all hail the good king
Latest tests = all clear (just like Mr. Pibb + Red Vine = Crazy Delicious). “Even the schmutz that was left over from before looks better,” said Dr. Z with a new, full beard. After a cosmic coincidence run-in in the waiting room, the big nurse took my vitals––weight is holding steady, blood pressure 110 over 75 ish, temp 97ish, all good. Then waited to wait for the baby Dr., the fellow, to come in. He did. He reeled off the list: Hot flashes? Gone. Rashes, fevers, nightsweats, fatigue, urine problems, bowel problems? Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. It’s sort of stunning to me now that I had all of those things at one point or another. And that I don’t now. He poked, prodded, said “Good exam.” Said my scans looked fine to him but we’d wait for Dr. Z’s final verdict. He left.
I called L. on the exam room phone, who was just pulling onto Ikea Drive. When Dr. Z walks into the room I hear trumpets, it’s weird, he has this kind of royal stature. I hung up the phone. But he’s a good, benevolent king, kind of how I imagine Atalanta’s dad in Free to Be You and Me. He poked and prodded and asked what the fellow forgot: Have you gotten your period back? The fellow fairly tittered and blushed. “Ah,” said Dr. Z more to him than me, “that’s why the hot flashes are gone.” There are downsides to a teaching hospital. He looked at a mole on my arm that’s gotten funky lately. Said he didn’t like it, that I should get it tested. Great. Great. My white cells still aren’t totally normal, but he said they’re “perfectly fine.” I asked if there was anything I can do to get them higher. And he said, “What, perfectly fine isn’t good enough?” Then he quoted his fifth grade teacher, “Better is the enemy of good.” And when someone in class would cross out his answer on a test she’d say, “First thoughts are from god, second thoughts, the devil.”
Oh and he told me I was “too skinny.” Hardly. But he meant that on CAT scans fat pushes everything apart making organs and abnormalities easier to see. On “skinny people’s” scans, it all just looks flat and the same. And he talked about my Orphan Annie curls: “Enjoy it while it lasts.”
And that was it. It took two hours, but that was it. When it’s really empty at night like it was, and I’m feeling pretty good, I have to remember to have a sort of reverence for where I am. I’m in a cancer hospital, I say to myself. People are very sick. Some of them are dying. And I think of Susan Sontag, who died here. But it feels surprisingly peaceful, unhaunted. Maybe because the people who do die know what they’re facing. Though I guess denial is possible until the very bitter end even in a cancer hospital, it’s less likely, I think. Assuming, as I am, that awareness leads to peacefulness and acceptance. Which seems faulty. But I’m tired. And I’m trying to account for peacefulness in the midst of death and suffering and so much pain. Maybe that’s not possible.
Anyway. T is sitting across from me finishing our jigsaw puzzle. It’s of New Mexico on hot air balloon day. All sorts of reds and tans and oranges. And I’m here, blogging, trying to figure out how I’m going to make room for book proposal and work. Hm. Thanks for reading. Love, Me.
