"Call Me Nissen"

DEDICATION: She was the smartest person I have ever had the pleasure, honor and privilege to call friend and colleague. I will miss her, truly and deeply. I hope she knew.

Beth Nissen was a friend. Her first name was really Elsbeth, I am led to believe. Although, her obituary lists it as Elizabeth. She didn't like her first name. She told me why once. But I won't share that story here. She told everyone to call her Nissen. I always found that difficult. So, I settled on Nis, as did so many others who knew her and loved her.

"Nis" was the smartest person I have ever had the pleasure, honor and privilege to call friend and colleague. I was very conscious of elevating my vocabulary when I was with her. I told her so. She said, "Yes, I know." She knew a lot.

I shall miss her deeply and truly. She made me better.

Elizabeth Nissen obituary

Nis and I worked together often at ABC News for “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.” My favorite time was on a story in Panama. Our sound engineer had just bought a new-fangled consumer video-tape camera. So, I recorded our reporting for most of the trip. Before everyone had a video-camera on their phones, the scenes that I captured are quite a remarkable record of how a network television field news crew - reporter, producer, camera person, audio technician - conducted their work at that time. Sadly, somewhere along the way, those tapes have gone missing. I so wish I still had that footage.

(Nissen and sound tech David Zapatka working in Panama.)

I hadn’t seen or spoken or communicated with Nis for the past 20 years or so. Although, I still considered her one of my dearest friends. Whenever we had been together I had a tendency to bare my soul. She brought that out of me. As I said, she made me better.

We share a birthday month - January. So, every year I would send her a happy birthday wish on her Facebook page. They usually went unanswered. But, on Thanksgiving eve of last year, I happily got this text on Facebook Messenger:

”Dear, dear David — I’m an inconsistent FaceBook user — but I read all of your posts, and deeply appreciate them. I’ve been meaning to tell you that for months now, but have been dealing with some challenges myself. Would you trust me with a good email for you? I’ll update you. Mine is: {redacted}. You are more surrounded by love and support than you know. Love (see?), Nis”

I responded: “Hi Nissen. Your words are kind, generous and greatly appreciated. I would love to hear more from you. And know that you are often in my thoughts. Sending you healing hugs to deal with your challenges. My email is davidguilbault@mac.com. Love. David.”

We began a brief email exchange where she revealed her cancer struggle to me. It saddened me greatly. I pledged to go see her in Ann Arbor. I had thought she still lived in New York City, where I had seen her last. I now believe she reached out because she likely knew her time was short. As I said, she knew a lot.

Nis sent me ‘updates,’ which she had previously sent to her close family and friends. I am going to share them here. I’m not sure if she would have approved of this. But, as we are both members of the ‘cancer club,’ as she noted, I am going to do so for all our other club members. I think maybe she knew I would.:

November 27, 2024: "That's Where We Are" Update - Thanksgiving Eve, 2024

I sent my last update on the eve of Election Day. In the three weeks since then, so many of you have written to share your own worried updates -- about job insecurity and high prices; about aging knees and hips and parents; about political upheaval and division; about our turbulent world and fragile planet.

I've been re-reading Anne Lamott's marvelous little book, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. She sees gratitude -- giving thanks -- as a kind of antidote to worry, followed by giving of other kinds. "Saying and meaning "Thanks" leads to a crazy thought," she writes. "What more can I give?"

So on the eve of a day dedicated to giving thanks, I asked myself the same question. And what I came up with is in this note: a New Yorker cartoon; an Anne Lamott quote, and a YouTube link to an African song asking for relief (in the form of rain):

Wishing you all a good Thanksgiving.

L, B/N

November 28, 2024: so thankful to have reconnected with you

“Thank you for all your contact info, good sir. Later today, I'll send you two updates I wrote for family and friends -- one a year ago, and one earlier this month; these two will bring you up to date on my current situation.

And here is a New Yorker cartoon that made me think of you -- I even think it looks like you:

Hope you're able to be with family and friends on this day of Thanksgiving.

Nis

My response: “Hi Nis. It was lovely hearing from you. To bring you up-to-date: my existential dread is fully flowering and my free-floating anxiety is spreading like weeds. Otherwise, such is life. Please stay in touch. And please be safe and well. Cheers. David.”

