Newton's First Law

There's an old movie called "Bringing out the Dead" that came out in 1999. It's about a paramedic working in a burrow in New York and the storyline is how he wrestles the demons of the people he's failed to save. It's considered a drama/thriller, but to most paramedics or ER nurses, it's a comedy. It's a fairly accurate rendition of the challenges of the emergency healthcare system with patients handcuffed to geurneys, tragic stories of crisis and the chaos that engulfs busy emergency rooms. In one scene, as Nicolas Cage's character walks into the emergency department of a New York hospital, and a characteristic setting of chaos and mayhem, you overhear the triage nurse talking with a heroin addict presenting to the ER with a request for detox. "Let me get this straight." she says. "You shoot poison into your veins and then come here expecting us to fix it?"

I keep thinking of this line over and over, infusing my own situation into the line. "Let me get this straight. You're going to shoot poison into my veins to make me BETTER?" Seems so counterintuitive. And it is. To kill Cancer, one must kill any cell that divides rapidly. That's great for killing Cancer but that's really bad news for the cells of my GI tract, hair and nails. I'm trying to imagine how awful it will be but the unknown is too vast. I can tolerate pain. I can self-motivate my way out of laziness or apathy. I just don't know the best way to push through this cancer patient thing. Do I push myself to be active or is it time to rest? Hard to say and a challenging question for a physically active former athlete. The not-knowing is unsettling and everybody has a story to share or a treatment plan that worked for so-and-so....They often conflict with one another.

This whole new way of life for us is surreal. There's the never ending "good news- bad news" scenario. Life continues to go on and the world turns on its axis despite the fact that you feel like you are checking out of it with a Cancer diagnosis. It seems like something global should be happening but it's only happening to you. As if to add insult to injury, there are no symptoms. I feel no different, but really smart people with lots of fancy gadgets like MRI's and PetScanners are telling me the big bad wolf is coming. I am skeptical and yet, I've seen it too many times in the Emergency room when people ignore the advice of genius. It's tragic mostly.

Tomorrow they will fill me full of poisonous substances that may or may not affect me.It resembles a rite of passage. For me, a passage to menopause and premature balding. I'm thinking Heroin isn't such a bad idea at this point. I would like very much to do this with grace and style and the only way I know how is to meet it face to face, and all the while not let it deter me from my path. For now, I will support Newton's First Law: A body in motion tends to remain in motion until acted on by an external force. Potential external forces may include overwhelming fatigue, uncontrollable vomiting or diarrhea (or both :-(), my doctor or my husband "says so" or there's a really good movie on DVD.....Otherwise, I plan to keep moving, test for my green belt this Friday, take my kids to soccer practice, and kayak all weekend. Come on Cancer, catch me if you can.....I'm betting you can't keep up for a minute.