eat.”

“How about drinking some crazy wines tonight? Charlene and I would love to take you and Heather out. I can call Roy and we'll head to Cru and pop some silly bottles, stuff you've never even seen before.” I looked from Keith to Heather, waiting for the nonverbal okay, got it, and smiled.

“That would be great, Keith. Life is short, apparently,” I said with a laugh. “Might as well enjoy it.” They didn't smile. I looked at Keith. “I don't think I'm going to get the surgery, Keith. Would you do it if you were me?

Keith spoke slowly, “I . . . I just don't know.”

 

Keith called me at my place of refuge, the golf course.

I had been up until three that morning reading research abstracts on alternative treatments. I had long ago committed to playing a four-ball matchplay tournament with a good friend, and had spent the preceding five hours walking the course, thinking about what to do. I was biding time mentally until I heard from Keith about the Sloan visit. Maybe they knew something that Masonic didn't. Anyway, there was nothing I could do.

Of course, when you don't care about the outcome of something you perform your best. I didn't think of golf all day except for those three seconds when I hit the ball. We placed second in the tournament and I sank a clutch twenty-foot putt to do so, in a playoff, with a hundred people watching. Apparently a complete mental breakdown was what I needed to get rid of the yips. This dispassionate golfer theory was really starting to take hold of me. Things around me were awful, but my golf game was at an all-time high.

The phone rang, and I headed for the parking lot to talk.

“Hey,” Keith said. Over the preceding ten years, about a year of my life had been spent on the phone with Keith, talking shop and trading war stories (or any other tale he felt like spinning). Keith loved telling stories, and he did so with relish. He always started with “Hey,” and then, before I could answer, would just launch right into it. Today, however, there was a “Hey” and a long silence.

“What did they say?” I finally asked.

I thought we had lost the connection. “You there?”

“Yeah. Ohhhhh.” Long pause. Deep inhale of breath. “You know, it just isn't good. It isn't good at all. I mean, he's fucked.”

Instantly, I knew that Sloan had said the same thing.

“How is Grant?”

“He's taking this remarkably well, or else he's incredibly good at hiding his emotions. Or maybe he didn't really get it, or believe it. I don't know. But we need to figure out a way to move him out here. You need to convince him to do the surgery. We can get an apartment for him near Sloan, get a twenty-four-hour nurse, have great food delivered. I'm sure the chefs of New York will be happy to cook for him. It will suck, but it won't suck as much as if he were in a hospital all day, every day.”

“Move him to New York? I mean, is the treatment there going to be any different? His support system is here. Alinea is here. He won't want to move away.”

“Well, he might not even have the surgery, he says. It was awful, Nick. I've never been in a room like that. It's just tragic.”

I had never heard Keith talk like that. I'd watched him lose a million dollars on a trade and not flinch because he had made the right decision given the information. Here, there weren't many mathematical angles, and logic did not apply.

“So, where is he now?” I asked.

“He's with Heather. Charlene and I are going to take them out to dinner at Cru. He wanted to go out to a crazy dinner while he could.”

“God, that's fucking depressing.”

“Well, what would you do? Might as well enjoy yourself while you can. He might never taste again.”

We hung up. I felt that awful emptiness of despair set in. I straightened my tie, wiped my eyes, and walked around the back of the clubhouse for the awards ceremony. Around me, a few hundred people had changed into evening wear and were having drinks, waiting for the food to be served.

I waded in, found Dagmara, stared at her for a moment, and shook my head.

 

It was a little past 10:00 A.M. by the time we got back downtown to Heather's apartment. We had dropped Keith in midtown and decided to go home, take a nap, then head back out later in the day for lunch and maybe a museum visit before meeting Keith and Charlene for dinner.

Heather let her cat out the window leading to the roof of the adjoining building. She and her roommates used the roof like a balcony, though it wasn't really intended for that purpose. We headed out onto the roof as well. I wanted to have the conversation that I'd been dreading and avoiding. But now, after the Sloan visit, there was no more waiting.

“I'm sorry I had to put you through that,” I said.

“I wanted to go. I'm here for you through this,” she said.

“Thanks. But it's not fair that you should be. I mean, we've only been seeing each other for two months, and long-distance, at that.”

