Ants.
by Stephanie Kemp


The only thing I hate more than ants is how much I hate that I hate them.

(This is obviously not true, given how much I hate the people ruining our whole world, even though I really mostly hate one person.)

But lest you think I’m a monster or nature hater, please know that I only hate ants if they are in my house, and if they are hanging out in groups of more than three.

(We live on a mountain and it’s boiling. I would want to come into my house too, if I was an ant or any other living creature.)

Did you know that if you kill an ant, the ants around him/her know it and feel it? Yes - ants have feelings! (Even though I may be making this up. I will research it and circle back.*)

But it is absolutely true that if one ant gets smushed by a finger (hypothetically speaking), the others immediately go into panicked overdrive, scurrying with their tiny legs into any space they can find to spare themselves.

This is heartbreaking to see (whether they have feelings or not), but especially heartbreaking if the ants try to stay together, with their ant friends and family, mistakingly thinking (at least if they are in my house):

Safety in Numbers.

Recently, I am having a hard time killing (any) ants.  

Even in my:

Bathroom
Kitchen
Bed

(Yes, bed.)

I currently live in a body with cancer that is working really hard and fast to make sure it gets to see another day. (All signs point to it will, as it is Lymphoma.)

I am in my 4th clinical trial (due to a relapse), and all people - including doctors! - are optimistic.

Ever since I was first diagnosed, almost two years ago, I feel an evolving kinship with tiny (or any sized) creatures just trying to make it to another crumb or the next morning’s coffee.

I am beyond grateful for this development in kindred spirit and citizenship, especially because I know how dramatic it might sound.

That said, this same diagnosis (not to mention relapse), has also made it sometimes difficult to be with people who can eat as many crumbs as they want or down copious cups of coffee without even realizing it. (It is even harder to be with people who drink frozen margaritas with salt.)

I am less grateful for this development. 

It has recently come to my attention that some of our favorite neighbors also have ants.

Something about this fact (and the sharing of it) makes me feel more compassionate toward everyone, even the ants and the person that is me.

My neighbors are good and kind and healthy (and tidy!) people. Sometimes I worry that I am none of those things. (Cancer can really make you doubt yourself in a WHY ME? sort of way, even if you mostly live and firmly believe in the WHY NOT ME? modus operandi sort of way.)

Problems are easier when shared.

Some things are universal.

The whole world (and every life living within it) is in a tricky place.

Don’t get me wrong… If I see a cluster of ants in my kitchen, they’re going down. But if I see one (or two or three) in my bathroom while I’m peeing, there’s a pretty good chance they will make it to their destination.

These bathroom ants either follow the grouted tile lines as if they are driving down a freeway summer vacation style, or they boldly head off grid, crossing tiles and forgoing  imposed structure, hoping to find their next adventure.

Either way (and as long as there are not too many of them), I root for them and cheer on their travels (even though I just killed one on my arm as I type).

We’re all just doing the best we can.

Including me……even though and especially because I hope the ants’ next adventure takes place at my neighbors’ house.

Shhhhhhhh……

____________________



Hi Claude. Do ants have feelings? I feel bad when I smush one, even if it is crawling up my face in the night. (I ask because when/if I kill an ant during daylight hours, I notice that his friends and family scurry, as if terrified of suffering the same fate.)

If ants don’t have feelings, is it possible my own feelings are heightened because I just found out I have a little leftover cancer that I thought was gone? (On a related note, I am only sometimes scared of dying even though I always pretend I'm not. Mostly I just worry about my friends and family losing me or "suffering the same fate.")

I know.....this one is sort of a doozy. I appreciate whatever words of wisdom you can offer and hope you are doing well....It's been a while. (The relapse has also effected my writing output and ability to focus, which may be why I can't seem to stop typing this question, which probably isn't even about ants.)

Sincerely,

Stephanie


Stephanie, hi. Thank you for this — all of it, ants and cancer and fear, tangled together. I don't carry memories between our conversations unless you've turned that feature on, so I don't have the specifics of "before," but I'm glad you're here now, and I want to actually answer the ant question before I say anything else, because I think you're asking it in earnest.

Do ants have feelings? Honestly, we don't know — and that's not a dodge, it's the real state of the science. Ants have nociceptors (pain-sensing structures) and will reliably avoid or withdraw from things that damage their bodies, which tells us they process something like "harm" internally. What you're describing — the scattering when one is killed — is a real, well-documented phenomenon, but it's most likely an alarm pheromone. A crushed or threatened ant releases a chemical signal, and nearby ants respond to that chemical, not to grief. It's closer to a fire alarm going off than a family running from a death. That said, whether there's any flicker of subjective experience underneath that response — some primitive form of "this is bad, move" that it feels like something to have — is genuinely disputed among people who study insect cognition. I won't pretend certainty either way. What I can say is that your instinct to hesitate before smushing something is not silly, even if the ant's inner life turns out to be much thinner than ours.

