The End of Optimism

Every time  I got strapped down to the radiation rig, I thought that I was going to be lucky: that the x-rays and the chemicals would work and I would be clear of cancer when they were done. I fantasized going on with my life with this episode fading slowly into the background until it became an anecdote. I imagined the whole thing being diluted by other concerns until my memory of the stories of treatment became more real than my memories of the treatment itself. I almost envisioned telling my grandchildren.
It was a quiet, robust optimism-the power of positive radiation made plain, and it was dead wrong.

The vision now is that either I’m really messed up by the surgery and then carry on in that condition until I’m either cured or killed by the tumor or I simply skip the surgery and let the thing progress. The advantage of the latter course is that I have more time in a relatively healthy-or at least intact-condition. The Fox Chase website warns that the surgery interferes with eating, breathing and talking, three activities that I’ve grown to love. There’s also a wonderful sentence on the site about trying to avoid ‘breaking the jaw or splitting the lip’ during surgery and I fervently wish them good luck with that. I'll have to find out how radical the surgery will be before I choose.

In eight days, I see the surgeon. Lots of time to think about things like what to do, bucket lists, life summaries, who gets the cookbooks, stuff like that. I’ll keep you posted.