I watched the Doc sift through the slices of my innards imagery,
reviewing the results of the PET scan. When he nudged the trackball, dimensions
of my organs and all their connective circuity flowed in and out like beach
waves.
He gave me an analogy of a pea floating in soup, and because my
attention span warps when it’s stressed and in the grip of my overactive
imagination, I heard it in pieces. What did register and take hold in my head
was that it’s better to have no floating pea.
My original tumor (soup) appeared to be pea-less. Good news, but
the appearance of this new pesky lymph node seen in my recent comparative CT
scan, remains the bugaboo.
Is it scarring? An anomaly appearing now as collateral damage from
my course of Rad/Chemo? Is it a threat? Malignant? My Doc, in consult with his
fellow oncologists, wants to get the biopsy as scheduled “to know what we’re
dealing with.”
The image was ominous, a skyscape of jutting and sloping
contrasts, rows of little devils moving through weeds of thick--- oh … wait ….
Even cancer sometimes needs a comic gotcha headbutt when you're looking the other way.
Meanwhile, back at the rest of my other whole body, he was pleased
that I’ve dropped a couple of pounds, that I’m using the new elliptical, eating
better, not quite as fatigued, and not picking at the sporadic and migrating skin
eruptions. The latter is difficult, because when I was a kid, I kept a scab collection
in a jar. It was fun looking at scraps of me flitting around in there when I
shook it.
Later in boyhood, I added some dead moths for balance.
I had the same feeling today watching him scroll through my sub-layers,
though he presented them with a bit more diagnostic sophistication.
We did review my list of side effects (from Day Fifty-One) and he
attributed them to the illness, the treatments, aging, a thousand or so other
possible causes, and the maladaptations that can come with healing. We tweaked
my uses of lotions and potions to ameliorate, perhaps even eliminate some of
these sideshows as we continue this grand experiment.
Today, I’m feeling like what happens when Frankenstein teams up
with Monty Hall in the funhouse mirror.
Somewhere in here, I'm behind one of those doors.
Somewhere in here, I'm behind one of those doors.
More as we go, El
