Reflections on HOPE, and good news...

I've been too busy
living
to have much time
to reflect
on my predicament.

Denial?

Not
exactly.

Well,

maybe a little.



It does amaze me to experience a sort of physical amnesia about the pain and suffering of the past three years, when I read back over the posts.  Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful. Grateful to be one of the 80% of us predisposed to optimism (see The Optimism Bias) since I seem to be able to morph even terminal cancer into a mostly ecstatic life.  And I do believe that in some cases ignorance IS bliss.
But, more than that, I think this forgetting is mostly a good thing.  Some things, like pain, and childbirth, ARE best forgotten, or why would we embark on another pregnancy? Or a major surgery?

Its HOPE.

Hope and amnesia.

          So, after spending some weeks really, truly coming to grips with my immanent mortality, composing notes to be read upon my demise, and rehearsing the generous "I don't want you to be alone" conversation, among other cliches, I was angry and depressed. Being a Pollyanna doesn't give you many tools to descend into the pit of despair with, and behind my facade of normalcy, I was sad. Weepy and 'woe is me' sorry for myself, and filled with longing for the long life that I was unlikely to have. My tumors were growing, and the next chemo was horrid and disfiguring.

BUT:  to the rescue! After my case being presented to the Liver Tumor Board, I am now a candidate for liver surgery, and there is hope that they can actually remove the last of my cancer, (along with quite a bit of my liver) and that the remaining bit of my liver will be able to regenerate itself, like a chameleon's tail.

And then I could be disease-free!

THAT is my hope.

Lunar eclipse

So,
I am preparing for
liver surgery.



After the Wedding.

(And
a
chemo
holiday
until then!)


Sometimes,
hope makes all the difference

Xina's Report...or, "All's well that ends well..."

We ended up at Fox Chase Cancer Center, in Risk Assessment, after all
 Just to make sure.

(Just to set her mind at ease and talk to someone who knew what they were talking about.)

Only I could tell that she was nervous, as we sat in the waiting room,
                                       which is a pretty scary place,

                                          just because every other person in there has cancer.

Anyway, she went in alone.

So brave.

And then they invited me into the exam and consultation. It was ... thorough, professional, directed at Xina, reassuringly normal, Normal, NORMAL!!!

               (How little we now about our bodies, how various they are.)

Best of all, compassion and connection oozed out of our caregiver, who listened and made sure we didn't have any more questions, before she let us go.

We exhaled.

We had permission to resume life, as normal.

I felt like a phonograph record suddenly starting again after being lifted, silent, poised over the rotating vinal...picking up the tune right where it left off, as we went out to lunch, chatting casually.

Its a cliche to say that the not knowing is the hard part.  But it does feel like suspended animation, in a way, to wait for news like that, like the hovering needle, amazed that somehow the record (read 'life', here) has the temerity to continue rotating below without us, its lovely music just beyond reach.