I continued, telling her that depending on what I decided in terms of treatment she needed to be honest with herself and with me. I felt extremely guilty and self-absorbed to be putting a twenty-four-year-old woman through something as difficult as disfiguring surgeries, radical lifestyle changes, and of course the very real possibility of death.

Our relationship thus far revolved around food. We loved eating, drinking, and cooking together. And there was the likelihood that I could no longer do those things in the near future. I couldn't see why she would be interested in maintaining a brand-new relationship through such a time—I wanted to give her my permission to leave. After all, what kind of person would walk away? I wanted to push her away, for her own good.

“Let's be honest, this is going to change my life in such drastic ways that I will no longer be the person you know. I've been lucky to have an amazing career so far, and it's likely that I would have gone on to great success. I can't see that happening now. I have to imagine that affects the way you feel. Sure there is love and devotion and all of that, but there is also the truth of wanting to find someone you are proud of and someone who can contribute to the life you want for yourself, both physically and financially. Nobody wants to inherit a burden, and clearly that is what I am about to become.”

Tears began to well up in her eyes. “What are you going to do?”

“My whole life has been chasing this one goal. I have invested everything I have into it. I have dismissed relationships for it. I have sacrificed many aspects of what other people consider a normal life. I can't let that go. It's who I am. That is my identity, and if the surgeons rip that from me, then my spirit is done and I'm no good to anyone. Not me, not you, not Alinea, not my boys. And what about them? How does this affect them? They'll have a dad who can't talk about life with them, who looks funny. He can't eat with them. I worry that I'll become bitter after I lose the restaurant and my career. They are so young, and they couldn't possibly understand that it might be better for them if I'm gone. Best to go now so they can forget. Their memories . . . well, they won't remember me. Maybe Angela will marry someone and they'll always think of that other person as their dad. Maybe that's best for them.”

With that, I lost it.

 

After gathering our composure and promising each other that we were done crying, we decided to keep our plans and head to the Metropolitan Museum of Art before dinner. Heather wanted to take me to see the “Frank Stella: Painting into Architecture” exhibit, and there was no sense in wasting the day agonizing over the harsh reality I was faced with. Shortly after we arrived at the Met I saw an old woman pushing an elderly man in a wheelchair. I am not sure if it was the sight of longevity that did me in, knowing that my own life was in question, or the idea of having someone as a caretaker, but suddenly I was overcome with emotion. I dropped Heather's hand and briskly walked away. She knew where my head was and didn't follow me. I stood in a corner of the museum for twenty minutes while I corralled my thoughts and emotions. When I rejoined Heather, we wordlessly hugged, joined hands, and continued up to the rooftop sculpture garden to take photos of the skyline. Heather never asked what triggered my crash, and I chose not to explain. I had it together for the time being and didn't want to lose it again.

After sitting in Central Park for a bit we made our way to Cru. I knew in order to get any food down I would need some Vicodin chased by some wine. My mouth was killing me from the exam at Sloan, and while I was never one for drugs, let alone a cocktail of painkillers and alcohol, it was hard to argue against it.

We arrived at the restaurant to find Keith and Charlene sitting at the bar paging through the wine book. I noticed that they had glasses of rose champagne in front of them. “What are you starting us out with?” I asked.

“I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of ordering some bubbles for us,” Keith replied.

We laughed at the absurdity of celebrating. Heather and I pulled up some stools, and Robert Bohr, the wine director at Cru, appeared with two glasses and the bottle of 1996 Dom Pérignon Rose. “Some champagne for you both, Chef?” Robert asked while extending his hand to greet me.

“That sounds perfect, Robert.”

Keith slid the wine book toward us and said, “Have at it, Grant.”

The wine list at Cru is not a list. It is indeed a book, or rather two large volumes—one for whites and one for reds. It is heavy, comprehensive, and several hundred pages long.

“Keith, I have no idea where to start, seriously,” I said. I got the sense that Keith dined here with frequency and knew the list well. I also suspected that he had prepped the staff about the circumstances. The elephant in the room, of course, was that this was a sort of last supper, a blowout dinner while I could still barely manage one. “Go ahead, Keith. I'm sure you know better than I do.”