On Thursday, I talked to my doctor about these words, and my concerns about them. I also told him about the three-month journey I'd taken since the last time I'd seen him. How I'd gotten such great care from my medical team, such love from friends and family. How my mother had died just a week and a half after my surgery.
I talked with him about the intense, microscopic perspective I'd adopted--out of necessity, really--since early August. How I had spent three months looking closely at things, my own health as well as my mother's demise. And how odd this past month has been--post surgery, post death, post radiation--a quiet, untethered time in which I wasn't being asked to do anything but heal.
And then he told me that I didn't have to take the pills, even though he thought I should. That my odds, without them, were pretty darned good. He also disentangled myth from truth, concerning the pills, telling me what might happen to me, but also letting me know what they can do for me. It was an important shift in prepositions and I paid close attention.
Really, I had never considered skipping this third chapter of my recovery. But those words--those tough, unpleasant words--did dampen my enthusiasm to begin this phase. For awhile, I couldn't get over the notion of Jane-plus-25. But the one word that has haunted me most is the one I spoke most adamantly about when I sat in the doctor's office. Mean. I don't want to be mean. Not for five years, more or less for a day or two.
Still.
And as we talked through it all, there was a moment when I felt a swell of emotion, when, with a little nudge, I could imagine a flood of tears burbling up.
"Well, I made a promise to my children that I would be a good patient. That I would do everything I could so that I would not get cancer again."
It was a great appointment. I really like this doctor, trust his long view and appreciate his quirky humor. And I felt good about my decision. Which, really, was a non-decision after all. I just needed a new preposition.
Two hours into this five-year journey and I haven't grown a beard. My jeans fit the same and I've been really nice to Finn.
So far, so good.
