So yesterday the doctor told me my lung cancer has returned. I remembered reading that Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years ago and so researched him. It was eerie. He too had part of a lung removed and thought he was good to go only to find it came back. So now he’s doing chemo. I guess chemo is next for me, however, I don’t have great healthcare, and so might not be as lucky as he.
My healthcare is through the VA hospital here in Dallas. Seeing a doctor is like standing in line for a busy ride at the State Fair. The line moves slowly. Hopefully my cancer will too.
Since the doctor told me there were spots on both my lungs my chest has begun to hurt. It’s a sting like maybe I pulled a muscle deep inside me. A muscle I never knew I had, but was always there: the dying muscle. Truth is, cancer has always been a part of my psyche like a water stain in the ceiling that has always been there but was covered with paint, and now has reappeared as a yellow stain. I come from a long line of lung cancer victims. Mom, Aunt, Grand Mom, like clock work every 10 years one of us has to go. 1974, my grand mother, 1984, my aunt, 2000, my mom, and now, 2022, me? Wait, there is something wrong with my math, it was 20 years between my aunt and mom, and now 22 years between my mom and me. The pattern is changing. I like that. I would actually like to see it go 30 years. I’m putting that out to the universe. Join me each week as I show you how I am doing it. How I am going to win this battle. Oh shit, that’s what everyone says in the denial phase. But maybe, just maybe, death can wait for me, for as John Donn said many deaths ago,
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and souls deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesses dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better than thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death , thou shalt die.