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Monday, July 1, 2019

DAY 069 --"Hippocratic Magic"


Sometimes, when it’s me, it’s me.


It’s not someone else’s negligence. It’s not the neighbor’s pranking kid. It’s not a falling anvil. It’s not the notion of an act of God (and notions are about as far as I ever get with Godly notions of wispy divine interventions).

No, sometimes, I just screw up. This wasn’t a big boner, but when she saw the bloody dressing from my chemo treatment today, it did bother the bejeebers out of Diane. “You could have exsanguinated! That’s not funny!”

I attempted a classic soothe: “Oooh, I love it when you talk bigly, but you know I’m a good clotter.” (True, lately my blood counts, especially what I call the blue values of my reds & whites have been on the low & high sides, and we should honorably mention my daily home blood thinner belly injections. Any bleed needs a little extra attention).

Then, my bridge-too-far personality took hold, and despite me I had to add: “And, whoosh, honey, it could’ve bled through the new Harley jacket. Oh, the horror! I checked my sleeve, though. All okay!”

She surrendered with a classic eye-roll, knowing that I was incapable right then of seriously taking her seriously taking me serious serious (I know … clunky, but grammatically correct.)

And, just as an inkblot whatzit away, when I look at it I see a red puppy chasing an oversized hairy egg. Diane sees a moose backing up. Neither helps this case either way.


Since my last chemo, I’ve had some outboarding innards with a little too much wake; some tidal fatigue, a few sidebar headaches, but otherwise I and my daily pursuits (and evasions) have been largely unreportable as being driven by anything cancer-ly. I’ve passed the days and nights as part of the minor majority.

Today at chemo infusion, my oncologist instructs and informs:

--Down-tweak daily prednisone dose.

--Status quo everything else.

--Repeat CT scan of my lung tumor in ten days.

--Up-tweak chemo doses at next treatment

--For the lab rats, my fucking magnesium is 1.6. mg/dl.

--For me, I’ll never again use “status quo” as a verb.

I did press him today about THE issue: where is my Stage IV cancer and where am I in it? He recoiled invisibly. I saw it, because I’ve done decades of nursing care for terminally ill patients and I’m old friends with what isn’t seen or heard at beginnings and endings.

I asked him all the lethal questions that all Docs don’t want to answer and patients don’t want to ask. I know. It was unfair all around:

Unfair to him, because Hippocratic magic is always cloudy. Unfair to myself, because my need-to-know brain lately has been pounding the ground of my worried heart.

He’s a good doctor. He answered through the clouds.

I’m a good patient. I listened in the earth.

More as we go,
   El



4 comments:

  1. AHHHHH..atta boy..... your posts are right up there with “When Breath Becomes Air”. I admire your hope, I hope with you, I admire your humor, I don’t think I could be that funny under those circumstances, and I understand why my oldest friend so loves you!

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  2. Ahhhhh...attagirl! Thank you, kindly for the kudo. My pleasure to post these (and I don't think I COULDN'T be funny, or at least shoot for that, under these circumstances). It gets me through, and I'm glad it's serving well in the narrative. Best, El

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