When did my life become a waiting room?
Like elastic under strain, my future has snapped back into the present and the horizon disappeared.
Life is shrinking, control is slipping, I am dependent on the whim of others.
Waiting;
For more tests
For biopsy results
For surgery (who would ever have dreamed of wishing away the days until the scalpel was wielded?)
And now
Waiting;
For recovery
For test results
For a jumble…
Finishing
Finished work today
For a month
Or two
Or six
Or a year
Or forever
Return date unknown
Treatment starts Monday
Surgery - tick
Radiotherapy - tick
More Surgery - ? – Unknown
More radiotherapy - ? - Unknown
Chemotherapy - ? - Unknown
Hormone therapy - ? - Unknown
So many unknowns
I will be different
Can’t stop the change
Can’t know the unknowns
No point in the fear
Yet it remains
Sometimes…
The Look
It happened today.
I became someone else.
I got ‘the look’ for the first time.
The look that you get when people don’t know what to say, can’t quite catch your eye and try to treat you as normal.
The look that mixes empathy, sympathy, fear and an almost imperceptible sense of relief that it is you, not they who are in this place.
The look that takes just a little of the person you believe…
