Mar 5, 2020
My phone asks, remember? Dinner last night, uninvited, buzz. A year ago, drip two, the start. On plate- crisp sourdough pizza with fresh garlic, wild mushroom, and butter fried sage, seasoned again by the stream of recollections and reality. Memory fire hot, crushed like red pepper.
Returning from LA weeks ago, we walked into a CT scan, checking ovarian pain. The scan didn’t look suspicious, but we are realizing that this new feels like constant suspicion. Our vigilance and advocacy reminding the doctors of the gene that was found a few months ago at screening. A gene not associated with breast cancers, but ovarian. We have tests to follow, and we continue in patience, not fearing but leaning into the unpredictable nature of it all. More tests is what the doctor said, so many more tests, routinely, forever watching ever so closely for the unwelcome. We own you, they said. We feel it.
I find myself in the kitchen, preparing food- fighting my desire to lay in bed, not wanting depression or grief to take me over, not even one more day. Not being the most kind to my emotions. Wanting instead to live gratefully, in avoidance.
The result of the culinary madness is simultaneously comforting and exhausting. We feast. Spinach yogurt gnocchi, served two ways- crispy w charred broccolini + feta, then decadent w shaved pear + shallot vinegar, my fave. Tired, I force my appetite and think... See, this is something good.
I never used go to the doctor. I still answer the questions about a primary care provider with a no and shake of head. Honestly, another doctor is the last thing I want. Uncertainty, the last thing I want- and I bet it’s not your best friend either. But, it’s life.
My fertility is damaged, on hold, on watch, not promised, not my own. But, I’ll not let myself lose more than what is already not mine. What is left of this life feels earned. The profound cost seen in the glow of iPhone memories.
Already with a mother’s heart, I crunch the corner of the pie, savoring it with what I can hold of all the unknown. I feel it all. It sucks, it’s ok. The sun shines. Of the things in which I am certain, my heart is one. Love. And the crunch, that crunch is good too.