Wednesday, May 9, 2007

621 days, 0 hours, 13 minutes, 36 seconds

Lesions. Metastatic. Cancer. Two lesions, both small, one swollen. It's taken her ten hours to write these words. But writing doesn't make it true. It's early yet. More doctors. More tests. Her neurologist's out of the country until Monday, this was his assistant who got the report, a woman who's worked with brain cancer patients. A very young, warm doctor, but she might have come to this through what she knows already. She starts a steroid to lessen the headaches, and maybe shrink the swelling. She goes back on Glucophage to counteract the steroid. Chances are the Botox wasn't enough this time, lesions this small shouldn't have caused this sort of pain. So, once again, she lucked out. But the headache's still there. And even the newest Tylenol's sugar-coated.

621 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes, 29 seconds

I might have a brain tumor, you know, she says, home from her MRI, as he crawls into bed behind her. No, he says, you'd need to have a brain. How did he know? Tonight she rediscovered the "Give Bush a Brain" game. One time she managed to drop in seven brains, but most games only two or three. Even Dubyah wouldn't have any trouble matching that score, the final screen taunts. Bully! Still, it was fun for awhile.