Certainty with a dollop of high faultin' language

My friend Laura was in town for business and she managed to squeeze an extra night in her trip to spend with JSP and me. I picked her up at her hotel yesterday night and drove her to our home. Our conversation in the car turned, as it usually does with friends that I am not able to see frequently, to the subject of my ongoing disease.

She hadn't been aware of my recent hospitalization, I told her about it.

She asked me about the clinical trial I am participating in in California, I told her about how it was going.

She asked if it is having any effect on my cancer, I said "I don't know."

She asked if there is a test that they will be giving me at some point that will be able to tell me if the vaccine is working. I stopped at a red light and said, "No, there is really nothing that can definitively tell me that. This is research, basically if I am still alive it might (or might not) be working."

I could tell that my response was troubling and unsatisfactory to her. She wanted an answer, something in black or white: yes it is working, or no it is not working. Melanoma doesn't really give you that. There are no tests to mark virual load like there are in HIV, no PSA test like in Prostate Cancer.

Laura, JSP, and I shared a nice summer night visiting, despite my being so very tired earlier in the day. Maintaining friendships is a nourishing affair.

Thinking about her questions today, one thing that is certain; I am going to die from Cancer unless something else kills me first.

Most western people love certainty. We love waking up knowing exactly where our tooth brush is. We love knowing roughly how much money to expect on payday. Even primal seasonal weather cycles provide a sort of certainty to people who live in areas that have four seasons during the year.

Some certainty and unknowns regarding my melanoma: I probably will not be alive in 2 years. I may not be alive in two months.

My tumors have been kicking it into high gear lately: there is the giant potato sized one on my left forearm, the new pear sized one in my left armpit, the rapidly growing ones along the right side of my spine, maybe now the sizes of various bird eggs, then there is what ever may or may not be growing in my neck, on my voice-box, and possibly in my chest-cavity, not to mention the relatively new tumor on my lower left lung, turning handkerchiefs crimson behind closed doors.

A routine and ordinary tumble in a friendly soccer game lead to hospitalization with a torso full of blood and liquid. Nausea creeps in around juices at home and fine cuisine served at served on linen covered tables. I'm rapidly coming to rely on narcotics to dull the increasing pain load. Lady pain is a jealous matron.

Lady Pain has become my recent constant companion in the past several months. She was barely noticeable for a while, only occasionally smiling out from behind my flesh and suggesting, "I remind you that you are alive." More frequent now, piercing spikes emanate from deep inside a tumor or my abdomen. She is increasingly jealous of my man Sleep, whom she struggles to keep from embracing me at night. When she becomes too much for me these days, I regularly dig into the narco-candy dish to keep her at arm's length.

Then Sleep comes; he too is jealous, increasingly interfering with my plans to spend time with important people in my life. "I'm just so tired, I don't think I will be good company at all" I sometimes hear myself saying, groggily over the telephone.

Weeds are growing throughout the garden, and when I look inside my body, there don't seem to be many-hands-to-make-work-light. I maintain a positive day-by-day attitude. I understand certainties and appreciate unknowns.

Family and friends do not take for granted my presence here, it will not last. I will go with a seasonal change in the winds, and then the full moon will shine down only upon the ashes that once bore my smile. I say this not to invoke tears or to be cruel, but to wake you from any illusion you may have that I will succeed in my struggle for years and years in this rapidly weakening shell. Pay attention. Coming winds may catch you off guard.