I missed a day with you.
I’m keeping this numbered chronology intact, but a day
and a night slipped by in there unrecorded.
It’s happened before in my professional life (for
reasons better left in the vaults), where I found myself sunny side out. I
remember a facility where I was working 12-hour nursing night shifts, and I
showed up for work, as usual, about 6:30 p.m.
No problem … except it was 6:30 a.m.
After I was properly chided by my co-workers for
turning my day on its head, they asked if I could stay. Another nurse had just
called in sick, and I was caught standing there, inside-out of time, with no
good reason why I couldn’t work, and any excuse would’ve been lame.
** Nurse’s Note: If you were a patient there on that
day-for-night and I missed your bathroom call, or I was late with your meds, or
I called you by another name, or I dropped your pudding on you, or you suffered
in any way because of my temporal topsy-turvy, if you had a bumpy admission or
discharge due to my diurnal daftness, I apologize.
Where does that leave us now? Not so bad.
Not everything is notable. I know, that’s not where this
self-absorbed technopop culture is heading, if it’s not already there, but not
every picture is worth a thousand words; some aren’t worth half a bad limerick.
Can’t we leave bad enough alone?
Are you going to insist that I retrieve the day? Must
I make everything reportage between us? Can’t we have a secret or two? A blank
space not filled in? Why can’t you and I have an empty shelf, and instead of
filling it up with kitschy knick-knacks, just step back and admire its
openness, it’s purity, its promise?
Nah. That’s enough of that.
I took the time off from the muse because it was
neutralized by the new rash, the nagging new developments going in, the missing
ones coming out, the wax and wane of pain, the ebb and flow of relief, and the
inability to sometimes make a getaway from this damned cancer’s partners in
crime and accessories during the fact.
No further need for specifics; you get the idea:
It only hurts when I am, Doc.
I need this narrative for me, but I hope it helps you,
too. Even if cancer is not a part of your life, it will almost certainly affect
you somewhere along your journey, either remotely or center stage. I hope this accounting will be a resource for camaraderie, a work (and play) template for all our common community of illness
and health.
As seen here, it is a thousand-word picture. I’m only trying
to grab a few of them, for both of us, as they go by. And, now that I’ve
mentioned it, might’s well give you that half a bad limerick (if you’d care to
fill it in, have at it.)
There once was a man who got sick
A cancer became his new shtick
He was a bit peeved
But----
More as we go, El
