Ep. 10: Sid and the Buddha Play Doctor.

And Sid redefines rapid cycling.

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NOTE: The symptoms and progression of Sid’s cancer—anaplastic ependymoma—are loosely based on the writings of my friend Mark Green (1967-2015) in his book Void if Detached. I think he would appreciate the fact that I “gave” Sid his cancer.

If Sid “owes” his cancer to Mark, he owes his character, in large part, to my cousin Rob Cutler, who passed away in 2011, about the same time I first drafted this novel. Robbie knew roughly as much or, actually, as little about Buddhism as Sid does—and was equally enlightened. (By the way, Robbie had a copy of the Tour de France poster I mention.)

Previously: We learned that the Buddha is one of many famous historical characters—including Agamemnon, Torquemada, and Harriet Tubman—whom Sid has (im)personated over the years.

“You want the technical description?” Dr. Georas asked Sid and Diane when they sat in his office a week after the stroke.

Dr. Georas’s office looked like the inner sanctum of any self-respecting brain surgeon who was born into a pile of money and, thanks to his encyclopedic familiarity with neural pathways, had continued piling it on ever since.

He sat behind a 12’ tabletop that stretched across the the whole width of the room, and was covered to depths from 2” to a foot with books, folders, reports, empty coffee cups, and a bike helmet. There was a hinged panel that he lifted up to get in or out, but, since it was usually covered with stuff too, it was easier for him just to crawl underneath it.

One wall was covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves that held an eclectic collection of printed matter: magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, scholarly journals, scrolls, maps, and letters. There were even a few books. Post-it Notes in a rainbow of colors jutted out from all over the wall like thoughts trying to escape.

On the other wall, two high-end titanium bikes—a road and a mountain—hung from hooks, next to a large picture from some early Tour de France, that featured two guys with caps (where helmets should have been) sharing a cigarette.

Dr. Georas was part of a group that met at 5:30 every morning year-round for a 20-mile ride along routes that even most locals didn’t know existed. When the snow was too deep, they used fat-tire bikes and cut the ride to 10 miles.

“A technical description of the bikes?” Sid asked pleasantly, looking around before giving his long-term golfing buddy an angelic smile.

Diane had received special dispensation from Jay to smoke an e-cig in his office. Jay’s real name was Jayachandra¹^⁠ Georas—Indian mom and Greek dad who had met in Vietnam in the late ‘60s while doing international aid work and left when they saw the writing on the war wall wasn’t necessarily in English. Even though he was more a biker than a basketball player, he liked being referred to as Dr. Jay.

“Ignore him,” Di said. “How much longer are we going to have him to kick around?” She exhaled so much vapor it looked like her head was exploding.

Dr. Jay smiled sympathetically. His combination of mysterious Indian and laid-back Mediterranean genes always made it look like he was smiling sympathetically.

“OK, fine, I’m ready. Let’s get technical,” Sid said, not pleased with the direction of the mood swings whipping around the room, “I know it’s kind of a dumb question for the Buddha to ask.”

There really are no dumb questions, the Buddha thought.

“The Buddha?” Jay asked.

“I’ll explain later…but how much time I got left, Doc?” He said it like he was in a ’60s made-for-TV drama.

That is kind of a dumb question, the Buddha thought.

“Give me a drag of that Di,” Sid said.

Jay grimaced slightly and began: “It appears, my friend, that you have a rare Grade III anaplastic ependymoma. This is a malignant…”

“Ugh,” Diane said.

“…hold on—glioma—which is a fancy word for a brain tumor around the membrane of tissue that lines your brain stem and ventricles of your brain.”

Hmmm, crown chakra, the Buddha thought. Sounds like stagnant kundalini.

Sid stood up and walked over to the road bikes hanging on the wall. “What’s kundalini?” he asked.

Dr. Jay laughed. “Didn’t you just say you were the Buddha?”

“I was just testing you,” Sid said.

“Don’t worry. The Buddha wasn’t into kundalini anyway,” Jay said.

That was then.²

Sid turned back toward Jay and, pretending to be horrified, slapped his forehead like he’d just thought of something. “Ouch! You don’t think I have bad karma do you, doc?”

Are you kidding me? Where do you want me to start? The Buddha thought.

“Where do you want me to start?” Jay said, smiling at Di.

“When did you get the disk brakes on this one?” Sid continued. He didn’t bike much anymore but knew enough to be dangerous. As he was on most subjects.

“Back last Spring when I decided to do the Gaps. My bike guy told me braking downhill with pads could blow out the tires.”

“So did you get all of it?” Di said louder than necessary. Actually just as loud as necessary to get their attention off bikes.

“No. Like I said. We got most, but until we know what kind it was and exactly how big, we wanted to be cautious.”

“So you have to go back in? When?” Di asked frustrated.

“First, I want you to see a buddy of mine in the Midwest. Plus, they have a more powerful MRI there, so we can get a better picture of what we’re dealing with.”

“What causes cancer in your crown chakra?” Sid asked, continuing, “So did you do the 6-Gap or the LAMB?” He began counting the number of teeth on the biggest chain ring.

Sheep on bicycles? The Buddha wondered. What will these people think of next?

“What are you guys talking about?” Di demanded.

“The L.A.M.B.” Jay said, spelling it. “Lincoln, Appalachian, Middlebury, and Brandon Gaps. In the Green Mountains. Vermont.” Jay felt like he was walking a tightrope between Sid’s desire to spend as much time as possible in denial and Di’s urgency to get to the point.

“Can you guys stick to cancer for a few minutes?” Di sighed. “I mean this is going to come as a total shock to you, Sidney,” using the name he considered an expletive—one that only she could get away with and only when she was really mad… “Look at me…this is not totally about you. Do you get that concept? There are things that need to be taken care of. People that need to be taken care of. The kids are going to have questions. The grandchildren are going to have questions.”

