"Keep your sense of humor, no matter what"
"Create a purpose, a focus, and never take your eyes off it"
"Figure out what's important to you. What's really important"
"Be open. Try anything. You never know"
"Love. You need love. Tons of it. A shitload of love"
"Sometimes you need to be selfish"
"You need support. You're in this alone, but you can't fight it alone"
"The most precious thing you have is time. Don't waste it"
"You're only human"
"And, finally, once again - laugh"
These are Robert Schimmel's words towards the end of his book "Cancer On $5 A Day *chemo not included"
He was a comedian. A comedian's comedian. I liked him. His career was rough because he worked blue and would not compromise. In other words he was a vulgar motherfucker.
In 2000, at the age of 49, and after a long career of fighting to make it big, he was finally being rewarded. He had won the Stand Up of the Year award, had a special on HBO called Unprotected which was a big hit. AND the Fox network had just picked up his sitcom Schimmel, which was scheduled for a September start in the time slot following The Simpsons.
Then he was diagnosed with stage three non-Hodgkins lymphoma.
He and his agent had to inform Fox and of course they put the sitcom "on hold". Which means it never aired. His whole career came crashing to a halt as he began to battle cancer with an immediate and aggressive course of chemotherapy.
The book is a brutally honest telling of what he dealt with, what he was thinking as he went through it, how it affected his family, how it changed his opinion of himself and his life. And he does it with humor. Trust me, there are many things about the book that break your heart, but somehow he manages to make you laugh too.
Fucking amazing.
When he showed up for his first session of chemo they seated him next to one grumpy motherfucker. Schimmel tried to make conversation and all the guy could say was "leave me alone, I have cancer and don't feel like being sociable". The nurses apologized for seating him there and told him they would not do it again.
Schimmel said nope - I want to sit next to him at every session. He made it his mission to make the guy laugh.
And he did. The nurses could not believe the transformation Schmimmel sparked in the guy over time. He became social, told jokes, and generally lightened up.
How fucking unselfish is that? Schimmel was going through his own personal hell and yet he chose to make someone else's life better.
There are so many brutal moments in the book. One of the worst was when he was one session away from completing chemo. He had been through hell and battled every setback, every indignity, every excruciating pain and kept going. He psyched himself with the knowledge that he was almost done.
Then his body shuts down. His is home alone, his ex-wife is away on a family emergency for an hour or two, and he is suddenly freezing. As he puts it: "Vomit rises into my throat, wet, sour, violent. I squeeze my eyes shut to will it away. My head pounds with searing pain. It feels as if someone is crushing my skull between two concrete blocks. The bones in my back and neck burn. And yet I am so cold."
He decides to get up and get a blanket or a jacket. "I turn my head slowly and focus on the closet door a few steps away. I have to get there. I lift my right leg one inch. Pain shoots through me. Forget the closet. It might as well be in another state."
Miraculously his daughter's boyfriend shows up out of the blue and gets him to the hospital, where they save his life. His immune system had shutdown completely.
This episode broke him, and when his dad walked into the room Schimmel asked him to unhook him so he could die. He told his dad he could not take it any more and he wanted to die. His dad walked out of the room, came back with Schimmel's kids and said "Tell them".
Jesus Christ, that is so heavy - and so wise. Of course he could not do it.
He went on to beat cancer. He fucking beat it and got himself back up on stage where of course he did a whole routine on what it's like to fight for your life against cancer. And made people laugh - and cry.
Now pay attention.
In 1998 Robert Schimmel survived a heart attack. In 2000 he was diagnosed with cancer and beat that. On August 26, 2010 Schimmel was a passenger in his daughter's car in Scottsdale, Arizona. She veered off the road to avoid an oncoming car, and flipped her car onto its side. Schimmel was hospitalized in serious condition. On September 3, 2010 Schimmel died of his injuries. He was 60 years old.
I think his advice is gold.
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