The Metrics of Cancer

I stare out the bathroom window at the full moon and watch gauzy clouds roll across the dark sky.  Naked cottonwood branches stretch into view, long tendrils hungry for spring, unable to reach a perfect moon.  I try to clear my thoughts, but dirty words - like sarcoma and radiograph and malig-Nancy – jerk in and out of my head uninvited. I am an optimist. But I am a raving, fearful lunatic when faced with the mortality of this pack.

I jog downstairs to do something, anything, to operationalize the ethic of my oldest and best friend, who once said: “fake it til you make it”.  She made it, past death and pain and loss and love and she is still all style and grace.  And so, I straighten papers.  I make notes for tomorrow’s lecture. I send cheerful emails to students with a time stamp of 3 am.  Then I hear her sturdy paws tap tap tap wooden stairs and watch her peer around the corner, pleading dark eyes, awaiting a middle-of-the-night treat.  A low and a slow wag followed by a dramatic drop to the carpet. A groan. I catch a glimpse of her incision, six inches of staples, tiny teeth clamping flesh to flesh.  I wonder if I will ever sleep again.

Earlier tonight the vet tells me the black dog has a poorly differentiated level three sarcoma. For a moment the words sound Icelandic. I imagine each vowel and consonant sliding off a slippery fishing boat, dwelling forever with the Atlantic cod. I scribble the jargon down on a wrinkled gray notepad while the small boy plays with penny racers at my feet. The Engineer is not yet home. Level 3  - like a video game result. Not possible. Not possible. Not possible. Impossible. She is only eight years old.  We had already arranged for her immortality.  She has been folded into sabbatical plans and has yet to swim in the ocean. 

I believe in statistics, the ones that favor the home team. If the odds are against, simply course correct and jettison the metrics in favor of hope and dharma.  

Diagnosis: it’s a jelly side down day, made stickier by a night without sleep, so I  take my cues from the black dog instead.  The sun rises. We gobble down string cheese by the fridge, breaking food rules, and curl up on the floor in a broad sun shaft. She has mastered the art of slowness - in all ways but one. I wonder if Milan Kundera would weep.