Knowing for Sure
There is a calm and certainty that comes with knowing. I read that once, in a story about a woman who, like I do now, faced a battle with a cancer it would be difficult to defeat. I've known for almost a week now - the cancer, the so very rare cancer in this part of the world, had come back to me. There is a mass, smaller than the last one, that is pressing into my sinus cavity.
The nasopharynx is an airspace lying at the back of the nose and above the soft part of the palate (roof of the mouth). It connects the nose to the back of the mouth (oropharynx), allowing you to breathe through your nose and to swallow mucus produced by the lining membranes of the nose.
Words that are etched into my mind. Words that leap from pages of treatment ideas, websites, and my own writing as I work out the best treatment options. Mark and my oncologist, Dr. Rea Litgo, have advised me well. They know I've been through this before. They aren't pretending to smooth things over. What they are going to do to me is going to be worse in some ways than the cancer itself. But they actually did catch it early this time.
He could have done more, if they'd caught it earlier ...
I find myself yearning for Penny Northern. I find myself wondering if this is not inevitable. Chips in my neck aside, I was pumped full of radiation. When they harvested my ova, they did it through a radioactive process that caused super-ovulation. The fact that I do not glow in the dark is a near miracle. So, in the end, is this not inevitable? Am I not destined for a hospital bed; a victim of their destructive project? Was this respite we've had the past ten years merely an escape, a successfully rounded corner in the speeding car chase? Eventually, the cops catch the one they are pursuing. Perhaps this is now my time.
My words are not meant to sound pessimistic or to assume I am giving up. To the contrary. There is a calm and certainty that comes with knowing. I know my next move. I know the stage cancer I am in. I know exactly what my blood cells are doing. I know the names of the drugs they plan to pump into my body. I know how much my insurance will be billed and how much this is going to drain my savings. I know that my doctors are concerned that my migraines might not be related. I know that if I could indeed still have children, the procedures I am about to endure will effectively end any last hope of a miracle. I know that, for the time being, I will be able to continue to work. I will scale back my cases and work only four days a week, with my treatments occurring on Friday mornings, giving me the weekend to regain my strength. I know that my diet is about to change, my energy levels are about to drop, and that there will be days I will feel like dying. I am almost certain that this time, I will not be able to avoid the loss of my hair and that my skin will dry up as the drugs attack it.
There is a calm and certainty that comes with knowing.
Last night, I pulled open long ignored files and looked through the history of my cancer. There is little I can do right now but pray. My cure came from one of two places - this chip in the back of my neck or the hand of God. We have no way of getting to another chip. So, now, my life is in God's hands. Mulder and I sat in the midst of dirty and dusty boxes and read through the file together and he kissed the nearly invisible scar on the back of my neck and I felt him do his best to control his shaking and his fears. We talked, seriously, about the next steps. We talked about choices for doctors - Our Lady of Sorrows is a wonderful hospital, but we may need to look elsewhere for treatment options eventually. Johns Hopkins isn't out of the realm of possibility. There are wonderful advancements being made around the country. He will stop at nothing and I need him to lead this fight. The last time, he looked so hard, in every dark place for his secret intervention. He found it. This time his hands are tied, so I need him to live the only way he knows how - to look for impossible answers in the darkest shadows. And if those shadows lead us to places and doctors in other states and other countries, so be it. I will not deny him his role in this.
There are two conversations left to have. Instead of driving home tonight, we are driving to see my mother. Over dinner, we will break her heart. Tomorrow morning, we are having breakfast with Walter. (Unless he is there tonight, which isn't out of the realm of possibility. He and my mother are fooling no one.) Despite my wishes, my treatments begin tomorrow morning. I wanted to escape first, to get to Bucharest and spend some time with Mulder, one on one, together, in the city where I regained my soul and we fell in love all over again, but Mark and Rea are right. I need to start as soon as possible. We will push through the new year and in six weeks, I will be released from my cage and if I am healthy enough, they will clear me to fly. I wish they weren't right. I think Mulder and I need this time together.
This diagnosis of mine has proved my deepest fears - that this isn't over. Natalie's appearance (and then disappearance) recently was the alarm bell ... this diagnosis is the wake up call. It isn't over.
God can be so cruel.
-Dana Scully-