It's a different way to live a life, this way that I got tossed into, 90-day-chunks-at-a-time. Looking ahead to the next check, always. The next scan, the next appointment. These doctors like to spy my insides, to assure themselves or me that all is still well.
That I am healthy, which I am.
So like Groundhog's Day, I wake to the same day...
...it is here again, I think with resignation, setting my jaw and steeling myself to move. To walk to the place I don't want to go.
No wine or sweets the night before, no coffee or food the morning of...I don't even brush my teeth. Yuck, I know, but it fits the mood, my somber mood about it all.
Then before leaving, I put away my lists, the ones I will tell you about later.
Going down the driveway, I glance back at my home. My happy home, where I have lived and loved, where my sweet people live too, and I wish to be for decades more, or even longer. Then I take the route that makes me happy. It's not the quickest, but I've never been one to pick the fastest. I usually drive the ways with places where I've been happy. And so on these mornings every three months...I travel by the coffee shop and the sushi place, the bakery and the garden shop. The exercise club and the middle school, my old neighborhood too.
Prayers fall from my mouth, spoken out loud in that car. Prayers to circle me and my family and friends in the white light of the Holy Spirit, with gold surrounding, and the purple of Archangel Michael everywhere. Affirmations spill with conviction from my lips: all my cells are healthy and happy, things are working out perfectly for me and my beloveds, and I expect great things today.
At my destination....I walk in, through that revolving door. I skip a bit, as it's a quick door.
Sun beams fall into this place, piano music twinkles, people hustle this way and that, saying excuse me with a smile. Not like the pushy shopping carts at Cosco, people are considerate, they are kind here. Some look very sick, but there is purpose. It is a place that takes life seriously, this is no place to take anything for granted. Some people are hairless, others pull oxygen machines. People who look healthy accompany some, pushing wheelchairs and speaking to receptionists for their beloveds. I am never self-conscious of my prosthetic leg here, for these people know that I was a heroine in a battle. They understand, no explanation needed.
We are a mighty tribe of warriors.
At the elevator I stand next to a woman with a t-shirt that says Hoot Owl Resort. Desperate for distraction from my own thoughts I chatter to her...
....it sounds like a fun place.
It is, she says. Friendly but a little weary, with a sigh.
I think to keep talking to her...to reassure us both that boats and flowers, heat and fireflies are on their way. To say something about sunny days being nearly here and won't it be glorious? You know, the way we do, as we say to one another...spring is in the air, we are nearly there, winter sucks and be damned! But then, I notice her yellow skin, her gaunt eyes, and wonder if she will be here, on this earth, so I do not speak of summer. In this place, it is best to speak in present tense.
But where else is it appropriate to speak of more than now, for any of us, anywhere?
After waiting in a room with sick people, I walk back to where I received chemo two years ago. I am just here for the lab, I am one of the lucky ones. Sometimes I know my nurse, which always makes me happy, like I am visiting an old friend. I bring them donuts and muffins, scones and brownies, willing the universe to make these visits celebrations of healing, rather than scary check-ups. And I like to thank these medical folks who saved me, plugging and unplugging me from blood transfusions, with purpose and conviction that I was worth saving.
For in all their believing and hard work they made me want to work hard and they helped me know I was worth saving. They are heroes, these angels on earth.
After the blood draw, I walk down to the imaging center, where I wait again. My heart beats in my chest, I can hear it. These visits are hard, no matter how many go by, they are hard. Read your book, Julie, read...still your mind, you can do it. So maybe I get half a page read, but it is enough to preoccupy me until...
...my buzzer rings, and I look up to a scan tech. Sometimes I exclaim with happiness when I get one of my favorites...his name is Tim. He cheerfully takes me through those swinging doors, down that long white hallway, where I always joke that they need some art work, always this same comment from me. But then I love to get the room with the beautiful blue swirling image on the ceiling, like heaven. The room where Tim told me once that lots of people cry...it all becomes too much, too much purpose, I guess. So Tim kindly lets me take off my mask, as he has seen through my nerves. I think he has seen the real me anyway. I have tried to fake it, be the chill one, not be a bother...but these people watch carefully...and they really see people like me, they do.
Julie, this will take just two breaths, in and out. Quick and we will be done, no contrast. Do you remember?
Yes, yes I do remember, Tim...I am an old pro with these scans, for I've been put in one tube or another more than 40 times to date. Radiation, MRIs, PET scans and CT scans, I know them all, I know the drill. So just like last time, and the time before that, I put my arms over my head, lying there on that table for a chest CT scan, the easiest of them all. Tim leaves the room, and the machine whirs, a voice coming over a microphone.
Like God, only more matter of fact...
...hold your breath...now you can breathe. Hold your breath...now you can breathe.
Then Tim's cheerful voice...Julie, you are done!
And air spills from my spied on lungs, replaced by this ebullient joy.
It is done, done, done, done! DONE! And I crawl off that table, I can't crawl quick enough...
...so back through the revolving doors, I am one of the lucky ones, a quick appointment. Mine has taken no more than 45 minutes...for too many others, it will be a good part of their day in this place.
I remember, I do.
Gulping in the outside air, I walk to my car. It is done, I have done it, gold star for me. Once in my car....I thank the angels and pull out my lists.
The list of all the things I did the last three months...and the list of all the things I will do the next 90 days. I will. These lists are more than an organizing trick, for sure, they are saying, shouting, screaming to the universe...
...don't forget me, never ever, I have things to do. Fun things, work things, love things...important things to do.
Yes it is a different way to live a life, this one I was tossed into, 90-day-chunks-at-a-time. But it is a good way too.
Because I have lists...and you can too. So delay no longer, please don't delay, let's get out our paper and pens...
Comments