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Salamander
Fire Walking

On the start of a new year
Tue Jan 01 2008

These days I find myself noticing the textures of things that I touch. The velvet of that duster-length jacket at Coldwater Creek that I wanted for my own. The smooth hard cool of my computer desk. The slight grittiness of my car that needs washing so badly. The acidy crackle of the cats’ coats in the dry winter air. Touch is more intimate than sight or sound. Taste is perhaps the most intimate of the senses, but I’m still sane enough that I don’t go around tasting everything. I do sneak touches of just about anything these days though. The grease on an unwashed pan. The drops of water spilled on the kitchen floor. Shampoo straight from the bottle. Touch tethers me to reality in this time of surrealism.

It isn’t the first time I’ve entered a new year wondering how many other new years I have ahead. I felt this way when 2002 yielded to 2003. Back then I was practicing the Perfect Patient’s Approach to Life. If you have to be sick, then your only chance to maintain most human contact is to be the Perfect Patient. Upbeat. Optimistic. Holly Golightly sunshine, lollipops and everything that’s wonderful is going to come your way. Nobody in their right mind wants to be reminded of their personal mortality, and nothing reminds a body more of their personal mortality than having to interact with the obviously mortal. Ain’t anything more obviously mortal than a seriously sick person who wants to discuss worst case scenarios. So keep it happy, keep it positive, and keep the glass half full. Better yet, find yourself a half-sized glass and pour the remaining water into that one, to maintain the illusion of an endless water supply.

I can be the Perfect Patient. I know the dance steps by heart. There are new advances in medical science all the time. Half the people in that scientific study are still alive after five years. I’ve got the best doctors and hospital possible behind me. I always beat all the odds. I’m invincible.

And the part of me that isn’t the Perfect Patient finds a nice compartment somewhere in my brain, hidden from polite conversation. The part of me that wants to discuss that final “what if” mostly keeps her mouth shut. Oh, she tries to sneak out once in a while. She’ll sneak a comment like, “If this were my last Christmas” into the conversation, only to be told to stop speaking like that. She’ll make a comment that the odds aren’t necessarily with her, to be reminded that she isn’t just a statistic. It’s as though people really are superstitiously avoiding mentioning the devil’s name, for fear of summoning him. And I’ll play the game, as best I can, because the alternative is social shunning.

Wanting to speak about worst case scenarios doesn’t mean giving up hope. It just means that I don’t want to have to worry about things that are important to me while I’m fighting off the latest case of reality to meteor in and shatter my security. But I’m the only one ready to have the discussion, and anyone who has seen “The Incredibles” knows what happens to people who monologue. So I’ll continue to find textures to ground me and comfort me and talk to me of reality until the people around me can do the same thing.

4 Comments
  • From:
    Yetzirah (Legacy)
    On:
    Tue Jan 01 2008
    Not to minimize your situation one iota, but in reality, we ALL live with this.... fact, that we do not know the time of our demise.

    It's just that in the case of an illness, it brings what is normally relegated to the attic closet, by unhappy circumstance, into the parlor.

    Too bad he doesn't look like Brad Pitt eh?

    Good thoughts headed your way in any case. Thank goodness for modern medicine. Sometimes they pull rabbits out of their stethoscopes. :-)
  • From:
    SitsWithAnAddingMachine (Legacy)
    On:
    Tue Jan 01 2008
    Well, you've certainly had practice at thinking of worst case scenarios. I don't blame you a bit.

    It's funny how both the sick and their friends expect each other to act certain ways. I guess people like to cling to a formula because it's hard to tell what the other person most needs to hear, and people are afraid of saying the wrong thing in an already difficult situation. In my admittedly less dramatic brush with the big C, all I really wanted was for someone to tell me everything will be okay, and no one ever did. So that's how I've approached other people when they get this kind of news, telling them what I wanted to hear (and what turned out to be true). If I've been overly cheery and optimisitic now and in the past I hope you'll forgive me.

    I think what you wrote makes a lot of sense, even for those in perfect health. It's best to live not taking anything for granted.

    Happy New Year, my friend.
  • From:
    CaraSusanetta (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 02 2008
    This is probably most true to those that raised you (general you, not specific), and those you live with daily. Thanks for the reminder that we all need real support when we are staring the unknown infinity a little more directly in the face than usual.

    Maybe you (specific you, not general) can get some solace and a safe outlet for your true feelings from friends-only entries. It could help us continue to know how best to "be here" for you.
  • From:
    TraumaMama (Legacy)
    On:
    Wed Jan 02 2008
    ((HUGS))
    The worse part of me job is transporting pts from the hospital with new diagnoses of a terminal disease. I watched a grown man cry yesterday. He has terminal brain cancer and a new hospice pt. Transporting from the hospital to go home and die was sobering. The family members tried to laugh and joke with him and it just made it worse.
    Thinking about you...