A True Gift

A True Gift

By Jerry Sarasin

Dedicated to all the great folks at Emerson Hospital Oncology:

It’s that time again

I sit in the chair and wait

Anxiously

I should be used to this,

I’ve been doing it for a long time now.

Finally, my friendly nurse is here,

Complete with all her paraphernalia

She asks me how I am doing.  “Fine” I lie.

She smiles at me, I smile back

A quick glance at my left arm

And she’s ready

It’s the same dance every time.  She ties the rubber band around my arm

Rubs the inside of my elbow and when she’s ready,

She announces, “Just a little prick.”

I know she’s referring to the needle, but I laugh anyway.

I don’t know if she’s aware of my self indulgence  humor.

As always, the anticipation is worse than the reality

She fills up tubes with blood, today there are six,

 And I say, as always, “You going to leave any?”

As always, she smiles.

I move to the infusion room,

to one of the Large comfortable chairs   

sit and dig into my bag for my MP3 player and my crossword puzzle

The room is a full house today, Mostly older people,

but a good number of younger ones.

I feel sorry for the young ones

Many people are bald,  I feel guilty that I still have hair,

I don’t have that badge of courage that would mark me as one of them

My nurse is back.  A plastic bag filled with chemicals, and hooks me up.

A little adjustment, she stands back, watches, then leaves,

Drip, drip, drip.

Now, I am as one with the others

All tied together with tubes hanging form plastic bottles hel on high poles

Our hope and dreams and perhaps our chance for life

Being fed through to us through these little tubes

Although we have the tubes in common,

we are as individual as the cancers that affect our bodies

and mixture of chemicals that run into our veins.

There is little cohesion between us

A few cautious smiles to others, A small acknowledgement of our common fears

Some people, like me, lose myself in my music, some read, some read,

some engrossed in their laptops, some just sit and watch the drips.

I put on my headphones and listen to Gordon Lightfoot,

I open the crossword puzzle and with pen in hand, fill in the puzzle

Working quickly,

I used to think I had to finish the puzzle before I left

That time was running out, but today My mind wanders off,

trying to avoid that unanswerable question,

Why me?

My head knows the answer, but my heart needs more

I hope for the epiphany that

will let me move beyond anger

To cross the chasm,

to that place where I can see each day as a gift

to find new beauty in every flower and bird song

To truly appreciate family and friends

And give thanks for that one more day

But for now, the disease weighs heavily on me

It feels like part of my life has been stolen from me

This is the time when we should be enjoying our lives

Yet, my life is defined by this incurable sickness

That consumes so much of me.

My mind stops to rest, and moves to a place of peacefulness

I am in the Japanese Gardens in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

I am lost in the serenity of the reflecting ponds, the cranes,

The miniature temples and tea houses surrounded by

The towering eucalyptus trees  dampened by a warm summer rain

They are so eternal, so forever, and I am not.

There was a time when there were no worries,

Only the unlimited future,

But now the future is here

Now we talk in terms of five year survival rates,

Of dealing with changes to the chemo,

The ever present side effects and risks of new ones

Of huge amounts of pills,

and pills to offset the side effects of pills.

Of contemplating a change in treatment,

another new cocktail perhaps

But not a cure

Of someday, a new cure will be found ― Hope

Of remission, of resumption of my life ― dreams

The dripping stops

It is done once again

The nurse removes the needle and smiles at me,

I smile back.

She says have a nice day

I respond, I will.

On the way out of hospital lobby,

I meet my cheering section,

The team of folks who work to keep the areas dusted and polished

Folks who I had worked with in a previous time

To help them have a  better day

Folks who , although god may have shortchanged

a little in their mental abilities

more than made up for it with an overabundance

of caring , sympathy happiness and love.

They now repay me with smiles and warm words of greeting

and encouragement, “God bless you,”  “You’re looking good,”

And “Have a great day,”

I feel their burst of enthusiasm and can only smile

I walk outside, into the warm spring day,

Amongst the new crocuses and daffodils

Pushing their way up through the now soft earth

I hear the birds singing in their spring voices

I can accept this day as a gift

And I will have a nice day

                                          

But now, it doesn’t seem to be that important

I