![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
No change in the x-rays of my leg or of my chest. No cancer. Remission still holding.
Every time I go, once I check in at the desk, I get a requisition for chest x-rays, and it always says the reason is "follow up: sarcoma" but it's always abbreviated as "F/U Sarcoma" Which pretty much sums it up, eh? I was on the subway on the way to the appointment, and this utter calm descended on me. I remembered back a couple of years ago, when I believed, deep in my heart, that if the cancer came back, I wouldn't fight. I was too tired, too beaten to do it again. It would take its course. But this afternoon, rattling along the tracks, that feeling was gone. Even if I had received bad news today, I had too much to do, too many things to live for. That much, I knew. I began to compose something in my head, running the words around as I arrived at the hospital and waited in the various rooms for various tests. This is what I ended up with:
An Open Letter to My Cancer
Fuck you, Sarcoma
Seven years ago, you had your chance and you couldn't do it. It took me four years, and more than a pound of flesh in blood-price, but I kicked your cancerous ass to the curb. You didn't have what it takes. I beat you. And if you show your face at my door, I will do it again. I will lay more hurt on you than any man ever has. I will beat you again and again and again if I have to. You've lost. And even if I die tomorrow, I will be in every word I have ever written and the minds of everyone who has read them. I will be in every painting I have painted, and every eye that has seen them. I will be on the lips of every man I have ever kissed and I will be in the heart of everyone who has been my friend and whose friend I have been. The marks I have made are indelible. My footprints are in the earth on the other side of the world, in places I have never even been.
And that's why you will lose. Over and over.
You and me, we're done.
Every time I go, once I check in at the desk, I get a requisition for chest x-rays, and it always says the reason is "follow up: sarcoma" but it's always abbreviated as "F/U Sarcoma" Which pretty much sums it up, eh? I was on the subway on the way to the appointment, and this utter calm descended on me. I remembered back a couple of years ago, when I believed, deep in my heart, that if the cancer came back, I wouldn't fight. I was too tired, too beaten to do it again. It would take its course. But this afternoon, rattling along the tracks, that feeling was gone. Even if I had received bad news today, I had too much to do, too many things to live for. That much, I knew. I began to compose something in my head, running the words around as I arrived at the hospital and waited in the various rooms for various tests. This is what I ended up with:
An Open Letter to My Cancer
Fuck you, Sarcoma
Seven years ago, you had your chance and you couldn't do it. It took me four years, and more than a pound of flesh in blood-price, but I kicked your cancerous ass to the curb. You didn't have what it takes. I beat you. And if you show your face at my door, I will do it again. I will lay more hurt on you than any man ever has. I will beat you again and again and again if I have to. You've lost. And even if I die tomorrow, I will be in every word I have ever written and the minds of everyone who has read them. I will be in every painting I have painted, and every eye that has seen them. I will be on the lips of every man I have ever kissed and I will be in the heart of everyone who has been my friend and whose friend I have been. The marks I have made are indelible. My footprints are in the earth on the other side of the world, in places I have never even been.
And that's why you will lose. Over and over.
You and me, we're done.
