By David Shapiro

Who would have figured how much comfort can be found in a bowl of wonton min?

For the last year, I've been taking quarterly chemotherapy treatments for my multiple sclerosis. The dose isn't as awful as cancer patients get, but still it leaves me feeling blitzed for a week with nausea, lethargy and foggy-headedness.

You know, like I've been poisoned.

One doctor suggested I try marijuana, which reduces the side effects of chemotherapy for some cancer patients, but I've never been a pot user and would feel awkward starting now.

I sense what I really needed to feel better is to eat something, but nothing appeals with the nauseous stomach and funny taste in my mouth.

Until the vision of wonton min floats through my head.

I don't know where it comes from; the last time I ordered wonton min must have been four or five years ago on the Big Island.

But now, I just have a feeling that it would be impossible to feel miserable while eating wonton min — and I know I'm right as soon as I open the container and the savory steam embraces me.

The chemotherapy agent they drip into me is the dark-blue color of toilet bowl cleaner. My neurologist says it originated as a carpet dye before being used for certain cancers, and I didn't ask how it was discovered to have medicinal use. I'm sure it involved some hippie in the '60s.

The first time I took the treatment, I had watched a movie a few nights before about a death-row prisoner executed by lethal injection. The poison they put in him was the same color of blue.

I always feel like a wimp going into a cancer clinic with only multiple sclerosis, a feeling my oncologist, Dr. K (no, not Kevorkian), perpetuates whenever we discuss side effects.

"What are you griping about?" he chides. "The piddling dose I'm giving you is what I'd give a 90-year-old man with prostate cancer."

This offends my friends, who wonder how he'd like getting the needle himself. But I know what he means, and I'm not insulted.

I have three months to completely recover from any side effects of my relatively small dose before the next treatment.

The cancer patients I'm treated side-by-side with get far more potent doses weekly, or even daily, dealing with vastly more debilitating side effects on top of side effects.

These are some of the toughest people I've ever met.

They have their fears, for sure, but mostly they fight one of the most difficult battles life can put before us with courage and grace.

When I ask how they maintain positive attitudes, they answer, "What other choice is there?"

The good news is that chemotherapy is becoming more effective every year, better targeting specific cancers with fewer side effects.

"There are a lot of people walking around today who wouldn't have still been walking around 10 years ago," says Dr. K.

My small experience with what cancer patients go through to achieve their victories only increases my admiration for their fortitude.

I think of them as I dig into my wonton min and taste the sweet slices of char siu and kamaboko, the bits of green onion and bok choy, the dripping noodles, the soft wonton filled with tender pork, the tasty broth spiked with shoyu and mustard.

If only this tonic of noodles and soup could fight off the disease as well as it provides comfort in the battle.

David Shapiro is a Hawai'i journalist who can be reached at dave@volcanicash.net.