We spend a lot of our life between things. Between lovers. Between jobs. Between classes. Between houses. Between meals. And at the margins, between life and death. Living between things is, I think, a good place to be. It means you believe in the future. That something has passed to the…uh…past, and now you’re just waiting for the future end of that track to poke you in the ribs and say hello. It means you’re not living in the past, surviving on memories and leaving the future to its own devices. It makes you a player in the game of life, puts you in the position of having finished x, now must do y; having seen a time to see b, having experienced t, now ready for t +1.
Of course, not everything fits easily into this benign model of the present linkage of immediate past to immediate future. There are many things it’s best not to be between. Between wars. That’s never worked out very well as a stepping stone. Between hammer blows. Of whatever kind. Between good and evil. It may be where we’re stuck, but it’s not a comfortable place to be.
Now I’ve got a new one for you. Between tumors. From 18 months ago, when the final set of post-treatment biopsies and remote sensing data showed me to be cancer-free, until Friday last (that would be 18 January 2013) when Dr. H told me the tissue taken the prior week was indeed malignant, I had been between tumors.
In the not-so-remote past of cancer therapy, “between tumors” was about as good as it got as a treatment outcome. Nobody would or could say cancer was “cured”. Your cancer was “in remission”. Could return any time. Often would return. If you made it past your 5 year survival date without a newly positive diagnosis, you would feel comfortable that you had “beaten” cancer. Still came with the nagging assumption that you could be stricken at any moment, but the longer things went, the closer to “cured” you were.
Nowadays, people really do talk about “curing” specific cancers. Localized tumors, even if they’ve anastomosed, can be identified, delimited, eliminated, and, with conscientious follow-up monitoring and treatment, in many cases that was it. The cancer was over. You were, as a practical if not theoretic matter, cured.
But not me. On Friday the biopsy results came back positive. I have another tumor in my throat, pretty close to where the original primary was, deep on my tongue muscle. It’s actually pretty active, now that I know it’s there. It’s pumping out its own mucous cap a couple times a day, and it’s starting to generate some aching pain of its own. Fortunately at the moment I have open scrips for both Xanax and Oxcycodone, a couple of each at bed time lets me sleep despite the creeping growth of out-of-control throat tissue working actively to make what’s left of my life miserable and short.
Well, that at least ain’t gonna work. I turned 60 years old on 12 January, and my brain feels like it’s younger and more open to new learning than it has ever been before (the rest of my body, not so much, but that’s a different story). I don’t really know the implications of this recurrent cancer. Dr. H sounded pretty disgusted, or maybe discouraged is closer, on the phone on Friday. But he’s had the weekend to think about it. End of this week, he’ll have PET and CAT scan output to look out, I’m betting I’ll be in for another MRI the following week. And by then Dr. H’ll have a concept, a plan, and a timeline. And we can have it.
Somehow, I thought I was getting away too easy from this cancer stuff. Guess that was true. Time to strap the gear back on, pack in the ammo, and stumble back into the trenches. Am I ready for it? We’ll just have to see. Haven’t had cause to whine yet, which I’ll take as a good sign. Hang in there, everyone. Having you out there in the world is a huge part of what makes me strong here in my little corner. Love you all. Better update, hopefully with cool graphics, next weekend. Hola, everyone!!
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