My game
Every now and then I play a neat game.
I pretend the phone rings, and it's my mom, and she's telling me that she feels better. The phone call says that it's going to be alright now, that they found the cause of the nausea, and she's able to eat solids, and they are starting the chemo, which will shrink the tumor, and she feels great, and doesn't need to be on so many medicines that she's too tired to talk. She'll say "I know I'm dying, but I feel really good, so I won't die sick. I won't slip into a sleep, medicated or otherwise, and drift away day by day until one day I'm gone, suddenly." She'll say, "you need to come visit me, and when you do, I'll be awake and happy, and you can hug me without hurting me, and won't that be nice, and I have energy, too now, so I'll talk to you about writing, astrology, politics, religion and our crazy relatives, just like we used to. We'll talk for hours, not a mere minute or two."
That's my game. It's very childish, I know, but can you blame me?
The other game is her calling me up, telling me the cancer is gone and she's going to be fine, but that is too absurd. I played that game five or so years ago when she had cancer the first time. She had the cancer five years ago, and throughout the diagnosis and treatment, she wasn't this sick. She called me up and we talked a lot throughout that process. We visited her when the treatments were done. She was happy and perky and lovely and beautiful. Even when she was sick the first time, she wasn't this sick.
The update is that she can't eat so won't be going home on Friday. They don't know why she's so nauseus and not able to eat. I'm sure I spelt nauseus wrong and I don't care. I'm sure the news they give us will not be good. I can hear it in the voice of my father, who is bearing this on his own. My older brother calls me every day. He's never talked to me that much. My sister is 'worried' which translates to 'I think it's as bad as you do but I'm not going to say that.'
To which she would say, 'how much worse could it be?'
The truth is, this didn't just show up. It's been in her for some time, maybe months, maybe a year or two, maybe longer. Despite the constant medical visits, the constant monitoring, it slipped behind an organ and nobody saw it growing, and now it's grown to big, and too complicated, and the only worse news I think we could get would be that it metastized, into something even more worse.
That is the update.
I pretend the phone rings, and it's my mom, and she's telling me that she feels better. The phone call says that it's going to be alright now, that they found the cause of the nausea, and she's able to eat solids, and they are starting the chemo, which will shrink the tumor, and she feels great, and doesn't need to be on so many medicines that she's too tired to talk. She'll say "I know I'm dying, but I feel really good, so I won't die sick. I won't slip into a sleep, medicated or otherwise, and drift away day by day until one day I'm gone, suddenly." She'll say, "you need to come visit me, and when you do, I'll be awake and happy, and you can hug me without hurting me, and won't that be nice, and I have energy, too now, so I'll talk to you about writing, astrology, politics, religion and our crazy relatives, just like we used to. We'll talk for hours, not a mere minute or two."
That's my game. It's very childish, I know, but can you blame me?
The other game is her calling me up, telling me the cancer is gone and she's going to be fine, but that is too absurd. I played that game five or so years ago when she had cancer the first time. She had the cancer five years ago, and throughout the diagnosis and treatment, she wasn't this sick. She called me up and we talked a lot throughout that process. We visited her when the treatments were done. She was happy and perky and lovely and beautiful. Even when she was sick the first time, she wasn't this sick.
The update is that she can't eat so won't be going home on Friday. They don't know why she's so nauseus and not able to eat. I'm sure I spelt nauseus wrong and I don't care. I'm sure the news they give us will not be good. I can hear it in the voice of my father, who is bearing this on his own. My older brother calls me every day. He's never talked to me that much. My sister is 'worried' which translates to 'I think it's as bad as you do but I'm not going to say that.'
To which she would say, 'how much worse could it be?'
The truth is, this didn't just show up. It's been in her for some time, maybe months, maybe a year or two, maybe longer. Despite the constant medical visits, the constant monitoring, it slipped behind an organ and nobody saw it growing, and now it's grown to big, and too complicated, and the only worse news I think we could get would be that it metastized, into something even more worse.
That is the update.
posted by Lahdeedah | 11:22 AM
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