"there's no comfort in the waiting room, just nervous pacers bracing for bad news. then the nurse comes round and everyone will lift their head..."i think this is the toughest part. i took the radioactive glucose solution into my veins, swallowed the barium milkshake, and distracted myself with a skiing magazine and by writing a few holiday cards. but the skiing magazine just reminded me that my skiing season is kind of on the line here, and the holiday cards reminded me that there's a chance cancer could play some role in this christmas. and not like last year, when it reminded me of all i'd been through and all was joy, mostly, because i'd gotten more and more used to the idea of it not being here anymore. no, there's a chance it could be back.
so i lay on the table, listened to the hum of the CT machine and the PET machine, closed my eyes as i slipped beneath the laser's attentive beam, and tried to drift to sleep. maybe it was the nap i took after lunch, maybe it was the trepidation of the traffic waiting to face me outside, or maybe it was just my nerves, but i couldn't find the sleep that usually comes so easily when in the room filled with the imaging equipment. usually the warm blanket and hum of the machines lull me to sleep. i've even dreamed while lying there with my arms over my head in an uncomfortable position. but not this evening.
i can be positive 98% of the time. maybe it is more. but that lingering doubt, anger, fear, and confusion which make up the last 2% manifest themselves on these days. the scan day and the next one, when i find out what the computers had to tell us. sometimes i can find peace with being done with the scan. it is over and what's done is done. it has been written somewhere, whatever the radiologist saw, and tomorrow i will find it all out. tonight i am just trying to keep my head above water.
the past four months have been beautifully full of so many things, from friends' weddings to my century to weekend trips to college football season. days of work and weekends of too few hours and dinners and breakfasts and walks with the dog. drugs and careful eating and napping and slowly having it all come back. it has been life, and for that i'm very lucky. but it also makes me greedy for more. you see, i like this life "without the cancer". i wasn't sure i would get the chance to have it again. i have been as "without" as i can be in the past four months. it is the new life for me.
and sometimes i think, well, there was no sign of it then, so how can there be sign of it now, since i am still on the drugs? i know that logic is flawed, and i know the cancer can come back any time and ravage my body. will other drugs or treatments work? or no? these are the heavy things. they keep me awake on the scanning table. they flood my brain in stand-still traffic.
so, tonight i'm going to bed and i've left my worries and fears and anger at the bottom of the stairs. it can't reach me up here. i'll drift to sleep and face it all again in the morning. whatever it brings, i'm not going anywhere yet. so i think. and that is the best news i have to work with right now. i'll let myself daydream one last time, for now, about all the things i have yet to do, all the places i want to see, friends i want to visit, and snow i want to feel under my skis. it is much better for me, now, to be positive. to dwell on the good things, the certainties i have for now, for one more evening, at least.
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