It took a long time for me to deeply, truly know
That my cancer is real, and that it really is going to kill me.
I thrill to feel life in every fiber and nerve of me; yet, my files show
Actual photographs of the cancer that grows inside of me.
But while that shocked and terrified me, I still could not really feel
The truth of this monster in me, because I feel so real.
But the monster will, for me, devour reality.
None of my tests really proved it to me.
I was in massive cognitive dissonance, incapable of really believing it.
The sky of day is far too beautifully bright and blue,
Sometimes with fleecy luminescent clouds to add an extra lovely hue;
The sky of night is far too vast with light of lovely stars, and the moon,
For me to believe my substance is a shadow that will disappear, and soon.
But the cancer doctors accept it well. 
They have a good working relationship with death.
Other people's death.  And other people's pain.
I am not me to them.  I am not even PoetWithCancer to them.
I am cancer.  Not who I am, but what I am, to them. 
Just a cancer to treat.
The human being that is me isn't there for them. 
Nor, as well, for most of the other cancer medical personnel.
One doctor showed compassion and understood and cared about my fear.
But he moved away, States away, and left me mostly uncared about, here.
I receive mostly indifferent, almost mechanical medical care. 
And they sure dislike complaints and complainers.  That'll cost you.
If I can't keep up with COBRA payments, no medical care will be there,
But I'll be put outside where many others, unknown, unloved, have died.
A simple note from the nurse would have kept me from feeling COBRA'S bite.
The bitter irony of their joke, naming it COBRA.  It has cost some the light.
A simple note, refused to me for a year-old grudge and life-uncaring spite.
But even if I manage to keep medical care, and stay on the inside,
In the end, in the words of one doctor, this: "THE CANCER WILL WIN."
When I learned my cancer is growing and moving again,
One doctor shrugged off my fear of cancer killing me, disdainfully,
Saying:  "We all have to die some day."
We all have to die some day, but we don't all have to die this way.
We don't all have to lose years to the worst of our fears,
And feel futile tears.
We don't all have to be stuck with needles frequently,
For blood draws, and infusions of radioactive chemicals for tests,
And go without food in prep for tests, and then wait
To see what the test results will say about our fate.
To visit doctors to see if the time is now shorter or sooner.
Even capital cases of crime face the judge only once.
Even Death Row prisoners have it better and easier.
Even they have more hope, a smart lawyer, a commutation, a reprieve.
No reprieve has been talked of for me.  I feel total futility,
As I feel reality in every part of me, and feel my real life.  Futile tears
Fall from my eyes
That have so recently seen the dead eyes of my precious friend,
The only dead eyes I've ever seen, nothing like the movies, so worse.
So now I know--I know, when I look at my eyes in the mirror,
What they soon shall come to be.
It was my precious friend Brian's terribly dying--
Dying a totally unnecessary iatrogenic death,
And my being there to see his pain and despair,
To have to witness his cruel death, deprived of proper medical care--
Terribly pained
By his long ignored and left undrained deadly ascites fluid build-up--
Hungry and thirsty--still forbidden to eat for the last six days of his life--
Six days, supposedly waiting for a test to see why he was bleeding a little,
Infrequently--though we already knew why, but the doctor wouldn't hear.
Brian himself told everyone he didn't need the test--to tell the doctor so.
We begged to see the ER doctor, but never again would he appear. 
He had handed down the death sentence, and would hear no appeal.
As he ignored requests to drain the poison, leaving him such pain to feel.  
Seeing this terrible injustice and crime committed upon my dear friend--
Who was the best human being and most wonderful person I ever knew--
Made me fully and deeply understand that I too face a terrible end.
If such terrible dying and death could happen to him, 
So innocent and pure--
With total faith in God, and praying gratefulness and thanks every day--
I, not quite as good a person as he, it can happen to me. 
So now when they tell me cancer has filled my lymph nodes, I know--
For the first time I fully know--it really is true.
Also for the first time, it isn't only side effects of my cancer treatments
Causing me pain and making me ill.
Now my cancer itself is doing that, too.
And will continue to, clamping teeth in new places, moving in for the kill.
But though Brian's death taught me that my dying and death now grow,
And that my cancer death, destiny and doom, in all likelihood really is so--
Barring an unlikely new cure, or an inexplicable remission--unlikely,
But not impossible--such things happen rarely, but they happen, I know--
Brian's life still teaches me to hope so;
And if not, then to hope fervently for new good life from God;
And still to be grateful to God for all the time on earth that I have trod;
And still to love my fellow and sister people, and care about all feeling life.
Still.  Thanks to Brian's life--his kind good heart--and thanks to Brian's faith.
Still, at least, to hope.  And still, at most, to pray.


==============================
Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka (thanks to Luna) Mr. Poet
Written on Tuesday, April 26, 2011  4:26 am PDT
63 degrees F.  Humidity: 17%  Forecast: goodbye 
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved