And so it goes…

“I want to show you something.” That followed an opening of “I don’t have good news.” My doctor then lead me out of the exam room over to a computer with images of my two day old CT Scan displayed. He pointed to a gray blur between my left kidney and my aorta and said “this is an enlarged lymph node…”

The rest of the conversation was about referring me to an oncologist and getting a rather dicey biopsy performed. Dicey because of the proximity of the aorta.

I felt nothing. No fear, no despair, no anger, absolutely nothing. I just stood looking at that smear of gray before returning to the exam room to collect my things and leave. Somewhere there might have been an “I’m sorry” spoken. I don’t know, I wasn’t hearing much either. Just a deep black void where nothing at all existed.

This happened on December 3rd, 2008. On February 1st, 2009, I had planned to celebrate the magical fifth year of no cancer with my wife. So much for that.

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You’re currently reading “And so it goes…,” an entry on Michael’s Blog

Published:: December 18, 2008 / 4:45 am

Category:: Body

Tags:: biopsy, cancer, ct scan, kidney, lymph node, oncologist, wife

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Those of us condemned to an often slow death or to watch a loved one approaching death are caught up in a world of thoughts normally relegated to the stuff of bad dreams. Memories of our past, doubts of our present and pessimism about our future swirl around us as we make our inevitable way to the end. Some of us are fortunate indeed. We are seen as being graceful or humble. But we know what we really are. We are death walking among the living. We just haven’t laid down and closed our eyes.

My name is Michael, my wife’s name is Marvina. These are our thoughts. Some may be troubling to you, hopefully some will not. But it is our life, our journey to take. You are welcome to walk with us for a bit or not at all. Such would be your life.

Marvina 12.18.08 / 6pm

You are not dead, Michael. Not by a long shot. We don’t even know what the “gray blur” is in that cat scan. Maybe part of your dark outlook is my fault. I’m sorry for that. I am a worrier and I let my worrying seep into you. I should have known better than to let you see me worry – worry is contagious. So I propose that we get over ourselves and just live. Again, we don’t know what the biopsy will find. You said you don’t feel that it is anything – I don’t feel anything negative. The cats don’t follow you around like you smell funny, so let’s just live. I’ll get off the worry boat, you escape from the pity party and we’ll just go on like we always have. We’ll see the second oncologist, we’ll have our anniversary, we’ll try to get the fireplace fixed and we’ll just keep moving forward. I’m sorry I let my worry seep into you. And that part about you being dead, but you just haven’t closed your eyes? That is not true. We have no diagnosis yet. You don’t get to claim Zombie status yet. So there.

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And so it goes…

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