I didn’t want to be here, facing it.
The spot on the xray is glaring, bright white, angrily testifying the treatment to follow. I’m sad for what’s been sapped, for this ache that will only get worse through excise. Can I get a morphine drip, please? This feels like iodine, swabbing down sternum, rattling my cage.
I’m scrubbing in, but my hand doesn’t feel any cleaner, and I can’t stop myself – I keep looking at the phone on the wall, waiting for the call saying scans were mixed up
(I don’t mean that, I wouldn’t wish this purgatory on anyone)
that malignancy was someone else’s
(couldn’t we just use radiation? I’ll puke for weeks on chemo, if that’s what it takes. Maybe my hair will fall out and grow back in, straight and soft and lively, and we’ll be in remission)
that it was just a persistent cough
(it hurts to breathe)
.
It’s not angiosarcoma, but it feels like a stage-three diagnosis.
I’m going under, counting myself backwards from 10
which might be going forward, if you really think about it – who’s to say?
but all this mask is giving me are ketamine dreams of what if and never more.
* I don’t have cancer, yo. I’m being artsy or morbid or metaphorical or poetic or something.
