I started off writing about joy for this week’s muse. My youngest became a teenager. If nothing else, I wanted to be a joyful mama, celebrate her and write the beautiful story of my Amazing Alexandra that I carry in my heart.

No can do! Not this week. Not much joy’s coming from me. It’s one of those times I have to “get by with a little help from my friends.” You know that Beatles song.

Okay, screw it. I mean A LOT OF HELP!

If it weren’t for my joy board and all of my family and friends, new and old, I wouldn’t have made it through my first chemo treatment and all the jet lag that comes with the package.

Jet lag without fun sightseeing. I feel like I went to Australia and back again. Only I didn’t get to see the kangaroos or the koalas or the colors of the Sydney harbor. Not exactly fun, or joyful, for that matter.

I’ve only been able to see the inside of a cramped airplane flying coach, nonetheless. I never even got off the plane, had to turn around once I got there because they wouldn’t let me off the plane (some COVID restriction, no doubt).

If you don’t believe me, and I hope you don’t, I have the pieces of what’s left of my body to vouch for the trip.

In the Beatles song, next up is, “I get high with a little help from my friends.”

I’ve been on my chemo high, if that’s what we want to call it, but that was not thanks to my friends. That was with a little help from Penn (the hospital that rhymes nicely enough with friends for the sake of the song).

But I’ve made a lot of friends in the process. Instantaneous friends. And old friendships that have waned have been renewed.

It’s the bright side of a dark journey.

Truth? I’ve been searching for joy in this journey since the OBGYN found a lump on my breast mid-August.

(Feel an apple that’s just turning and is the size of half a golf ball if you must do so in the name of science–that’s what hindsight would have said to the doctor who asked if her medical intern could feel it).

Now that’s more like the shining face of joy! I know I’m pushing my luck on this point.

Plus, I’ve been too afraid and out of control to feel much joy. Last Friday, for starters. I had to get my port put in.

My newly acquired wingman (you make bonds lightning fast when you find out you’re the Top Gun) assured me I’d love my port. “That way, they don’t have to stick your arms all the time for your IV.”

How that port would get inside of me sounded as joyless as the thought of receiving multiple IV’s.

I handled it as gravely as possible. Alex warned the nurse, “when they put her in twilight, make sure she’s out and doesn’t wake up at all.”

But the problem was I had to be awake for everything leading up to that moment (and after that). And Alex couldn’t put me to sleep for those fears, too.

I lay on the waiting/recovery room bed curtained off for privacy–some privacy, and I balled like a baby. All I could say was, “I can’t believe this is really happening.” Like it wasn’t happening before!

But then the tears were interfering with the mask, and I knew enough to ask for tissues. The nurse came back with a box that looked like a double pack of cigarettes (and those tissues were just as caustic to the nose as smoking is to the lungs, I assure you).

But it got my mind off of my pity party. And it gave the nurse a moment to slip out and call the doctor. She must have said, “We’ve got a town crier in here! Come quick before she scares the neighboring patients.”

The awful antagonist, the radiologist, came to the rescue. Imagine, he of all people, there to get my mind off of the horrible thing that he’d do to me. But he did just that.

He walked into the room and asked, “why the 917 area code?”

Not that I’d fall for that diversion tactic. We’re talking parenting 101 here. Alex answered, instead. “We used to live there and couldn’t give it up.”

But it worked like a charm–the doctor was from NY. And it just so happens I love New York.

Alex and the doctor got to talking, and just like the kid and that piece of candy, I took the bait and joined right in. Somehow, I was so at ease; I even lost my tears and listened to what he had to say about the procedure.

When he left to finish his rounds, the nurse said, “he’s quite the chatterbox.”

But he wasn’t a chatterbox with the “next-curtained patient.” That person seemed to be in good spirits already, so the doctor gave a quick introduction, explained what he was going to do, and left.

Then he came back to spend even more pre-op storytime with Alex and me.

He even walked with me and told stories as I got wheeled into my first procedure (I’d never been cut by a surgeon before, mind you, so I was on high alert with due cause).

