Double Tap

Double Tap

Sorry to lead with this image, but I felt it was relevant.

 

Let's get right to it. 

If you are in a horror film, never count on the killer or monster to be dead. Just when you think that he's been vanquished, he or she springs back to life for one more strangle, stab, or bite. Though the concept may be older, it was first brought to serious light in the Horror-Comedy Zombieland. (Which may be the second-best zombie-comedy movie after Shaun of the Dead.) Want to make sure that the zombie is going to come back and bite you or eat your brain? Double-tap. Shoot it a second time just to be sure. 

I am now officially in a "season of rest" as Jessica has put it with regards to my cancer safari. Doctors seemed confident enough to say that I didn't need a scan again until the end of July, a little more than three months after my previous scan. As an aside, if you haven't been reading the news lately, (click on the link) there has been some linking of CT scans to an increased prevalence of cancer. The very thing to check on the status of my cancer can help GIVE ME MORE CANCER. Ugh. However, I think that the reason that my interventional radiologist is waiting to do another scan is not so much about that revelation, but rather the progress, or rather regression of my tumor. "Susan" is vanquished, right? 

Not so fast there, Sparky. If there's anything that I've learned from paying attention to people who've fought cancer, it's Annie Wilkes who you thought you killed twice. Immunotherapy was dropping the typewriter onto the villain's head, and radiation was having her trip and fall onto the edge of that same Royal Model 10 typewriter. But as we know, if you're a fan of the movie, she springs back to life again after that and Paul Sheldon is forced to brain her one more time with a cast iron door stop in the shape of her cherished pig, Misery. 

Life is not a horror movie. <Oh my God, I just about died of internal laughter when I wrote that. Of course life is a horror movie. And a drama. And a comedy, an action film and sometimes, it's My Dinner with André.> So I don't expect my cancer to behave exactly like a deranged "number one fan." I don't anticipate that I'll be able to fully vanquish this real-life monster. But who knows, right? Medical science has certainly given me a #newleaseonlife. I feel like I might make some people uncomfortable when I write sentences like that, which seem altogether sincere and snarky at the same time.

Accurate. 

But let's face it, I really DO have a new lease on life. Whether it's a long-term or a short-term lease, it's a lot better than the eviction that was imminent nine months ago. 

But I'm mixing my metaphors between the perils of modern housing and Hollywood genre films. Before my cancer, my film was mostly an indie drama comedy. Tinged with sadness sometimes, but at the end, I got the joyful denouement that I wanted. 

Turns out there was a whole 'nother reel (or two or three, that's me being hopeful) to play, and boy howdy, the horror of that reel did not disappoint, especially with the mostly happy resolution. The monster has been decimated. I can breathe easy, at least until the next scan, and enjoy life. Yet, it's VERY hard not to borrow trouble. Most of our worries never pan out. And when I'm feeling worried about the cancer, it's actually one that has come to pass in the past. It's a legitimate Goddamned worry. 

And yet. 

I'm still here. I'm still planning. A little over a year ago, I was planning my own ash scattering. I told and then asked Jessica to repeat back to me my wishes. She didn't like that at all, especially considering that I just felt "tired" and no tests that I had taken would expose the monster lurking in my basement. It's weird, but I just had a feeling... I don't know WHY I did, but I did, and it was important to get it out there. It was an existential version of the hairs on the back of your neck standing up and giving you some kind of information. 

I'm not particularly inclined in believing in "woo-woo," but it turns out I was right to have believed I was in serious danger. Maybe my more intelligent subconscious was sending messages to my conscious brain. Whatever the case may be, I am not feeling the necessity to plan for my own demise any time soon. I don't have that feeling of imminent dread.

But if/when the monster comes back? I'm double-tapping that fucker.