They Warned Me

May 16, 2021

They warned me, they really did. Over and over, they said it would get harder before it got better. Over and over, they said I would need to keep eating well, keep listening to my body, keep trying to stay active.  Sure, I said. Sure!

But somehow, last Wednesday, when I drove away from the cancer center, I left the Good Patient behind and picked up the Vagabond Delinquent. And under their very, very bad influence, I burned rubber out of that parking lot and hit warp speed before I was halfway down the block.

The Vagabond Delinquent thought two weeks off from daily trips to the cancer center would be the easy part of this process. Like, the equivalent of a staycation! Because the Vagabond Delinquent does not have to follow rules. The Vagabond Delinquent does not have to live in any reality other than the one of her choosing. The Vagabond Delinquent can work for hours in the garden in the hot sun and feel no ill effects!

Because, you see, the Vagabond Delinquent does not have lung cancer! 

Yeah, well, not so much.

Turns out, when you are getting toxic chemicals inserted into your veins or photon beams shot at a dirty squatter lodged beneath your ribcage, there’s a tangible reason to need a nap or turn down an invitation or even just claim tiredness. But when that’s all done and all you’re doing is invisible stuff– like building new tissue, for example– then what?

Or when the stuff they’ve been preparing you for that never materialized when you were seeing them every damned day starts showing up when the next appointment is more than a week away, then what? (Don’t worry– these are rhetorical questions– I know the answers. I don’t like them, but I know them.)

For two days now, it has been hard to swallow. WTF is that?! It’s actually not swallowing that’s the issue, it’s the moving of lumps of food out of the center of my chest to the next stop on the Peristalsis Express.

For two days now, it hurts in my chest. WTF is that?

I woke up this morning with a cough. No cough until today. WTF is that?! All I can say is that some chunks of tumor better start appearing or I will feel this is a massive miscarriage of justice.

Sometimes, I amaze myself.

Thanks for reading.

Image by sabrina-lopessantos0 from Pixabay

Image by lannyboy89

Image by Mylene2401 from Pixabay