Tomorrow I see the surgeon. Aboard the SS Cancer, he or she is the captain of the ship, the one who steers the course, the one who helps you avoid overdoing the nautical metaphors. In this case, he is the very tall and very imperious Dr. Drew Ridge.
He’s the one who’s going to tell me where I land on the continuum between
cancer free and hospice bound. In the middle there, there are lots of variations on doing surgery: some of the surgical possibilities are high-tech and relatively bloodless, some of them look like something you’d do to a farmyard animal.
Am I nervous? I don’t think so, but I notice that I haven’t slept real well for the last few days.
Tonight, to mark the occasion, J and I went out to dinner. We had a seven-fishes tasting menu at a joint called Matyson. The seven-fishes is a Roman Christmas tradition. Its back story involves noble Roman families competing in providing lavish entertainment to the Pope and his entourage. In this country, it’s become the property of folks from the South (of Italy). Since it’s almost impossible to pull off at home-seven fish courses in one meal?, get real- it’s a treat to find it in a restaurant.
The highlight was this gorgeous piece of crisp-skinned red snapper on a bed of sweet potato cubes with a few mussels and a broth made from the mussel jus.
J drank Vouvray, I had a bottle of Allagash Tripel (batch 148) that I’ve been saving for a year or so, waiting for the night before Cancermas to pull the cork. Delicious, spicy, round and still assertive. It stings my radiation-roughedup mouth a little but you could forgive anything for that taste.
And so we toasted. “To you.” she said. In a fit of originality, I replied “No, to you.” And then we both agreed on “To tomorrow”.
He’s the one who’s going to tell me where I land on the continuum between
cancer free and hospice bound. In the middle there, there are lots of variations on doing surgery: some of the surgical possibilities are high-tech and relatively bloodless, some of them look like something you’d do to a farmyard animal.
Am I nervous? I don’t think so, but I notice that I haven’t slept real well for the last few days.
Tonight, to mark the occasion, J and I went out to dinner. We had a seven-fishes tasting menu at a joint called Matyson. The seven-fishes is a Roman Christmas tradition. Its back story involves noble Roman families competing in providing lavish entertainment to the Pope and his entourage. In this country, it’s become the property of folks from the South (of Italy). Since it’s almost impossible to pull off at home-seven fish courses in one meal?, get real- it’s a treat to find it in a restaurant.
The highlight was this gorgeous piece of crisp-skinned red snapper on a bed of sweet potato cubes with a few mussels and a broth made from the mussel jus.
J drank Vouvray, I had a bottle of Allagash Tripel (batch 148) that I’ve been saving for a year or so, waiting for the night before Cancermas to pull the cork. Delicious, spicy, round and still assertive. It stings my radiation-roughedup mouth a little but you could forgive anything for that taste.
And so we toasted. “To you.” she said. In a fit of originality, I replied “No, to you.” And then we both agreed on “To tomorrow”.
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