disclaimer

Disclaimer

Now it is not the best of me

that glorifies the worst in me

and it is not the east of me

that contradicts the west of me

nor is it just the first of me

has changed to suit the last of me.

the last of me has not yet been

the worst has never given in

or given up

or ever will

or even can

or has the will

to go beyond

the who I was

and still may be

and without pause

I celebrate the rest of me

I celebrate what’s left of me.   jk19??

I don't remember why I wrote this poem, or when, but asha asked me to call it up from the shadowy ethers of my past. I think she knew it would make me cry. 

I am less. I am 1/2 of one boob less. Boob and Bob.

Today I thought I had an appointment with the radiation guy, but it was the chemo guy. Probably best that I was surprised. I didn't want chemo. But these are the decisions of my life these days. You can have chemo or you can die. Oh. Well. Since you put it like that. 

So, there I was, sitting in the oncology office. The awareness that everyone sitting next to you has cancer is profoundly unsettling. A sad little woman came in and she was escorted by her giant son, and her cancer was consuming her face and he had to suction her so she could breathe and she should have been somewhere safer, somewhere she could have been treated tenderly. but she was one of those odd little people who have probably known little tenderness in their lives. It broke my heart at the same time I nearly vomited in my gucci bag. 

I don't have a gucci bag.

But the thing is, I am frequenting these places now. And when I need an appointment, they don't ask, "what's a good day for you?" They give you a card with the next available appointment on it and you show up. Cancer is in charge. I'd like to get ahead of it, but it is calling all the shots these days. The first appointment that got MADE for me, I said, "I'm not sure about thursd..." and before I could finish my sentence, the scheduling woman looked at me with such -- I don't know -- not disdain? incredulity? that it put me quite literally in my place. Your little tea parties are backburnered for the time being, bitch. Its a good thing I don't have a job. They wouldn't care. But the thing is, they do care. And I am simply expected to adjust. Its kind of like I unwittingly stepped onto that conveyor belt -- you know the one in I love Lucy, where the chocolates keep coming faster and faster and she is trying to keep up.Only in this scenario, the chocolates are doctor's appointments and I am still Lucy. And there is really important information to be gleaned at each one, and I'm functionally deerintheheadlights. Let us not forget I was diagnosed on the 17th of October and surgered on halloween at which point my husband thought he would draw a jack-o-lantern on my tit. It hasn't been a month.

I am having a port put in near my clavicle next Thursday so they can just back a truck up and dump the chemo into it. I always wanted something like that, only not for chemo. Where were these devices back in the day?

My friends and family have been stunning. The food alone: chicken soup, chili, lasagne, spaghetti and meatballs, take out from our favorite bbq joint, Hagen Daas vanilla, and burritos and a "fuck cancer" t-shirt, banana nut muffins, beef stew. Rides here and there, help with shopping; and generously shared experience, not easy stuff. 

My son is so scared, and my husband... When he said "...in sickness and in health..." he wasn't kidding. He is broken-hearted. We have cancer. It is in our house and we will spend the next six months getting it out.