Thee week of waiting.

Some light contemplation.

“You do know that you are the phone call all of us are anxiously waiting for?”

“Yeah, I know.”

She said it like an afterthought; the same limp, automated tone that I would use to say “good, thanks” in response to a cashier’s “how are you?” Does she really know the power she holds as an imaging scheduler? Ones schedulers colored blocks on a calendar is another’s agony or alleviation. She holds in this call the power to set the anniversary date of one or the other. October 8th. 9:30 AM. No eating 6 hours before. High protein diet and minimal activity for the previous 24-hours. Are you taking blood thinners? Excellent. Are you claustrophobic? Great. How are you? Good, thanks.

October 8th was always going to be notable as it happens to fall on Day 22, breaking the 21-day loops that have been the almost exclusive way we’ve measured time since May. Typically, next Friday would be the hospital prep routine; packing bags, slathering numbing cream on my chest port then covering it with saran wrap to increase the numbing power*, getting blood work done, going over the routine with the oncologist, eating a traditional pre-hospital smoothie bowl, and heave-hoeing my many bags past the volunteer greeters triaging visitors at the hospital entrance. One look at my bald head and preserved chest wound? Ya triaged.

I’ve needed the hourglass to flip. Just getting this appointment puts me out of a very specific type of misery that no matter how many times I face it doesn’t seem to get easier: how long until I know? Because right now I and everyone I know is acting out this play as if I’m totally cancer-free. There isn’t even recognition of any other option.

You rang the bell!

No more treatments!

You’re done!

Cringe.

It’s nobody’s fault. I get it. It’s just that I cannot bring myself to throw my hands in the air in celebration or high-five you or click ‘like’ on your affirmations. It would feel like a form of lying or misleading myself or other people. Now, I have October 8th. October 8th I’ll know.

Can I celebrate then? Will I want to? Is it really “over”? Will it ever be “over”?

Last week Evan and his friend Taylor put the final touches on the deck in our backyard that was 4-years in the making. Without discussion, every night at sunset we both grab drinks and socks, flip on the twinkly lights and sit together on the wooden loveseat with turquoise cushions for, as Prof. McGonagall says in H. Pots, “well-mannered frivolity”. We talk in a whisper (noisy neighbors) about our desires and dreams, where we want to travel and with whom, what we’re letting go of, and what new curiosities are perking us up.

H: “I don’t know if I’m more afraid of there being cancer or being cancer-free.”

E: “Babe. Obviously cancer-free.”

H: “Yeah, but at least when I was feeling pain in treatment I knew there was work being done to kill this thing. I knew my schedule. It’s all I’ve had to do is suffer and kill. Without cancer, there is just responsibility. To keep cancer away and to go back to work and to join group stuff and see people and travel and every day, all the time I’m wondering if my body will crash or I’ll forget where I am or that I’ll get so wrapped up in being busy that I’ll forget that I could die. I’ll forget to not be busy, to live. I’m afraid I won’t be know how to live knowing this happened in this new body. Life is almost too wide open.”

E: “Yep, Hayls, you won’t be able to flip a switch and be back. There is no going back. This is not a time for switches. It’s a time for dials. Slow adjustments up and down.”

H: “How will I know when to dial things up and down?”

E: “I don’t know. I guess we’ll wait and see.”

So I wait.

GB and The Teen Scene reinacting Evan and I in deep conversation on the deck.

Something beautiful about cancer is how when my body required my total attention my mind was given a break, and once I took that break I began to observe the spaces between absolutes. I couldn’t have an urge and act on it. My body and mind didn’t allow for it. So I’d wait. In that waiting, I began to observe how my urges would rise and fall or transform into something totally new. My thoughts aren’t what I think they are. Maybe I’m not who I think I am either.

I’m studying how to rebuild my strength as my muscles and endurance have noticeably atrophied. A switch back to a business owner, ultra-runner, friend or any other moniker I held six months ago is not possible. I’m transitioning from 21-day cycles to moment-to-moment dials now as I slowly adjust the knobs of my life based on what I’m capable of today, which may be unknowable for a long time. This slow-moving of dials feel like a lesson, maybe the lesson of all this. Time will tell.

October 8th. Stay tuned…or should I say, don’t touch that dial.

Arbitrary Footnotes

*This is one of many times I received medical pro tips from physicians and nurses that I’d follow up with “is this a punk? Ya’ll be punking me?” But then I’d have to explain what ‘punking’ is and then who Ashton Kutcher is and then I’d explain that Ashton grew up in my hometown of Cedar Rapids and feel weirdly proud but then confused by why I feel proud of that and would end up in an internet rabbit hole about him to discover he’s like a bajillionaire because of, like, tech company stuff now and that would make me proud but also upset and POOF! I’m placing saran wrap over a thick layer of cream on my chest. No questions asked.