Scan Time Is Fun Time: Not So Much | Sep 18 2024

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Quarterly Scans (Plus Benefits)

Lung scan time may not be fun time, but it always seems to kick open some new doors as I go through my lung cancer days. This time was no different. I opted to do this quarter’s scans at a smaller hospital in a nearby town– mostly because the usual site had no available appointments, even though I was scheduling three months in advance. The smaller hospital isn’t far from a good espresso and ice cream store, so it wouldn’t have been a real hardship. This time, though, me n’my lungs were ready to get out of the neighborhood, so I decided to ride my bike. That ice cream had to wait– a cyclist could get killed on the four-lane roads to that store.

That’s OK– I’ll trade ice cream and coffee for good results any day. The scans were quick (relatively), and the report came in that evening. Everything’s stable. My exact thoughts: Phew. Good. Free until Christmas (next scans in December.)

I should clarify: everything you can see on a CT scan is stable. I think it would be useful– and very cool– if someone developed a tool that could read a patient’s internal state. Then that would be Data; I bet oncologists would be more likely to weave a patient’s emotional equilibrium into their ongoing health plan with something “objective” and measurable, like Data.

Dr. Oncology seems better at this than most doctors, yet even she merely nods when I describe how I’m doing (outside the realm of breathing, coughing, and changes in balance, vision, or cognition, that is). Then I move to the exam table and she listens to my lungs. I get hearty congratulations when things sound good. That’s very nice, but I can’t take all the credit. After all, I swallow a daily medication that retails for $566 per pill before insurance. Swallowing doesn’t take much effort. And, I religiously use other medications to prevent pulmonary inflammation, AKA asthma. OK, I do (mostly) eat a Mediterranean diet, and exercise, and meditate. I believe that helps create a physical environment that tells cancer to take a flying leap, but let’s tell the truth– diet and exercise don’t change genetic mutations. They don’t cure cancer.

Reconciling myself to that is my work. Yep, I have CancerShrink to help, but for the other 167 hours of the week, it’s me, myself, and I. And while scans lately haven’t been provoking the typical anxiety, the three of us have been tripping over each other’s feet as we consider the question,  How do I want to spend my time? (Of course, that comes with the unspoken bonus question, how much time is there?) The answer to the first question morphs with every scan and every significant development in my community of survivors, such as a death or new mets or side effects that turn a friend into a walking skeleton. The second question is crazy-making; I don’t engage. But with the most recent scans has come the realization that I’m in the middle of a slow, surprising change.

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Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There

Lately, it feels like there are two kinds of time. The obvious one is World Time. World Time revolves around clocks and schedules and deadlines and concepts like Getting Ahead and Being A Success. Then there’s inner time, which is more like a landscape that stretches so far you can’t see the end. That’s where watching bees in poppies can take an hour, feel like a minute, and leave a little token of peace. World Time has no patience with any other kind of time. It just rolls along, flattening everything in its path.

My friend TheTeach tells me dogs have no conception of time. (He should know– he’s part dog.) He says his dog, romping in the backyard, is thrilled to find his favorite chew toy; he dives in and is enveloped by Chew Toy Time. If he sees a squirrel, he might pause a beat and then become immediately immersed in Squirrel Time. Of primary importance are his people; often, their presence supersedes even the most delectable toy or invasive creature. TheTeach, recently retired, tells me he thinks about time, and about how he wants to be sure he makes time to do nothing. He likes doing nothing, he tells me. He doesn’t apologize for it or make excuses. He says it in the same way someone says they like salad, or bowling. It strikes me as a brave thing to do, as if he’s bringing World Time to heel as he lets inner time spread itself out and he makes himself at home. Oh, he does stuff, he says. But he runs every possibility against his own algorithm: How does the new possibility affect his family? Is it kind? Does it somehow relate to or forward literacy? (See why I call him TheTeach?)

I was about to write that I have no algorithms, only a powerful urge to do everything, all at once, hence my sometimes frustration at having not enough time. Perhaps because I’m acutely aware that, in the larger scheme of things, I might not. But as I think about it, I realize I’ve become more clear since the scans before these. I can articulate what I value most: Am I able to create something? Does my intellect have enough to chew on? Am I doing something to make a difference to someone, or some thing I believe in? I find I’m tuning my focus like a tractor beam onto things meeting these criteria. And since talking with TheTeach, I’m tantalized by the idea of planning to do nothing.

The winter season looms here, when the rain comes and the grey settles in. Soon it’ll be hibernating time, a time for reading and projects and quiet. I can’t wait to see what happens.

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