After the family doctor pronounced my test results “awful” and sent me in search of a diagnosis, I made the rounds of specialists as many people do, learning along the way that a doctor's eyes might be made to bulge by the merest lab report.
Finally, a veteran hematologist and old acquaintance got to the root of the matter. A bone marrow biopsy showed twice the normal number of lymphocytes, half of them malignant. This was the work of a lymphoma which treatment can only set back, not cure. A CT scan painted a clear picture of Stage IV.
Early in adulthood I had fallen into the habit of visualizing my life as a finite arc in time. I never entirely forgot that I was headed somewhere on a constantly shortening journey. Mortality was my acknowledged lot. So I couldn't say this allusion to it came as a shock, though it did make a riveting tap on the shoulder. I accepted that I would very probably break with the family tradition of longevity and must put my affairs in order. At the same time, I felt that a settled, fatalistic spirit of gratitude for life was the best ground on which to make a stand. I still do.
Hospital mattresses proved excellent. Nor was the blood patient's unrestricted diet lost on me (though I can say so only because I escaped the severe side effects of treatment that many suffer). A stroll past the other wards, with their genres of malady posted in the corridor, always brought me back to mine untroubled by envy. Meanwhile, the sense of contented reconciliation to mortality bolstered my spirits; and my spirits, as I believe, bolstered my prospects.
The good doctor’s concoction of chemotherapy and monoclonal antibody cleared me of detectable malignancy in short order. Still it was understood that the disease would be lurking somewhere even though it no longer showed up. When, on leaving the hospital to continue treatments as an outpatient, I asked whether there were any cautions to observe in my daily life, the doctor gently replied, "Just do what you want to do." And with that valediction to ponder, off I went. The lymphoma is supposed to reassert itself eventually, but after five years in remission I got the news that with any luck I’d die of something else first. My wife and I went straight to a nice restaurant for a little celebration.
Recent tests show that the cancer is no longer in remission, but in a “smoldering” state at a level that does not call for treatment. My first doctor, whose own cancer proved more insistent, will not see how the journey ends. However, his memory will go the distance in a couple of grateful hearts. My affairs now drift in and out of order, and the two of us continue to enjoy our garden, our occasional travels, our children’s lives, and our own appetites.