“You take care of the children. I’ll take care of the grandchildren,” he said. His voice flat. Determined. Accepting without yielding. “It’s what, 110 miles?” Sid turned back to ask Jay.

Jay turned to Di and said sympathetically, “Once I had a woman in here. 80. Just told her she had breast cancer. Terminal. Her daughter was with her. Crying. Mom kept talking about what interesting color eyes I had. Everyone responds differently.

“10,000 feet of climbing?” Sid said, almost belligerently making the point.

“More,” Jay said, looking apologetically at Di, “and yes,” he added, knowing the question was inevitable, “you might be able to bike again, but not until after the next surgery and radiation.”

“Isn’t kundalini the sex thing?” Sid asked.

“Yeah, that’s what they call sex energy.”

“They who?”

“Hindus…a lot of Indian sects.”

“Sex?”

“No sects.”

“Which are you?”

“None of the above,” Jay said. “You seen the inside of as many brains as I have…” he hesitated.

Good point, the Buddha thought.

“What?” Sid whipped his head around from the bike, sensing some thrilling insight.

“Just that…” Jay said, his voice falling. “Just that…”

Equally good point, the Buddha thought.

“That makes sense,” Sid said, no more able than Jay to explain why looking inside dozens of human brains could change your perspective on any belief system you might be clinging to.

“So is it terminal or not? I mean can it be cured?” Di interrupted.

“We should definitely be able to get some partial remissions,” Jay said with the implicit “but,” continuing, “it’ll keep coming back.”

“Huh,” Sid said to himself.

Rising and falling of phenomena, the Buddha thought. Been there, thought that.

“And chemotherapy,” Jay continued, “will just keep things at bay unless they come up with something new…so we’ll try to keep the jerk around as long as we can.”

“How long would that be?” Sid asked walking over to study a print of a painting of a naked guy surrounded by lions. The lions looked hungry. The guy didn’t look happy.

“You think it means I haven’t been having enough sex?”

“There’ve been a few cases of people lasting almost a dozen years,” Jay said to Di ignoring him.

“Gee, I’d be happy with 20 minutes at my age.” Sid said.

Di took a deep sigh…frustration and relief at once. At least his irreverence would be the last sense to go.

“No I meant how long did it take you to do the LAMB? Did you break seven? And, by the way, who’s your decorator?”

“No. 7:20. I bought it at a garage sale. It’s an original, believe it or not. Not really. I mean an original of an early 20^th century forgery of a Rubens. Daniel in the Lion’s Den. It looked like just a bunch of caked gray paint. Guy sold it for the frame. $20. Cost me $1000 to have it restored.”

Jay exchanged brave smiles with Di, sorry he’d managed to get thrown off topic again. A little hard to be mad with the guy, but jeez he could be maddening.

Daniel? Rubens? Sid felt a frisson of recognition. And a pang of hunger.

“See, we can operate again if it grows back, but we only get one shot at the radiation. And eventually even the surgeries will do too much damage to the working parts of his brain.”

Sid turned to look at him and grinned.

“But he could live like a normal lifespan?” she asked.

“Dear God,” Sid blurted out. He appreciated her concern. But the banality of the conversation—like they were on the set of some soap opera—it bored him. Although the Buddha found it all rather fascinating.

“Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of data because it’s a childhood cancer. Adults hardly ever get it.”

“That’s no surprise…” Di said.

Sid grinned wider, extremely pleased with this new development.

“But the good thing is that it’s in his brain not brain stem. Less likely to metastasize.”

“So when do we go see this cancer specialist?” Di asked.

“Susie will set it up. As soon as we can get you in. Plan on staying for two or three days. You’ll like it out there. And he’s great.”

“He a biker?” Sid asked.

“Yes, but the vroom kind.”

“Nobody’s perfect.” Sid said.

Ahem…the Buddha thought.

“Oops. I take it back. But only because I’m the Buddha,” he said apologetically. “Of course as a famous Yogi once said, ‘If life were perfect, it wouldn’t be.’”^⁠

Ah, the great 20^th century sage. The Buddha smiled at the memory. That rare sports spirit who played without attachment to victory or defeat. Yogi smiled back.

“And he was in more All Star games than anyone,” Sid added.

Di sighed. “I know who you’re talking about, you know.”

Jay sighed too and crawled out from under his desk to give her a hug. Turned out that he’d been wearing bike shorts under his green scrubs.

Sid walked over to a little stand with an antique porcelain phrenology head bust. He picked it up. Studied different areas. He pointed to the part of the brain where his operation had been.

“Hey Jay, what happens here?”

“Pre-frontal cortex?”

“Doesn’t affect your sense of humor, does it?”

“Sid, it’d take more than a tumor to affect yours…”

“You mean there’s no hope at all?” Di asked.

Sid gave the head a once over. Then a twice over. Looked at all the writing. Then he shook it. Put it back and gave it a pat. “Thanks for the memories,” he said.

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Next Episode: Sid learns more than anyone needs to know about golf balls, testicles, and tumors He's then joined by LJ, a "park person" who shares his theories of life and marketing and gives Sid news about the latest overdose in town.

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1. The name Jayachandra means Victorious Moon and, in the Ayurvedic tradition, connotes feelings of healing and calm.

2. If you want to tie your favorite Buddhist in theological knots, ask them the Buddhist perspective on kundalini and chakras. The Buddha never talked about either per se—they’re both concepts from Hinduism—but the basic ideas are now, and to some extent were, aspects of Buddhist teachings. Everyone knows what karma is. Well, kind of.