They're Planning a Murder

[Fictional narrative inspired by a colleague]

It's going to be unpleasant. They’re doing it tomorrow. I know they are, because I’m an accessory before the fact. Honestly, I was in on the plan from the start. Someone else mentioned it, and I jumped on board. Some pacifist I am.

My doctors are planning to kill a cancer, but this cancer might just kill me. This one is inside me. Nasty to think about. But that’s what the docs are going to try to do. And they have to be the best chemo-slingers around, because they must murder my cancer without killing me. Tough job, that. Don’t envy them. Not one bit.

I almost feel as though I have the easy job -- all I have to do is survive.

Ha!

Then again, I’m a marked person. I feel as though I have been confined for my own protection. Today is Tuesday. The chemo starts tomorrow. I have a laundry list of things I can’t do. I’m not allowed to do this, I’m not allowed to do that.

I am being treated like a delicate piece of bone china just before it gets sent into fiery red maw of the 5,000-degree kiln to be cured by heat. Rather apropos in my case. I have cancer, so I guess I am more delicate than others on this planet. I hope to be cured. A metaphysical spear of fire and heat – in the form of a chemotherapy injection – is going to cure me by scalding my cancer to death.

Maybe. We hope. I hope. It's my tail that’s on the line here.

It’s like I’m stuck at the airport waiting for my next flight. Not much to do. Time to kill. They told me to get some sleep. REALLY? My mind is a whirlwind. Too restless to rest.

I moon about my house, wondering how my world is going to look after getting a snoot-full of caustic chemicals injected into my body.

I feel pretty good right now and I’m enjoying that. The cancer hasn’t spread. My feeling well will change plenty quick. The very stuff that should help me is going to bring me to my knees and might knock me off my pins completely and onto my derriere. I might feel like I caught some fictional super-flu. Which is sort of true, isn’t it? Cancer is a kind of super bug, I guess. I will feel sick as a dog and tired as all get out.

I won’t feel like doing anything after I get home tomorrow – except maybe york. They tell me not to think about it, but I can’t help it. Then, just when I start feeling like myself again, and my strength begins to return, it will be time for another round. And I will get knocked right down again. To knock the killer cells down, they have to knock me down, too. No way around it, really, as the little bastard cells – to which my own body gave birth! -- are living and growing and creating their havoc inside me.

Anyway, tomorrow is a new day. Not just another in a long string of days quickly forgotten, but the beginning of my renewal. Bring it!