Saturday, 26th August 2023
I had my second scan, or, more accurately, first revisited, on Wednesday. It’s taken three days to write about it. I would have said at the time it was of no particular concern, I didn’t dwell on it in the days afterwards. But, here’s the thing. I didn’t write about it. To me, that’s a Combat Indicator. Under the surface, in the places my conscious self can’t reach, something’s going on. By having a successful scan, especially after an unsuccessful first one, and getting within a week to go of treatment, it concentrates the mind. Things that are unimportant become so. Things that are important become more so. That hazy ground where you can’t tell if something’s one or the other, which is which, retreats into the background. The background of the subconscious, well, that’s buried deep.
Except it isn’t.
When the important stuff is labeled thusly, likewise the unimportant stuff, then the mind can focus on the in-between stuff and get to work.
One of three things is going to happen with this cancer.
1. It will kill me.
2. It will kill me but take its time.
3. It won’t kill me.
Once the mind has been focused, a kind of cleansing, it can consider these three options afresh. The big news is it can, within the three options, prune out extraneous shit.
I think.
The proof of course, is in the pudding, and that isn’t served for a while yet.
And then there’s not what I think, but what I believe.
Tracey introduced me to one of her friends yesterday. One she knows, and I have met, through MS circles, the other is the friends husband. He recently underwent the same treatment I‘m going to have for the same reasons. It was really useful to talk to him.
As I’ve got older, and this came more into focus during the studies for my PhD, it has become more obvious to me that to consider one option of looking at life as ‘black and white’ is an over simplification. As the blurring of general identifies has shown. Male / female, good / bad, black / white. This is because there’s an in-between state, a more fuzzy state that is therefore harder to define, harder to grasp. Unlabelled. ‘Things’ can be neither good nor bad, a temporary holding pattern in-between. Often, absence of bad is good enough and it’s a much easier state to seek when you’re stuck right in the middle of bad than seeking ‘good’. And beyond. After all, good is the enemy of the excellent. Baby steps. One day at a time.
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