Daily Archives: July 7, 2020

Feelings, Health

Blood test addendum

Leave a comment

Summer and the Moon of Justice

Anxiety. I’m fine. Not worried. Oh? Kate asked. Yep. I’m ok.

Got all the way down Shadow Mountain and part way to Aspen Park when I realized. Uh oh. No lab order. Had to turn around, drive back home, fish the order of its yellow file folder and message Quest Labs that I would not make the appointment on time.

Realized I was leaning forward into the steering wheel, trying to will myself there, eliminate the drive. Just be there. Get it over with. Jaws clenched a little.

When I got into my I witness and I wait mode, I calmed down. Drove peacefully. Until. When I exited Hwy 470 at Bowles, I stopped with the other cars at the light, waiting to get onto Bowles. The light turned green, the other cars left. My engine wouldn’t turn over. What? I fussed, wondering WTF?

Then. Oh, I see. I’d turned the car off when I stopped. Well, hell. More at stake here than my consciousness owned.

An irregular funnel shaped cloud, gray, with thick feathers of white shooting out from it to the north and a cumulus cloud, white like Ivory snow behind it, hung in front of me as I drove down Bowles. It had rain coming down out of the funnel’s spout though it was all alone in that sector of the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Made it with no other intimations of my own anxiety or unusual natural occurrences.

Family, Feelings, Friends, Health, Third Phase

Blood test

Leave a comment

Summer and the Moon of Justice

Tuesday gratefuls: PSA. PSA test. Prostate cancer. Life’s precious days. The Shofar. Pride. Sorrow. Will James. His proposal for the Trees too close to the house. Rick Standler who’s coming by this week to grind the stumps. Cleaning the garage. Finally. Gusting Wind. Clear, blue Sky over Black Mountain. Tree pollen. Sneezing. The fans here in the loft. Low humidity.

OK. Draw blood. Send it to the lab. Write down numbers. Post them. Send them to the oncologist. Weird to think that this process talks about cancer. About its presence or its likely absence. Quest labs. Makes it sound downright Arthurian, eh?

Each case of cancer has its quest. There is a dragon to slay. Trials to go through. Setbacks. Those who hinder and those who help. Obstacles. It is a test of will, too. Can you stay on your quest in spite of fear, pain, misery? Can you defeat the illusions, delusions, ghosts?

I suppose this is why so many obituaries start with he fought cancer. She was brave. Survivors writing what they hope will be their own virtues. The warfare analogy so common in the death notices is understandable, but far from adequate.

The medical care for cancer infantilizes as often as it ennobles. Toxic chemicals introduced into our whole body do their indiscriminate work. Get weak. Have hot flashes. No sex drive. Suffer bone loss. And that’s just me. Others. Our immune systems suppressed. Nauseated. Lose our hair.

Not victims. Humans who have a disease. Not victims. The knight on the quest can never be a victim. Cancer is, as doctors often say, bad luck. It’s deadly. Scary. As bad a dragon as you’re likely to face. Yes. All that.

But. To be a victim is to give cancer a victory it doesn’t deserve. We all die of something. I’ve come to think of that something as a friend as important as my mother. My mother gave me life. This life. Cancer or heart disease or old age will give me death. The most important punctuations for all of us: Life. Death.

Before death however, no matter how diseased or distracted, we are alive, here and now. I’ll die tomorrow. Yes, perhaps. Until then though we wake up, we cook, eat, wash dishes, hold hands. Look life in the face. Smile.