The Doctor's First Dozen Words

On the way to our reckoning, our memory connectors were on alert and searching for omens.

We found one almost immediately.

Two minutes from our house, an ambulance  with lights a flashin' was pickin' up a poor soul and taking them somewhere else. Yikes. Not what we were looking for yet as we passed it became clear that the ambulance was bringing somebody back from somewhere instead of taking them away.

Naturally, we took this return as a good omen.

We take what we can get in the realm of faith as it ricochets towards reckoning.

We made it to the consult and discovered we were early which meant a bonus half hour of looking at the complex aquarium in the waiting room and imagining the first fateful dozen words from Doctor Somebody.

We in this case being my wife Lynn and my daughter Mary and me myself and I.

Our name was called and we walked into the examination room which was posing as a conference room. We were as prepared for the worst as we could have been prepared for the worst but still pretty sure we were somehow unprepared.

The door opened and Dr Somebody entered the room with all kinds of documents in his hand.

These were the first dozen words of the reckoning.

"Something smells good in here and I'm pretty sure it's not you."

He was looking at the part of we that is me.

Of all the imagined first dozen words, these twelve had never approached our imaginings.

We took that as a weird compliment to the way

that the we

who were women in the room

wore our perfume.

I remember the first couple of minutes after that and the rest is kind of a blur.

Doctor Somebody described how the results of my various scans indicated that the cancer had not worked its way into the bones or surrounding organs. As a matter of fact, the surroundings were all in good shape.

A previously unknown level of relief and happiness surged through us immediately.

We started talking about offense now for rthe first time. What we could do to attack that cancer and get it the hell outta here. Removal of the prostate, eight weeks of radiation or insertion through surgery of radioactive seeds.

The unknown backed away.

The amorphous shape took shape.

Doctor S admitted that the time in the shadow of the unknown is the worst of times.

We're on the attack now.

Long story short, the word is TREATABLE. All of the options are on the table. Doctor S asked us for our choice after describing all of the alternatives. We all went for the seeds.

Now we have to speak to the oncologist radioligist to see if the seed surgery  is a realistic, viable approach. That conference is coming next week and we're good wif it.

We're not out of the woods yet but the bears seem to be behind us rather than in front of us.

The story is far from over. The after effects remain profound. We're aware of those changes.

We don't mean to underestimate.

We are aware that bears can move forward by moving backward and can in fact step in the exact same tracks that they made when they were going forward before moonwalking backward/forward.

As for tonight, we have already been changed by the profundity of cancer. We looked into the abyss while walking through the woods. Even then, we had faith.

We are delighted so.....

Now, right now, we're gonna back off and boogaloo.

Stay tuned.

I'll write more when we come back to earth.

And if we don't I'll write from wherever we are but damn, we like it here.

In a place like this.