Summer Healing Moon
While in Skyridge, I had several nurses, all interesting: Ron, Esther and Elizabeth. When the first of them came in my room I noticed on her security badge: Elizabeth and then Medical Oncology Nurse. Oncology, I thought? Why do I have an oncology nurse? This hours after surgery for prostate cancer. That’s how surreal this whole time has been for me.
I’ve not felt seriously ill, except ironically, after my surgery. I had no symptoms. The context was all new to me: Colorado hospitals, doctors, drives. It’s been difficult to raise my inner sense of alarm to the CANCER level. Yet I have it. Or, hopefully, had it.
The weather yesterday, the day after the surgery, was beautiful. Blue skies entertained parties of cumulus clouds, the eye could follow the unusually green plains as far as the horizon line. The world was unconcerned about my health or the health of anyone on the med-surg floor.
The hospital room was beautiful, too. Nicely appointed in woods and sandy textiles, it was a pleasant place to be. And yet. There was that surgery. That biopsy. Those things that turned my world inside out and upside down. Strange. Surreal.
