Tag Archives: love

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Forever or not?

Once someone has cancer, do they have it forever?

I think that is a complex question. But one example comes to mind.

An older woman, in her early eighties, is seeing me. She wants to go back on hormone replacement.

“But you have a history of breast cancer.” I say.

“That was six years ago. And I took that horrible tamoxifen for 5 years and I still am having hot flushes after a year off it and I am sick of it. Give me hormones.”

“Hmmm.” I say. “Let me do some research.”

I call the oncology group south of us. This is over ten years ago when we had no oncologists in our county.

“How old is she?” Her oncologist is digging up her records. “Ok, got her. Hmmm. Well, she had a stage one cancer and a lumpectomy and five years of tamoxifen. THAT cancer is gone, for sure. If she wants hormone replacement, it puts her at a bit more risk for a new breast cancer, but the old one is gone. As long as she understands the risk.”

My patient is back and we negotiate. “Ok, the oncologist says your previous cancer is truly gone, but hormones put you at risk for a new breast cancer. At least, raise your risk a little.” Age is the biggest risk in women, if they do not have the abnormal BRCA I or II genes. “Also, if we have you on hormones, you have to do your mammogram, because I’d want to catch any cancer early. That’s the deal.”

“Fine, I want the hormones.” She signs a consent that I’ve prepared and we put her back on her hormone replacement.

“I want to hear from you, ok? Whether it works?”

She calls in a week, delighted. “No more hot flushes! I feel great!”

__________

I took the photograph at Mats Mats Bay last week. There is a sign about osprey nests. I look up and think, oh, yes! Pretty obvious if you look up!

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I don’t remember her exact age and I don’t remember if the five years was tamoxifen or one of the other hormone blockers. She could have been in her seventies. At first I thought, no way back on hormones! Then I thought, quality of life is important. Maybe I choose this photograph because the nest is out on a limb.

Some cancers ARE currently forever, especially those that are stage III or IV and metastatic. Maybe they won’t always be forever.

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Mica

I found this rock on Marrowstone Island, last week. All of the rocks are bright in the sun, especially right after the tide washes over them, but this one stands out.

The surface has layers and layers of mica. Apparently there are 57 different mica minerals, here, so I am not enough of an expert to know which it is. I can see the layers of flakes of mica. This is a beautiful rock.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: grasp.

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Fear

When someone tries to hit me
I fight back
I didn’t worry much in clinic
even when patients yelled
it indicated they were upset
and usually I knew why

Not much fear there.

So what do I fear?

Abandonment
and lies
the one who says they care
that we will be friends
even that they love me
and later walk away

But that has already happened
more than once
and I survive
and the Beloved is still here
and there
and everywhere I am
and everywhere you are
and everything is connected
so there is no fear
and even a chance
that abandoned
I still thrive

____________________

The photograph is from Marrowstone Island in July 2022.

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Air purist

This is a sunset, not smoke. Right now the east coast of the US has spectacularly bad air quality from forest fire smoke. My son is going to work out indoors today, since he is in the DC metro area.

When I moved here, I was delighted by the air quality. That was 23 years ago. In the last five years, we have had smoke blowing in from forest fires to the east or south or north four of the five. Last year I built a home air purifier because the smoke was bothering my lungs even inside the house. It helped very much. I stayed inside for 8 days. The cats did not want to go out either.

“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.” Ironic if it is smoke that takes us out.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: purist.

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Littoral zone

I walked on Marrowstone Island yesterday, south from East Beach. There was a super low tide, to -3.38 at 1:07 pm. When the tide came in, it was at +8.76, so that is a huge difference.

There were almost no people, but the group enjoying the low tide were the great blue herons! I counted 14. At one point they all alerted, and a bald eagle came down and perched on the rock that a heron had been on. There must be some very delicious food for the herons with the low tide. The eagle seemed to be considering heron to be a delicacy.

Here is the eagle (and the great blue herons moved!)

I came home with one very lovely agate.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: littoral.

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Tendrils

He likes to be the smartest. She doesn’t care and anyhow, people don’t like smart women mostly. Men show it off. Women mask it. She can only partially mask with her professional degree.

He’s pleased to walk on the beach with her. She is withdrawn, down. He can feel that. He does not ask why, ever. She slides neatly into the space his wife’s dementia left. His wife who was also depressed. He does whatever he wants, he’s not available, he won’t be trapped. Control.

She is withdrawn, down. She has a difficult task in a year that might kill her. Closing the clinic and working elsewhere. Maybe she only gets pneumonia when a loved one dies. Or maybe COVID-19 will kill her. There, the range is from make a lot of money to dying. It is hard to explain and people don’t believe her.

Tendrils from her time in the ocean brush him. Then they are longer and lit in the sun. They wrap around him, very slowly. The first after a year. Where the tendrils touch, he has scales.

Neither sees. They are too busy laughing. They are small children, wordplay, in the woods, on the beaches, talking, singing.

She thinks her mermaid self is separate, her dream self. She is safest in the ocean. Her microbiota, gut bacteria, are all from the ocean. Symbiotic. He has land bacteria, at least, he starts with them. They change the longer they are together. He says, β€œI can read your mind!” But he can’t read emotions, since his are locked away. They bang on the dungeon doors howling but his heart is locked there too. His head can’t hear, can’t feel. Only when the small child is out playing.

He is slowly turning green. Now he has a few small leafy tendrils too.

She goes in the sea, the ocean, the unconscious, daily. Unworried, free, happy, healed.

The year goes by. The clinic closes, she has a job.

β€œWhy are you afraid?” He says.

β€œI am afraid I’ll get sick,” she says.

He has tendrils running all over from her. Half his skin has designs, stripes and patterns. The earliest ones have thickened and spread, rooted wherever they touch him, scales edging the roots. She is fully scaled, with the tendrils from fins and tail and hair. She smells of the sea.

She goes to work and is sick after two months. Very very sick with all it entails.

“You didn’t tell me about this!” he says.

“Why would I?” she says. “No one believes me.”

“I am watching and I don’t believe it.” He hates that her mind is unmasked. “I can follow you and it makes sense but you jump topics so fast!”

She shrugs. “Well.”

He tries to cut ties. Once. Twice. He can’t see the tendrils, so how can he cut them? But now she looks from the ocean and sees. The third time he tries, she grabs a shell and slices through the tendrils and dives deep. He could come in the sea. But he will have to choose.

He chooses not to. He thinks she is calling him from the sea. Every day he drinks a little more, smokes a little more, trying to drown the call.

But it isn’t her. The tendrils are his, now. The dungeon is flooded and the monsters and the small child swim in an ocean, fully scaled. They call him daily, to open the door, to let them out, to join them.

To join them in the sea.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: symbiotic.

Sea of love.