Did the Hand then of the Potter shake?
When people first hear the word "leukemia," they kind of freak out. Then, when they get some more details of my particular situation, they relax a little. "So you're not gonna die, then," they conclude.
"Of course I'm gonna die!" I say.
There's a moment of shock, then they get it, and roll their eyes in exasperation. "You're not gona die soon, though."
"I'm in no less danger of getting hit by a bus than I was in March," I point out.
At this point, most folks give up, worn down by my literal-minded pedantry. It's not just my usual penchant for word games at work here, though. My experiences have made me feel more precarious than I did before. I'm acutely aware that my disease could well have been the myeloproliferative disorder Maggie first guessed it was, rather than the rarer and milder cancer it actually turned out to be; that the people who do have those diseases right now are no less worthy to live, and to be healthy, than I.
I feel much less safe, less protected than I did two months ago. Definitive statements about the future have come to bug me. I'd change the grammar of English if I could. There is no future--there's only intent, and expectation. Our language implies that it's as fixed as the past, and that feels pernicious to me these days.
And the air on the front porch is thick with the smell of lilacs, and that's bound up in all this for me too. My nine days out of the hospital have been nine days of high spring, where the senses are suffused with sweetness and mutability.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your winter-garment of Repentance fling
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the bird is on the wing
-the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam
comment by SI:
Kate Worley, who has the nasty kind of cancer, recently wrote:
I like that, in a grim way.
We are always in danger. I noticed this a few years ago. Learning to live with that takes a little while.
Wow. by Sebbo:
The courage and gallows humor in that quote is amazing.
Why is it always a bus, though? I guess 'cause it's sudden, and occurs without respect to age or class. Being hit by a car involves another person, but a bus is kind of a force of nature.
buy many thing here by buy many thing here:
I haven't been up to anything today. I've more or less been doing nothing to speak of. More or less not much notable going on today. That's how it is.
delivery me by delivery me:
I haven't been up to much recently. I've just been letting everything happen without me lately. I feel like a bunch of nothing.
fedex rules by fedex rules:
I just don't have anything to say lately. Pfft. Maybe tomorrow. I don't care. That's how it is.
buy and forget by buy and forget:
I've more or less been doing nothing , but oh well. Basically nothing seems worth thinking about, but such is life. I don't care. I haven't been up to much.