#6

April 17, 2008 marked two months since I finished ABVD chemotherapy and was also the date of my first follow up PET scan.  These scans measure metabolic activity, fast dividing cancer cells show up in pretty pinks and reds- the rest of the body is a cool blue gray.  Okay, so the pinks and reds really aren't that pretty.  They mean you have cancer.  (Infections also show up, which is why one doesn't get a PET if one has a sore throat, pneumonia, etc.)  After waiting an hour for the radioactive dye injection to pulse through your veins, you enter the machine- a thirty minute scan.  

I count the entire thirty minutes.  Sixty, thirty times.  Twenty seven times to be exact.  I was only a minute off this latest time.  Not bad for a dyslexic...

During the hour long saturation process I read Sunset magazine, Elle, and then I thought.  My only thought was this:

Sickness is a part of life.  I am not singled out because I got "sick."  Everybody gets sick, it's just a matter of when.  This is an obvious thought which I am sure the majority of adults have considered.  Still, what if being alive also means you get sick?  You die.  You ail.  You'd think I would have thought this all through after my sister died and was sick for ten of her fourteen years.  Nope.

#5

Have you ever swallowed a pill you didn't mean to take?  It's a horrible feeling.  One time I took a second dose of Vicodin right after the first one because I forgot that I swallowed the first batch.  I played images of me overdosing by accident in my head.  I tried to throw it up.  I ate and drank a lot after the vomiting idea did not work.  You want to undo something that can't be comfortably undone.  

Have you ever spoken words you didn't mean to say?  I'll bet there are many more agreements to that one.  There are similar scenarios.  Sometimes words will fall out of my mouth and into this world- accidents.  I want to breathe them back instead of throw them up.  I want to speak more to cover up my trail, just like I want to consume more to dilute the drug in my stomach and blood stream.  I replay the damage words can cause and what the repercussions are for me and the parties involved.

One instance involves taking something unwanted in, the other spews something unwanted out.