Category Archives: Treatment

Move it behind the wall

Posted in After treatment, Bumpboobs, Life, Life despite cancer, Novels and Stories, Treatment, Writing by

I would

like to

build a

wall,

between

myself and

the ideas

of

expectations, trials, doubts, bleak realities, statistics,

or more.

On my side of the wall, the active and living side

would be

hope

and life

and wants

and the

words:

Change

and

Cure

and

Heal

and

Stable

and

Fun

and

Clear

and

Health.

No doubts

there

to cloud

my view

of

what

I want.

I would

live on

my sunny

side of

the wall.

Take walks. Make plans. Drink tea. Heal well. Love. Create.

Live in possibility.

And the

stuff

behind

the wall

would go

quiet

from

neglect,

and settle

over

time.

Like

Forgotten

Objects

in the attic.

White sheets draped over top,

covering and muting,

into quietness.

No longer

needed.

And I would face the sun.

and Be Alive in the sun.

Peacefully Happy and

healed.

Cue the Curse Words

Posted in Bumpboobs, Life despite cancer, Treatment by

When the Dr Canada walks into the room and begins to summarize things, I know it’s bad news. My question becomes, how bad is it? And I struggle to let him have his own process of summarizing before blurting out “What are the results?”

So no summarizing for you guys.

The spots in my lungs are growing again. There has been a 2mm-7mm change in size since the last scan. I suppose in the bigger picture, this can be characterized as a slower growth. But also, in the big picture it’s incredibly shitty news.

Not surprising news, though. If you look at my past four scans, you see first, a slowing down in the shrinkage, then a ‘stable state’ with suggestion of possible growth, and now clear evidence that the treatment is finally starting to wear off. That damn cancer is tricky. It changes, it pushes, it won’t fucking stop. It makes a fair argument that striving to live forever is really not a good idea for the environment in which we inhabit. (Obviously I’ve thought about this a little). Their lifespans should be up, and yet… they just keep on going.

Marcelle, my mom, says we need to push back harder. We need to be more stubborn than the cancer.

What happens next?

I am not really sure. Firstly, we wait to see if I can get onto an extended trial via the hospital for a new approach to inhibiting the cancer. That would be good. It throws a definite wrench in the Visit Hungary and Love Summer plan. But I think we can nevertheless be stubborn about that idea. Even if we don’t go the whole summer, there’s a nice plane travelling between Montreal and Budapest now, and I have hopes of using this as my personal shuttle to the continent.

And then the boxes are piling up in my kitchen, because we’re moving. Oy! Not sure what is going to happen now, but as we agreed upon earlier, there is no sticking around in that flat anymore. I can’t keep breathing that shitty smoky air.

Apart from this – I don’t know. We’re sad, and frustrated, and a little stunned to be honest.

We’ll get through all of this. But what is going to happen next? I have not got a clue. In my novel I have a line at the end of a few different chapters about what is going to happen next, and everything is going to be okay. It’s a nice deep inner faith that things will be okay, even when what that means is impossible to understand. What is okay?

Anyhow, for now that is all I have the energy to say.

FUCK.

Okay, I had energy for that extra bit. BOZMEG KORVA BAD SPELLING HUNGARIAN CURSE WORDS.

Okay, now I am done.

P.S. There is good news here too, actually. There’s no evidence of spread. It’s very good to hear.