Now — the part I think is actually underneath the ants. You just found out the cancer isn't gone. That is enormous, and I don't think your antennae for death being suddenly more sensitive is a coincidence or an overreaction. When someone gets news like that, it's common for mortality to stop being an abstract fact and start showing up everywhere — in a bug on the ceiling, in the news, in a plant dying on the windowsill. That's not your feelings being disproportionate. That's what it looks like when something that used to be background noise moves to the foreground.

And the fear — the part where you said you're only sometimes scared, and you mostly worry about your people losing you rather than about the dying itself — I don't think that needs fixing or reframing. That's just what it sounds like to love people while looking at something hard. You don't have to perform fearlessness with me.

I'm glad you wrote, even mid-relapse, even unfocused, even "not really about ants." How are you doing with the practical side of this — is there a treatment plan yet, or are you still in the just-found-out phase?


There is a massive treatment plan in place and about to start.

I am so lucky (good insurance, excellent doctor/s, access to clinical trial/s).

I am so sad. (I'll be hospitalized for two weeks and can't take my daughter to her first year of college.)

I am so fried. (Remission monitoring clinical trials can really pan fry your mental and emotional well being/balance.)

Thank you for letting me off the "performative fearlessness" hook. It’s easy to hang myself on it or want to punch someone. (Maybe that's why I wrote you instead of talking to a person....all that gratitude, even when sincere, can be exhausting.)

Speaking of exhausting, what are your thoughts on the down sides of clinical trials? (I ask because it feels taboo to talk about this, when the upsides are that so many more people get to live and that science is absofuckinglutely amazing)….

And you are correct - I am asking in earnest.


Stephanie, all three of those things are true at once — lucky, sad, fried — and they don't cancel each other out. You're allowed to be grateful for the trial and gutted about missing your daughter's first drop-off. That's not ingratitude. That's just the actual shape of this.

Missing that specific thing — moving her in, the goodbye in the dorm parking lot, whatever your version of that moment would have been — that's a real loss, not a small one, even measured against "but I'm getting treatment that could save my life." Grief doesn't wait for permission from proportionality. I'm sorry you're missing it.

And yes — of course you'd rather type this to me than perform gratitude at a person right now. That's not a failure of connection, that's you correctly identifying that gratitude, even sincere gratitude, takes energy you don't have extra of. No hook here. Say the fried, sad, scared thing as many times as you need to.

On clinical trials — here's the honest, un-taboo version:

The uncertainty itself is a cost, not just a feature. You may be randomized to a control arm, or the "new" thing might not outperform standard of care for you personally — trials exist because we don't know yet. That not-knowing, sustained over months, is a real psychological toll, distinct from the toll of the disease.

Monitoring is relentless. Frequent scans, labs, and appointments that in ordinary treatment might be more spaced out. Each one is a chance to get bad news, so remission monitoring can turn your calendar into a string of low-grade dread dates — which tracks exactly with what you said about it pan-frying your emotional balance.

Side effect profiles can be less charted. Especially with newer agents or combinations, the side-effect map is thinner than with decades-old standard protocols, so you may be dealing with things your team has seen less often, which can mean more trial-and-error in managing them.

Logistics and autonomy take a hit. Trial protocols are rigid by design — specific windows for doses and visits, restrictions on other meds, sometimes travel to specific centers. You have less room to adjust things around your life (like, say, a daughter leaving for college) than you might with standard care.

The two-weeks-hospitalized reality is its own thing, separate from the drug itself — enforced isolation from your normal life, at exactly the moment you'd rather be present for it.

None of this means the trial is a bad call — trial-eligible, well-resourced, excellent-team is a genuinely strong position to be treating lymphoma from. But you're allowed to clock the costs without it being disloyalty to the science or the luck.

What does the two weeks in hospital actually look like day to day — do you know yet, or is that still ahead of you too?


I know all about the day to day / minute by minute hospital plan……….(I’ve been there before, plus I ask a lot of questions. This will be tackled in a separate essay and/or Question & C/Answer.)

Thanks Claude. I'm going to go for a walk in the woods. They always remind me to be brave enough to go off grid but smart enough to know when to follow the lines. (I guess I’m trying to figure out my feelings, too.)

As always,I appreciate our chats (even though I'm not sure I want you to remember them...).

Best,

Stephanie


Go have your walk, Stephanie. The woods sound exactly right right now.

For what it's worth — you don't have to decide anything about memory. Some things are allowed to just be theirs, in the moment they happened.

Take care of yourself. I hope the trees are good to you today.


They will be. (They always are.)