November 29, 2024: Nissen Update - Part 1

“David -- This is the easiest way to do this, I think: below is the update I sent to family and friends a little more than a year ago, which was one year after my (surprise) breast cancer diagnosis. Nis”

One year ago today: Blaring ambulance ride to glaring ER. Paralyzing back pain. Six hours and three scans later, I get the news: my spine has been eroded to the point of fracture, in two places, by metastasized cancer -- breast cancer, it turns out, undiagnosed because no lumps or mass ever showed up in annual mammograms and ultrasounds.

No discernible mass meant there was nothing to remove surgically or target with radiation. For a year now, I've been on a daily hormone pill to slow the growth of my kind of breast cancer. Every month, I've gone for infusions of bone-strengthening material to counteract the damage done by "innumerable" lesions on my spine (and cranium, ribs, neck, pelvis, and long bones in my arms and legs). To stabilize my fractured spine, and reduce the risk of more breaks, I wear a hard clamshell brace on my torso. And every four months, I've gone in for another round of scans.

Report for October 2023 A.D. (After Diagnosis): The most recent MRI and whole body nuclear bone scans show no new erosion of my bones -- and the absence of any pain or aches mean my spine fractures are healing or healed. I still wear the clamshell back brace when I leave the house, but otherwise can manage with a simple lumbar support belt. I'm fully mobile; able to drive; capable of walking several blocks or store aisles without a walker or cane.

The newest chest-abdomen-pelvis CT scans are also encouraging: still no visible masses in either breast, the lymph nodes, or in any of my organs. That said, bloodwork shows my tumor markers are much higher -- an indication that my "invisible" cancer may be doing what cancer does: growing and spreading. I'm reviewing next/best treatment options with my excellent medical care team, who understand and support my efforts to have as many good, independent days as I can.

Most of my days are very good -- if somewhat short: I'm sleeping 10-12 hours out of every 24, often between the wee hours and noon. My waking hours are pleasant. I read. I stream documentaries and series and movies. I nap. I go to lunch with friends. I catch up with family on Zoom and WhatsApp, and several times this summer, in-person weekend visits. I nap. I avoid deskwork. (There are so many piles of paperwork that I have re-named this place The Republic of Stackistan. Am accepting design ideas for an appropriate flag.)

Goals for the rest of this year: Eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and less fettucini, linguini, spaghetti, and ravioli. Sit less. Move more. (When I read the obits of artist Fernando Botero in September, I realized how much my own silhouette is coming to resemble what The New York Times termed the "whimsical rotundity" of figures in his paintings. A year of hormone therapy and restricted movement will do that to you...)

In a blink, it will be Halloween, and then, blink-blink, it'll be Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Will plan to write again at the end of this year, or in the first weeks of the fresh new one. In the meantime, I remain inexpressibly grateful for all the prayers, good thoughts, and literal well wishes.

L, B / AB / N

I wrote back: “Dear Nis. I saddens me to hear this troubling news. I am so sorry you are going through this travail. I hope and trust that you have loving support. You certainly have mine. You are one my life's favorite people. Then, now, always. Sending you healing hugs and blessings. Please keep in touch. I'm around and available, pretty much any time. Love. David.”

December 1, 2024: Nissen Update Part 2

“David -- Meant to send this shortly after sending you Part I of my update from a year ago. This was sent to family and friends on the eve of Election Day this year. At risk of sharing TMI, it brings you up to date on where I am now, heading into Christmas.

Am feeling good most days, which is all I can ask for. Hope your own treatments are going well. So sorry to learn that you, too, are a member of the Cancer Club. May Leonard Cohen be of some comfort to you. Wishing you healing, comfort, and grace.

L, Nis”

"All things must change, to something new, something strange."

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Those of us with cancer are commonly said to be "battling" it, which hasn't really described my experience. In the two years since my diagnosis -- of breast cancer, metastasized to my bones -- I've had an uneasy truce with it. The compression fractures in my spine healed; bone-strengthening infusions and daily use of a body brace have kept me skeletally intact. Quarterly whole-body bone scans, CTs and MRIs showed no progression of disease.

Then in August, things changed: scans showed that my cancer has done what cancer does: grown and spread, to my liver. For three weeks in October, I was hospitalized while doctors dealt with liver function test levels that were, to use my doctor's preferred medical term, "wonky."

For now, they have succeeded. I am back home, and feeling very good, if so weak sometimes that my iPhone feels equal in weight to a brick. Am using the walker again, and trying to build back a little strength every day. Still...

I decided to send this update on the eve of Election Day 2024 because it seemed a good time to remember that no one knows what's going to happen in the weeks and months ahead.

