Beltane and the Wu Wei Moon II

 

Got my PSA numbers back again. .19 by Quest labs vs. .20 by Lab Corps 3 months ago. After consulting chatgpt about the likely significance of two different assay methodologies, I’m comfortable that I’m in as good or better shape than I was last time. Means for 3 months I can coast, happy I’m still in hormone sensitive territory. Where I wanna be.

Even so. Stage 4. Watch a television drama. If the writers want to ratchet up tension for a character or those who care about them, you’ll hear a sentence like this one from I, James Wright on Britbox: “I have stage 4. There’s no stage 5.” Effective. However. For those of us with real Stage 4 cancer. Damn.

If I were an engineer or mathematician, I might create a graph. Identify feelings on one axis and dates of blood draws on another. Pretty sure the feelings would anticipate the quarterly surveillance, showing spikes up as a quarter’s end nears, then a flattening.

Unless. Say back pain cranks up loud. Demanding attention. A thought about cancer crosses my frontal lobe. They link up, twirl around an empty syringe or full pill bottle. Spikes in between the quarter’s ends.

Point. Stage 4 cancer acts like chronic pain, always draining resources, sometimes more, sometimes less. Never absent. How can it be? There’s no stage 5.

Right now I’m feeling pretty good. These numbers did not rock my world. A slight thrill. A breath held, loosed.

Again the always oddity. No matter what the result. Not today. Not tomorrow. Lesson? Live today, here and now. Not because some self help moron suggests it, but because, fortunately, I don’t have a choice.

I don’t have to leap ahead to the end game. To hospice care. Long term care insurance. Family coming for last visits. Will that be the denouement to my story? Likely. But not yet.