Cancer helps put things into a sort of odd context. You are confronted with the distinct possibility that like the grim, black humor of the noted WW2 era plaque that read, "Why Worry-You May Not Come Out Of It Alive." is now pertinant in a way like never before in your life.
Oh, you arn't supposed to think like that, but as the clock hand moves towards the day you go under the knife for a spreading pancreatic cancer tumor with all of the extra surrounding area baggage like spleen, stomach, left kidney, intestines and lower right lung that may have to be worked on, which has a way of really getting your attention, you have to maintain a positive attitude...if you can! Then you have to heal up, if you wake up!
Thurber couldn't have written a more darkly humorous tale than this one unfolding before me. Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," cannot convey more uncertainty, nor can Ambrose Bierce's, "Incident at Owl's Head Bridge" provide anything more macabre...afterall it isn't life's illusions that defeat you...it's the sudden stop at the end of the rope! So let's jump.
Cancer is wierd. Are the poisons from the tumor impacting my mind? Who knows?
But one thing is for sure, you find yourself appreciating things a lot more than you used to. Sunsets? High on the list. Your childhood love of MG TD midgets and Morgan Plus4's comes back in a strange way. Old KH and Hydra-Glide Harley's look better than ever. Everything seems sharper in focus.
I face the biggest trial of my life. I go forward confident, but also aware that that like the Owl's Head Bridge man, the rope could snap taut, suddenly.
If I get through the next few days without going nuts from the waiting, the waiting to get this goddamn thing out of me, I will write another diary about recovery and the aftermath.
Solzhenitsyn's "Cancer Ward" captures the post removal stages as well as the Pre-removal stage. I just pray I don't get negative...bitter negative.
Chin up....as Lord Hamilton reputedly said to his subordinates...just before they landed at Gallipoli.
It isn't the actual tumor that is killing me...it is the waiting.