you're mine, scubi

when you're 26 years old and someone tells you, "you have cancer", a number of things start ricocheting around your head. they come in all shapes and sizes, worries, frustrations, hopes, dreams, questions, comments, phrases, sentences, run on sentences, and so on and so forth. i kept a notebook next to my bed in case i thought of anything important. you learn that it all ends up being somewhat important. and inevitably, i would forget to bring the notebook with me when i had to go anywhere important, like doctor appointments and doctor appointments (because, what other kind of appointment is there now, anyway). that's why mom has her own notebook, with her own questions, which mimic my own, and she takes notes and asks questions when it is time. at least that's how it went at first, when anything and everything is fresh in your head and there is an urgent sense of getting it all down.

so, when i found out i had cancer, i began to have thoughts along the lines of "i'd better write a will". not because i thought death was particularly imminent, or because i have a particularly significant estate to manage, but because everywhere you read when it comes to cancer, there are things mentioning "getting your affairs in order". this, to me, meant (a) to be showered and clean at all times when visiting hospitals to give people a sense of me being alive, healthy, and not at all life-threateningly sick and (b) writing a will. to be honest, i began thinking about the will on or around the time of my first PET scan, which i was pretty sure carried with it a risk of death from something. i used to be scared of all this medical shit. and now, i say, bring it. (just pretty please don't stick me with a needle in my hand or make me watch you sticking me with a needle anywhere and don't give me bad news ever) then i had the surgery that prompted my cancer diagnosis, before which i thought, "maybe i need a will". that thought was preceded by the hospital receptionist's question of "are you religious", to which i replied "no, er, catholic, er no, uh.... next". if i'm not religious i'd better have a will, because that'll prove at least i'm a prepared person. which i wasn't at the time. under anesthesia and all, no will. wake up, have cancer. no will.

months passed.

lots of discussions in my head.

and i promise, from time to time, on my list of things to do for the week, "write will" or "call lawyer" or "find lawyer".

so then i was signed up for some more serious surgery, and when they have you sign the forms, they really do tell you "death" is a "risk" and you might "die". bah! "write will", the list for the week said, right after (i shit you not) "ski at snowbird". the night before my surgery, the one where i was prone on a table and a tall guy took away 2/3 of my lung during a three plus hour "affair" (it was in order, for sure), i decided i'd better get something on paper. i divvied up my belongings. it took about four sentences. having established one beneficiary (for the most part) i left it all to him to deal with. and i made sure to make note: i want a party at the lake. none of this graveyard bologna. i tucked it inside my journal, i told mom where it was, i surrendered to the countdown backwards from ten, and when i woke up there i was, having the breathing tubes removed (cough, liz, i need you to cough. good job!) and i hadn't succumbed to the "risk" of "death".

even after the cancer had "gone away" i lived life on the edge. what 20-something has a will? seriously. well, probably the ones who've dealt with cancer. note to others: get some life insurance, too, while you still can! but, writing the will, it waited. and waited.

and then, the cancer came back.

and again, there is so much swimming around in your head as patient v.2. and again, i started seeing "write will" and "find lawyer" show up on the lists.

sometime in march i finally contacted a lawyer in west chester, one a friend had recommended. i didn't need anything fancy. just something official. and, wow, i can't believe i'm saying this, i guess we need to talk about DNR orders, too. because the hospitals, they ask about those, and there you are, a 27 year old without DNR orders. i gave him a list of the things that needed to be included - bank accounts, retirement funds, and the important stuff - ski collections, bicycles, framed livestrong items, books, cameras. it all went into a word document and i proofread it and then, for whatever reason, it sat in my gmail for more months. sometime in june, after finishing carboplatin and rolling right along into maintenance drugs, i finally sat in the lawyer's office and signed the will, DNR orders, and power of attorney forms. you sign your name about two thousand times. the lawyer does, the witnesses do. in my case, the witnesses were the lawyer's wife and brother. his granddaughter was there, too, but she was only six months old and couldn't write. otherwise i'd have her signature all over my legal docs.

a week or so later it all came in the mail, and i had the familiar blue-backed legal documents in my filing cabinet. i think i've made copies. i think i know where they are. the affairs, for now, are in order.

this was a really long way of getting around to my next little tidbit:

today i received the bill for my last payment to chase auto finance for my subaru. i'll write a check later this week, chase will cash it, and i will own my car.

in my will there's something somewhere that says something about having to "pay off the rest of the subaru". i didn't speed up payments or pay extra or anything. im paying it off exactly when i had planned to. i'm going to own my car.

here's to lasting longer than sometimes i thought i would.

take that, cancer. eff you.