a horizon gone rogue

i swear they are gonna give me PTSD before it’s all said and done.

i will spoil the surprise now by saying everything is okay (a relative notion, keeping in mind the premise of the blog and the fact that i am out of earl grey tea).

a tickle. the fluttering bird in my chest. the post-nasal drip cough. and twice some speck of blood. but i hadn’t coughed up blood that wasn’t preceded by a nose bleed. the cough is better the blood is gone.  my theory of course is that it was only related to the nose bleed. everything is better this week.

then i get a call today that the scan showed a small dark area.  either a) some bits of dead tumor revealed by the receding cancer or b) somehow the cancer is trying to make its way into the airway. one really great option one really bad one.

so the new plan was to have the pulmonologist go up my nose and check it out sometime this week. Then (a few hours later) the doctor called and was relieved to hear i wasn’t coughing anything else up and have been feeling much better in general.

She is now fairly certain that we are in the dead tumor camp. she is thinking maybe they will call off the bronchoscopy.  UPDATE: and now they have.

really.

so today i walked walked walked the dog. cleaned the house. did the dishes. kept waiting. kept my frontal lobe busy with street navigation and the dog who poops twice when you only have one bag that you already threw away type conundrums.

you can just get a phone call and the horizon comes flying at you, brings you to your knees, and after 2 hours another ring and the horizon flies off again. i swear i am just staying in one spot.

and i think, why do they have to do that? i sometimes wish my oncologist was more like a vet. she would be real nice and wouldn’t ever make me answer the phone.

it’s hard to know how to prepare for this thing. it’s hard to know what exactly to do at all.

so i try to notice. to sit on the red couch and notice fear.  the dog barks at small children walking plastic shopping carts up the sidewalk. i get mad cause this means i don’t know if i still get to drive to california later this month. i squint and notice beyond fear.  the windows drip from the water boiling on the stove. there is some jumping off place sooner or later for us all. and it is unknown. even if you think you know the general theme of your own death, it’s still nothing you ever did before.

my idea is that it is the beginning of something not understood. nothing that my linear mind can help me with. our brains work on the basis of what happened before. none of this ever happened before. and i can’t rightly say what will happen next. a discomfiting feeling. one i am trying to really hard to make friends with.

meanwhile i am well loved and taken care of.  grateful for air today. for soup.  for the texture of life under my fingers.

and i am still here.  and tomorrow is the election. i do love me a good election. if you go out and vote i will give you 50 points.

val