A lump.
It wasn't there in August
when I told the doctor it was back.
He looked at me and said, with a semi-tolerant,
humoring you expression,
"Those symptoms are diffuse and could be anything.
I don't want to expose you to more radiation unless we're sure
it's something
so, let me know if you have night sweats."
I couldn't prove it,
but all of those initial symptoms were back.
Heart palpitations,
dry mouth,
fatigue.
Constantly sick. Cold after cold after cold.
Every weekend, in bed, sick.
The kind of fatigue you get from working a job and going to school
non stop for five, six years.
And the weird, sporadic, transient moments of nausea.
It wasn't there last week.
I sure. I was sick
and when I get sick I get a lot of lumps
over my neck
and I have to cling to the fact that I have
a cough and a sneeze
and a throbbing head and sinuses.
But not today.
Today, it's just a lump.
No cold symptoms.
It's funny how everything stops.
Last night, I raced up and down the halls
pushing my cart, laden with over a hundred twenty pounds
of pills, elixirs, creams, gels, nebulizers, patches, tube feedings,
needles, IV's, drops, powders...
bell of my stethoscope bouncing across my chest
as I jogged from patient to patient.
Deal with an irate family member.
Comfort a crying coworker.
Assist my CNA.
Send another on break.
Tell another to take a breath.
Give a hug.
Every person I dismiss,
every staff member that breaks down
means more tasks I pick up.
But it's okay, I've got stout legs
and a strong back
and a steel will.
I was a desk worker
switchboard operator
floor nurse
wound care specialist
lab requisitioner
transportation coordinator
pharmacy hounder
customer service agent
garbage woman
snack fetcher
feed you dinner
professional butt wiper
transferrer
translator-mimer
tissue holder
tucking in bed-er
jokster
comforter
limit setting authority figure
find the channel for the Cubs game
absorb all your complaints abuses
and fluff your pillow afterwards
body woman
with a nursing degree.
And I did it for twenty patients
that I have to cycle through every two hours.
"That girl can hustle," I hear a patient say as I leave the room.
With every click, and every scribble
I think to myself:
"Down. Keep pace. Faster."
Chasing the yellow boxes before they turn to red
like a screen full of LATE!
Fast, fast, barely think, no mistakes, don't breathe
don't sit, don't pee, don't drink, don't eat--
hurry
tick
hurry
tick
hurry
until this morning.
I find a lump.
And I'm not sick.
I mean, I am, clearly.
But I'm not sick from a cold.
My brain is already computing.
Assessing, assessing.
Weighing the statistics.
Who do I tell? Should I tell?
Why is this damn doctor not picking up?
What if I'm wrong? (I'm not wrong.)
Do I quit my job?
What about insurance? How does that even work now?
What a joke. The copayments alone for chemo would send me--
I can't think about that.
I was supposed to start school next month.
Damn, I just ordered a liter of shampoo--such a waste
I'll be bald shortly from the chemo I'm sure.
Do I want to do that?
God, the time--there isn't enough time.
There isn't enough time to think.
To spend all that time in a hospital.
Again.
To see those same nurses' faces.
To hear them whispering.
To listen to them tell me to be positive.
I don't want to tell my brothers again
and hear grown men cry
again
and watch my mother shuffle around
in a haze of religion capped sorrow
waiting for her God to save me
again.
I don't want to tell Phuong that I'm dying
again.
I don't want to tell my piano students
that their teacher is going to be bald
again.
I am angry.
The first time I wasn't angry. I was scared.
Then I was accepting.
But this time, I'm fucking angry.
Couldn't even have a goddamn year or remission?
It makes no sense, but I want to yell
at the coworkers yesterday
who asked me if I had children
or was married
and when I said no, patted me and said,
"It's okay, it will happen. You have time."
"You won't get cancer again. You can't think like that."
"I believe that God has a whole life in store for you."
I want to flip them the bird and yell,
"Where's your God now, motherfuckers!"
Even when winning actually means losing.
And now I'm measuring how
to balance what I know in my gut
and order the things in my life
And all I want to do is lay back
and live my life as slowly as possible.
Because I know there isn't much time.
It's a familiar feeling.
It's a waste of energy that I need to think.
Pack it away. You can cry later.
You can be pissed later.
Or never.
Fight first.
Run first.
Race time. First.
I don't know what to do.
Maybe I'll just stand here for a minute.
Like how I do, sometimes at work,
when all I want to do is sit down,
so I do a wall squat in front of my cart.
Take a moment.
Tick, tick, tick...
Okay, break's over.
Get back in the race.
Oh there's my phone ringing with an area code
from Hammond, Indiana.
Stupid school. Calling to ask why I haven't registered for classes yet.
Don't they know? There isn't enough time.
Come Monday, I'll be back at work again.
Until I have enough lumps
to convince this doctor
to inject me with radioactive isotopes and stuff me in a tube
where all I have to do is lay still
and let the seconds go by
to tell me what I already know.