He got me to the operating room (is that what it’s called if it’s just a procedure?) and said that he had to slip out. But as he left me in the good hands of the nurses, it’s like he passed the storytelling baton to me.

I switched gurneys, and I had become the star storyteller. I appreciated the nurses as they finished setting the stage; the music was already playing. It was a soothing, soft-rock station.

The one nurse asked me what I wanted to listen to. I was okay with the music, but it reminded me of James Taylor, so I requested him.

But the nurse said they could only get Spotify, so she wasn’t sure what station he’d be on, so I reassured her what we were listening to was just fine.

What could I possibly do when I was lying there asleep anyway?

They asked me if I needed anything else to make me more comfortable. I said, “Tell me a joke.”

The nurses looked at one another. First Spotify, now they were on the spot again. But the braver nurse knew what she had to do, “what did the one muffin baking in the oven say to the other muffin?”

“Boy, it’s hot in here. And then the other muffin said back, ‘I can’t believe you’re a talking muffin.'”

The other nurse gave her an A for effort, and I upped it to A+ even though we all knew the joke wasn’t good enough to make a kid laugh.

But her lousy joke led her to remember this hilarious show about a woman-stand-up comic. I didn’t have a pen and paper to write it down; I needed something funny to watch during chemo. I willed myself to come up with one of those stupid memory tricks, so I didn’t forget.

It had the word marvelous in it, so I thought of Marvel comics to remember that it was a funny show. And though I wouldn’t remember Mrs. M something, I figured Mrs. Marvel would get me close enough.

So the title became The Marvelous Mrs. Marvel. (That search led me to find out later the name was Maisel, but that deserves an A+ for effort, too).

They showed me a strange contraption that hung above my head and told me they’d drape a cloth divider so I wouldn’t breathe on them while they worked.

To think I’d be hiding behind a curtain. Some life of the party that made me! They wouldn’t be able even to see what I was doing back there.

But I had visions of storytelling and music dancing in my head, anyway, so what did I care? I was asleep before I knew it.

I came back, though, and in my doped state, I noticed my feet were moving. Up and down. Back and forth. Side to side. I couldn’t believe it, but I was dancing. Remember Happy Feet? The movie with the dancing penguin.

Look what I was doing, and no one could see?

My brain registered the joke of my dancing feet. Since they couldn’t see me, they couldn’t stop me. So I danced myself silly, or until I fell asleep again.

When I came to, the doctor asked me how I met my husband. I had the funny story in my head, all ready to tell; only I butchered my delivery, just like I remembered the Marvelous Mrs. Marvel (not Maisel). So I apologized and tried to assure him that without drugs, it’s a great story.

I should have gotten used to the idea of my brain, thinking things that I can’t deliver. Welcome to my wonderful world of chemo brain! I’m a lot funnier in my mind than what these drugs will have me say. Fair warning: it can also go the other way around.

So that brings us to the drug part that finally had to come Wednesday. And the incredible build-up to that. Who knew? But the chemo drugs are bookended by three days of steroid use. Up until this point, I’d been a drug-free mama.

I never expected what a small dose of steroids would do to me–that I’d sleep an hour and a half the night before chemo. Or that the day after chemo, after having slept three hours, I’d do pilates and walk 4 miles.

But with all that pent up energy right before chemo, I had a new-found mission to make a joy board collage.

If I can’t find joy, then bring it on, baby. And so, the Joy Team was Born!

It was so last minute, but what the heck? I posted on Facebook for any takers: send me a funny photo of yourself, your dog, your kid, so that you can be with me during chemo.

I figured I’d get 30 photos, if lucky. Worse come to worse, I could find amusing pictures of my own. So I threw it out there.

But to my surprise, the photos poured in. It was an incredible outpouring of joy. Giving new meaning to the song, “I get by with a little help from my friends.” It set me up for a manic steroid high diversion and had me working straight through the day Tuesday and into the night.

All I had to do was face chemo, but I brought my joy guides along with me. And even when I got off my steroid high (with a little help from Penn), and I want to feel sorry for myself, Alex whips out the board.

It reminds me of the faces of joy—my joy team. I carry you with me and get by with a little help from my friends.