The Countdown to the Final Countdown

I was checking people out at my work when this lady started complaining me about the price of garlic. She kept saying that garlic is the price of chicken. She was very upset that her garlic was ringing up at one dollar and twelve cents, and I could think about was how I’m going to […]

I was checking people out at my work when this lady started complaining me about the price of garlic. She kept saying that garlic is the price of chicken. She was very upset that her garlic was ringing up at one dollar and twelve cents, and I could think about was how I’m going to find out tomorrow if I’m going to die soon of cancer. I smiled, I nodded, I said things that sounded concern for the woman’s complaints, but I was in a world where I might not see 2020.I go in tomorrow morning to find out from my oncologist if I have cancer still and if it is on my liver and if that puts an expiration date on my life. I have waited two months for this appointment. I have lived for two months wondering if there is a countdown clock on my life. I have thought about what it means to die and what it means to live. I might walk out of that appointment with nothing wrong with me or with a date in the near future circled.

I am scared more than I’ve ever been scared before. I don’t think I can properly put into words how scared I am. My stomach has been doing somersaults and dropping out for the last two weeks. My fear starts to do balancing acts with anger and anxiety. I want to drop out. I want to disappear and never bother anyone again. Part of me doesn’t want to know. Part of me wants it to be the worst case scenario because I won’t feel like such a schmuck for worrying about nothing. I just want to know.

If it’s nothing, then I’ll be relieved, but I’ll forever remember how I had cancer. Cancer has permeated my whole life. It is the event. It will be my new B.C.E./C.E. (before common era/common era or B.C./A.D.) in my story. It will no longer be the time I got sober. To be honest, when I talk to people that don’t know me, I just want to say, “I had/have cancer.” I feel like it is important that people know. If it is nothing, and I now had cancer rather than have cancer, I’ll walk away with this huge event that I survived, but no longer have anything to do with. It’s like being an alcoholic or an addict, it becomes this qualifier and identifying title.

My friends and family are all sending me messages that they are thinking about me, praying for me or sending good vibes in my general direction. I almost feel like I’m going to let them down if it’s nothing. We’ve all been waiting for this day and watching me go through fear, depression and anxiety, but then it’ll be over. 

If I get bad news, then I don’t know what I’ll do. I really don’t know how I’ll take that kind of news. I can’t help but remember the time that I was lying in a hospital bed the day I got diagnosed and everyone was out of my room and it was the first time I was alone since getting to the hospital and I just started crying like I’ve never cried before. I was gulping for air while sobbing uncontrollably. I think many years of not seriously crying awoke that day and came out too. I felt so empty and alone even though I was told that what I had was treatable and I would be ok in no time, so I have no idea how finding out my end date will do to me.

I think the part that really grinds me up inside is the part where I’ll just be decomposing in a bed somewhere withering in excruciating pain. I’ll be hopped up on painkillers and I’ll be just a mumbling skinny corpse. I have seen other people wait around to die and it is ugly. There is nothing romantic about dying. I envy the people who died instantly. They’re just gone, but to wake up another day not knowing how many days left there are while you stink of death and every move you make costs pain and comfort is no longer a word you can use is more than I possibly can bare. 

Whatever the prognosis is, I just can’t wait to know. The waiting almost killed me alone. Every day wanting to know what the rest of my life is going to be like. I want it to be a mystery again where I had no idea if I’ll be an old man or if I’ll die from food poisoning from Ikea meatballs next weekend. The idea of a timed life makes me almost have an anxiety attack.

I guess I’ll be writing another blog tomorrow.