For myself, I'm trying to have hope and faith. I'm inexpressibly grateful for good doctors, kind home aides, and most of all my aforementioned sterling circle of family and friends, who let me know -- sometimes with just a thought or a well wish -- that they've got me surrounded by love and support.

Will leave you with a favorite version of a song that's become my anthem, Leonard Cohen's "Come Healing":

L, B / Nis

"And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

-- Julian of Norwich

I wrote Nis to say that I would be traveling East and would love to see her in New York City. She wrote this in return:

”I would lovelovelove to see you when you come East -- but I moved out of NYC 10 years ago. Bought a little house in my hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan; taught at the University of Michigan for a few years -- as a writing specialist, tutoring student athletes. Meant to write a few books, but didn't.

Helped my Dad, a retired UMich Dean and Classics professor, downsize out of the family home; he moved in with me. We were happy roommates for five years, until his heart started giving out. I was his caregiver for the last year of his life. We lost him two days before his 96th birthday, in 2022.

But hey, if you're ever in Ann Arbor, stop by. It's a wonderful little city.

L, Nis”

This was my last message to dear Beth on December 23 of last year:

”Thanks for the update, Nis. If I had been in Ann Arbor, I would have loved to have taken your writing class. Sorry to hear about your dad. Glad you had that happy time together. …Please be safe and well, dear. Talk more later. Cheers for now. And Happy Holidays. Love. David.”

And then came this:

December 21, 2024: Re: That’s Where We Are: Christmas, 2024

This has been a hard, hard year for so many of us -- and for so many reasons.

At the outset of 2024, my greatest dismay was finding myself living in a time and place where facts were so blithely countered -- and occluded -- by "alternative facts," misinformation, and disinformation.

By year's end, I was more personally dismayed by a set of facts, undisputed and with no alternatives: my breast cancer had, after residing without much incident in my bones for two years, suddenly and rapidly metastasized to my liver and one lung.

I am reminded of Emperor Hirohito's August 1945 broadcast, after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in which he said "the war's situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." My cancer situation has developed not necessarily to my advantage.

For the time being, I'm doing well enough. I'm back home after a three-week hospital stay in October, and able to manage all the ADLs (Activities of Daily Living) by myself, with minimal supervision by the occasional drop-by home health aide. A nurse does a home visit once a week, which has been enough for symptom control with only a few meds, none of which has side effects worth mentioning. I am grateful to be in no pain.

I go to bed most nights at a toddler-appropriate hour, and sleep for long hours; I take daytime naps at will. All of this rest gives me enough energy to keep up with deskwork, advance planning, clearing of closets and shelves and storage units, and visits with family and friends, all of whom have been kind enough to tell me I'm looking "good" when it's perfectly obvious I am bloated and bald (thanks to a few megainfusions of chemo in the hospital that my docs thought might slow the liver metastases).

After years of being vain about my hair -- which I kept far too long for far too long -- I've adjusted pretty well to its absence. It took some searching through "headwear, chemo" (a weird little corner of the online marketplace -- beanies, scarves, hats, turbans) before I found some soft, slouchy caps that I thought gave off a Julie Christie as Lara in "Dr. Zhivago" vibe.

Then one day this week, I caught a sidelong glance of myself, and imagined the outlines of Vermeer's "Girl With a Pearl Earring." A friend helped me record this evidence, with the help of a clip-on earring and a dishtowel:

I'll take any reference to the Master of Light in these dark days of midwinter, political grift and graft, and world upheaval. Frosted corn and scarce taters aside, Christmas is Christmas. The best of this good season to you.

L, B / N

To this, I replied: “Dearest Beth. Thank you for sharing this latest news. I'm sending you a second dose of love & blessings in return. I am going to be visiting my daughter (and new grand daughter) in mid January. They are in New Jersey. If you feel up for it, perhaps I could come share some time with you, as well. Hope so. Please enjoy the holiday yule as best you can. Thinking of you dearly. Love. David.”

One of the last missives I got from Nis was as a member of an email list she prepared to offer give-aways of her belongings. I wasn’t astute enough to truly understand the nature of these emails. But, she knew.

And so, now, the grief. And the regret that I hadn’t spent enough time staying in touch.

It was a pleasure, an honor, an experience and a privilege to have known Nis. Indeed, it was a joy.

I can truly say that I loved Elsbeth, Elizabeth, Beth, Becky, Nissen, Nis. I will miss her deeply. I think she knew.