Wednesday, 12 July, 2023
Well. In one way I’m connected again, in one way I’m connectionless. The connected is more important, the connectionless fixable.
The mystery as to why my first initiation consultancy in Hampshire is with Urology. Oncology (at least for prostate cancer) work out of the Urology suite. We’re on level G, C was the ground floor, and I wan’t paying attention in the lift but if there’s one floor per letter we’re four floors up. The view from the Oncologist’s window is lovely (I suspect Southampton General is on a high bit of ground too), north over plenty of trees and not too many high-risers. Maybe a brief glimpse of 10,000 years ago, before we started farming. We have some chit chat.
If I was seeking a second opinion in that “I want a second opinion” sense, I wasn’t, my Oncologist is very complimetary about Cheltenham and Gloucester Oncology, I needn’t have bothered. ‘I think Dr Bowden was right,’ she says, ‘because of your very high PSA I don’t think we can cure you.’
How does that make me feel?
Nothing at the moment. And this nothing isn’t the nothingness of numb, like my PPMS diagnosis, this is an absence off emotion, not a suppression. I’ll think about it tonight. Since I’m writing this tomorrow, as it were (I tend to write these posts with an early-morning coffee, after my daily dose of day-intro fiction, in the dawn hours of the next day, my favourite time to write) I thought about it last night.
It’s complicated.
And different from when I first heard the same words. Although I took my voice recorder, I forgot to activate it so can’t listen to the convo again.
There is a brief flare of ‘oh my God, this thing is going to kill me’, then the Watcher, having been on low-level surveillance, hands over to the Catcher and the thought is dismissed, quashed. Again, not suppressed, dismissed. How to explain the difference? How to explain nuances of feeling? This thought has been flushed away. Is it still within me, deep somewhere, planted, nurtured and now part of the garden furniture? : no it isn’t. Practically, as I say often and to everybody, I’m 61 years old, I’m still breathing, plenty of others didn’t get to my age: no complaints. There are other practical thoughts, my two sons at their father’s funeral, the odd woman I haven’t pissed off crying, the kind platitudes on Facebook. The Catcher kicks in again. Bollox to that. I’ve still got things to do. Novels to write, people to affect through literature and writing (I wasn’t watching what my snazzy fingers were writing there, but autocorrect came up with ‘rioting’), a woman to catch and tame.
More than that, I’m teaching myself to talk to my body. Which seems a bit of a surreal concept. New-Age Witchery. Many moons ago I read a book, it is just coming to me. If this was real time you’d have to wait as I search my memory. Tall blond Californian with a Californian name. I’ll just go pop the kettle on, resist a Google search for mow, and be back with you.
Fresh coffee made, I search Google. ‘californian wman [sic] cured herself of cacner [also ‘sic’, welcome to typing after two decades of MS]’ gets me a load of press bollox. I’ll think about it no get back to you, talking to my body for another time. I think I need to read this woman’s book again. Oh look at that, the disfunction of an old person’s memory revealed in real time.
[Brandon Bayes.]
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