Today the sky is very crystalline blue, as Winter skies can be without clouds and with lots of cheerful sun. It's 16 degrees on its way to a high of 19, there is no wind--in short, this is perfect weather, this is what I love and used to live for, this is the weather that framed my park and woods walks with Hector and Hildy who both, like me, loved winter.
I find it incredibly beautiful--I like the color palette of bark, I like the stripped bare trees when their lattice can be seen. I enjoy the snap in the air, I love the brilliance of white snow against the foot of a dark grey elm, a beigey oak, the black and lichen of a maple. Today is such a day. This is why I love the Midwest.
Friday are chemo days and every third chemo Friday, I also see Dr. Dayton. These visits are usually just me recounting what has happened or not happened since our last visit. They are forums where I toss questions out and propose scenarios. We talk about sex, we talk about bowel movements, we discuss the New York Times (today's article on fighting cancer through the targeting and suppression of mutations was a lively topic), and we spend a few seconds congratulating ourselves on how well we've done working together against bad odds.
We've been focused upon the upcoming surgery, of course, and the results of my recent MRI are very encouraging, very winter blue sky. Aside from the mass we hope to excise and two small satellite masses attached, we are looking at a Mark who may just keep ticking, fighting those micro cancers that roost and grow, like Rilke, dann und wann ein weisse Elephant....(just don't ask me if that adjectival ending is correct--my German is way too far in the past. Donna, I'm thinking it should be eine weisse....)
March 3rd will mark the 2nd anniverary of my 18 hour initial surgery in 2013--a day that will live in, what, infamy? No, like the unexpected beauty of a copse of trees on a golf course in winter, it's a day whose effects still resonate. I am grateful that I could be saved, overall, the surgeons did a good job. It's not their fault that my tongue was thoroughly colonized by cancer and had to go, not their fault that in a mouthful of cancer they couldn't scoop every last cell, and some of those minions escaped and went on a permanent joy ride through my lymph system.
Like watching snow fall, I'm never properly awed by the fact that cancer invaded my lungs and got its ass kicked before it dug in, until I breathe, until it falls, until the grey light behind the white flakes is resonant with the sun it's obscuring. Like everyone, I complain I don't receive miracles while they quietly go about their business around me.
I like Dr. Dayton so much because I believe he tells me the truth, or at least the truth as he sees it. It's a lesson all doctors should learn. I have cancer, I didn't catch retardation, so talk to me rationally, like an adult, tell me what's really going on. Today we added a new nurse to the infusion center rotation--Cally--who is being trained upon the art of dealing with me.
Honestly, I'm a bit livelier than the average person who shares Friday morning chemo with me. And that's because I'm happy to be there: I've received such benefit from chemo, suffered comparatively little in the way of side effects, and (in a recent conversation with Dr. D) have found that if cancer comes roaring back, their are still things we haven't tried that we will try. So I have relief, and confidence, and I can sit back and enjoy the fact that 7,000 dollars worth of treatment is dripping into me.
There will be more snow on Sunday here, but finally, a bit of warmer temperatures. Without the wind, the teens are delightful weather, but these days, hard on me--that sort of air and a trach tube for breathing don't go together well. Just getting the mail out of the box yesterday was a trial, but there was wind, pushing knives of dry down my tube and shocking me into believing I couldn't breathe. Uh, no, Mark does not play that, not no more.
Ultimately what I like most about my intermittent dates with Dr. Dayton is the fact that I feel better, and more optimistic, after each one. And, to no one's surprise, I'm the one who does most of the talking--or typing, in my case--so I suppose I'm getting a talk therapy benefit along with a health overview. But the optimism I feel is buttressed by the results, the concrete, real achievements of our team this year.
I came back to Indiana last January looking like a sad ass frozen red bud hoping not to die. These days, I'm at least a Tulip Poplar, looking forward to my next bloom.
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