I had just been moved from the scan gurney onto the hospital bed waiting next to it and was trying to follow instructions. Not to cough in spite of the saline solution which, forced into my lungs, was now trying to come upwards and out. Coughing would further trouble the lung which had been stirred. The doctor comes smiling before me and by now I know he is smiling simply because such is his fortunate disposition. His name and waving long beard, black streamed with timid white tidings, rimes with mujahideen, while his disposition, at odds with that rime, makes him immediately lovable.
Still wearing the radiation-proof costume recalling a Scottish clan's green and blue plaid, he brings under my eyes a vial of clear, water-like liquid. Look at this, he says proudly, you see? There's the matter we just extracted. I have to look very closely, the "matter" consists of a few minuscule bubbles similar to those Perrier would yield, or champagne. I try to be excited about this harvest, he certainly is and I could only hope the evidence we needed is trapped in there and relevant.
I had been awarded that which only a few days ago seemed preferable to the imaging tests. A biopsy, that is, a procedure with a higher degree of eloquence, physical, intrusive, and painful to boot. Three hours later we were out in the Kingston windy sun, the lake breathing almost furious at our feet. Another appointment was waiting, the pain clinic which I had not dared reschedule since one only gets a shot at it once every two years. I had not considered what fasting for about fourteen hours, and a fine needle pushing slowly into your lung, can do together. At the clinic, three forms were waiting to be filled.
As applications for government grants go, the one this researcher uses, in order to build up the body of pain under investigation, is seventeen pages long. Between four in the afternoon, and six in the morning of the next day, I slept. Intermittent and belabored sleep, with the lung just punctured making itself known at every breath. At night I woke up and did my exercises, wondering whether I would be able to take this planned trip to Montreal. I very much doubted I would. Two tests later, I only had one aching lung to show for myself.
The morning came, cool and sunny, once again offering its promise to those ready to march on as they say. Sleep can perform miracles and I had slept through difficult breathing and the fear that my trustworthy lung was betraying me. I decided that I would go to Montreal against the odds, if only because four days without Colin is too much to bear. Come what may.
What came was the phone call. The lung specialist, also known as the iPhone doctor, was as prompt, if not better, than he had declared. The biopsy showed infection and/or inflammation, but not cancer. While I was ready to give in to my joy, he was not ready to let me. It is not a 100% certain diagnosis. The needle might still have taken a sample from an area adjacent to a cancerous formation, which could have been missed, etc. I said I was happy with less than 100%. I have not known much of 100% of anything at anytime. Particularly so when it comes to cancer. He disagreed, and held on to his quest of the 100%. We are still waiting for a pet scan for which we will travel to Ottawa. If that shows a hot spot where the shadow is, then we will have the surgeon go in and remove it.
Still, I insist, it is good news, we have moved up from 42% possibility of cancer to, say, little under 100% (I do not have the exact number here) possibility of not cancer. That's good enough for me anyway. In the evening, heartened by the less than 100% but still good enough news, we got to read the report of the skull scan which was waiting, unopened. The brain, as I learn, is enveloped in a porous tissue, called arachnoid mater. A translucent spiderweb which gives way, through granulation, to light formations in the darkness of the skull. This, in the first report, appeared as "lucency". A spot of shining like that of the moon, and rime to "lunacy". In there the fear of a myeloma formation took shelter. As it turns out, thanks to that cat scan where I could not contain my tears, it was simply the spiderweb's doings, which, ignorant of percentage, deploys its inconsistencies in the fullness of time. A bit of light, a bit of shining, not cancer.
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