The oncologist calls me, with shaken voice, and he does not go straight to the point.
The MRI results shows five tumors in my brain. Three of them are very small. Two are big.
He asks me to take cortisone at once. It will not shrink the tumors, but hopefully it can release some of the pressure in the head; the headache and the problems with my sight.
All these symptoms I have had the last weeks, that I have believed, or hoped, are side effects from the immune therapy or from morphine; The tendency to crash into door-frames, to spill when I carry cups or mugs with my left hand, the miscalculations of distances when I lean towards something, or when I try to place my glass on a table… Not to talk about the tabs I always hit wrong on the keyboard when I write this blog… Or the blind field to my left…
They are not side-effects at all. They are symptoms from tumors in my brain.
In a few hours the cortisone already makes some difference. It doesn’t take the symptoms away, but they become lighter.
Temporary, I guess.
The oncologist is not really at work this week, but he will bring his cellphone and call me back in two days – to check how it is going. He is talking with other doctors in other hospitals, to look into if some of the tumors can be removed with surgery, or if radiation is the only thing they got.
What function will I miss next?
What symptom will come next?
Will I go blind?
Lose the language?
Will I get irritated or angry, change personality?
Thee questions are coming up in me, but I see that none of this is now. These are thoughts about a future that is not here now.
I am here, in my green sofa. A 15-16 year old cat is snoring relaxed beside me. Outside the window, the sky is still red from the sunset – and I have less pain in the body than what I have had in several months. The immune and chemo therapy have helped on the cancer in my tailbone, even though the cancer has grown other places during the same period.
Here and now there are no problems.
No problems at all.
I remember my father there in a wheelchair in the elders home… Everything gone; no words, no facial expression, no body language. Still; that pure innocence in his eyes, the Being.
Who am I, when my brain breaks down, when my body stops functioning, when I can no longer see or speak or write?
A peace is descending these days, there is nowhere to go. But in.
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