Day 67: Shadow Facing

A morning spent in hospital, facing up to the shadow that's hung over me for the last six weeks.  Prodded, scanned, written on in purple felt tip.  Scary words, grim faces, and the vulnerability of a tie-back gown.  Like the painting overall I had when I was five, but considerably less fun.  Procedure after procedure, trailing my clothes around with me in a big net bag, like I'm trawling for bargains in Primark (unlikely).   Long waits in different corridors, reading the same page of my book again and again, but nothing going in.  It can't hold its own against the insistent 'what if?' that's pulsing in my head.  It's been there for weeks, sometimes loud and sometimes muffled, but today it's centre stage and in the spotlight.  I give up on my book (if I'm honest I was struggling with it before all of this kicked off), and give reign to the tap-dancing mental horror.  Everyone has been brisk and professional, but I am given no clues as to how this is going to pan out.  At the moment it feels very binary - two possible answers, two very different paths.  (Of course, nothing is ever as simple as that, but that's how it feels). 

Finally, a bearded radiologist, who seems unimpressed and slightly bored by what he's seeing.  He's far  more interested in the origins of my surname, which he very much hopes to be Norse.  It isn't, but it's enough of a springboard to get us onto what is clearly one of his favourite subjects.  We talk place names along the east coast.  He tells me that the word 'skol' (not going to search for the weird 'a' with the circle on top, so live with this, pedants) comes from the Norse custom of drinking booze from animal skulls (skols).  In amongst this Viking-ery, he mentions in an off-hand way that he can't see 'anything sinister' (like, perhaps, a skol and cross-bones...).  Noted with warmth and slight release of tension, but I'm wary of jumping to premature conclusions.  I wish him well, eyeing his beard, and hoping that he does a little bit of re-enactment on days off (skull-drinking, pillaging etc).  Because I know he would really enjoy it.

After the barrage of tests, an hour's drawn-out wait before the results, and one long heart-in-mouth moment before the shadow lifts completely.  I actually cheer (the surgeon cracks a smile).  Reprieved, I walk out of the oppressive hospital heat into the fresh clean air outside, with a light heart.  But an awareness that not everyone in that waiting room will be as lucky as me.  I wish them strength to deal with whatever it is that they face. 

'Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone'

So says Joni Mitchell, and often sadly it's true.  But sometimes you get the chance to know what you've got whilst you still have it.  And that's a privileged feeling.

So, again I cheer my body, for being healthy and brilliant.  Thank you.  And I also cheer the NHS - one of the very best things this country has.  Thank you. 

'Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone'