A Bit of Fun
"Laughter is the best medicine..."
Disassembled By Cancer
Okay, so the Oncologist tells me I have lung cancer. POW!! …out comes the lower left lobe of my lung. The Thoracic Surgeon says “you’re young and strong, you won’t even miss it.” Two years later, SNICK!! …another portion of my lung disappears as a wedge resection reveals the cancer has spread throughout my lungs. Then I’m told chemotherapy is my only option for waging this battle. BLAM!! ...menopause and all of its insults descend upon my beleaguered body as chemotherapy takes its first bite. ZZZZTT!! …my nerves are sizzled as chemotherapy also deadens my sense of touch and replaces it with a low level of burning pain with its second bite.
Hey, wait a minute, I thought I was “Batgirl” poised to take on and vanquish the evil-doer “Cancer” attacking my innocent but invincible body? Now I walk the path of life adorned in my handy utility belt replete with duct tape, stickpins at the ready to retrieve and salvage whatever else might fall off.
I realize the weapon I have been handed is a double edged sword; poisoning the cancer is also poisoning my cherished home. Recently, I feel I am more like Monty Python’s “Knight of Nee” ineptly defending the crossroads and decrying after each limb is severed “it’s merely a flesh wound, come back here and fight.”
I hear a CLUNK!!… glance behind me, “hey, I need that,” turn aside, carefully pick up another part of myself and lovingly duct tape it back into place. I put off for another day deciding whether the “cure” is worse than the disease. I slide my sword back into its scabbard and continue down the path savoring every moment of my existence.
© 2015 Elizabeth L., written in 2009 (I wrote this poem in the midst of treatment with a cocktail of several traditional chemotherapies.)
Living With Cancer Is an Uneasy Truce
Living with cancer is an uneasy truce. There is never a complete peace, instead the niggling worry is always there, “what if it comes back?” Perhaps living with cancer is like being pregnant but the entity that shares my body is malevolent. It’s ever present, just under the level of consciousness, peering into what I do and sapping a bit of the easy joys that twinkle in everyday life. Perhaps it perches on my shoulder, now it’s not just me when I go out to have fun with friends, its “me” and “Cancer.” Talk about a wet blanket to squelch a bit of spontaneous fun…
Perhaps Cancer is an adornment wrapped around my neck like an old fashioned fur stole, now a part of my ensemble but the style is slightly off, no longer PC. It takes stalwart friends to look beyond this frightening presence, look into my eyes and see “me.” My spontaneity and irrepressible sense of humor have left me, my sparkle being doused in a downpour from the small thundercloud hovering in my wake.
I’m not really a “Survivor” as surviving connotes something in the past, scars healed, resolution at a cost obtained. But resolution does not seem to be my fate. Instead, my fate is one of being suspended in a way, more one of soldiering on…
I want my cheeky irreverence back, my sparkling eyes, my subtle wit, my full throated laugh. I’m no longer the one who triggers a chuckle from a group of friends and it’s not something you can fake. Let’s face it, it’s a bummer having Cancer at a party. No one invited him but there he sits, looking at me with glowering eyes and eating all the cake.
© 2015 Elizabeth L., written in 2013.