Bloom Anyhow Despite the Blows

Keep Showing Up

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If you look close, you’ll see there’s a wear and tear in my eyes. These last three weeks have been especially harrowing physically and emotionally. On July 31st, I went to the ENT after suffering from a sore and swollen throat for six months. I had been on antibiotics and steroids to calm the flares. They managed the symptoms, but never answered the why. I’ve had a lifetime of these flare-ups but recently they have gotten worse along with chronic fatigue.

At the ENT’s office, she wanted to insert a scope. I began to hyperventilate and cry. My nose, throat, and chest had been inflamed for so long, I knew I could not endure one more invasive procedure.

I am not a wimp. I’ve given birth to twins. I’ve toured the country as a poet and as a single mother while living with fibromyalgia. I’ve survived Stage III Multiple Myeloma and a stem cell transplant. But something about being in the doctor’s chair, that day bracing for an apparatus to be shoved down my throat, broke me down. I sobbed. I hyperventilated. I shook. I knew I should have not have come alone. However, I thought it would be no big deal. I thought it would be another diagnosis of acid reflux and being written a prescription for a medication that did not help.

I did not cry like that even when I was diagnosed with cancer. I think everything I have been through for the last six years mounted up on my back and released.

My nurse practitioner told me it would be okay. She sprayed novocaine into my nostril. When the scope went deeper, it was rough. She told me I had “a lot of congestion,” passages cobbled by multiple allergies. She prescribed Zyrtec and steroid sprays, and suggested allergy shots. Just the thought of another once a week medical regimen made me shiver—my calendar already stacked with visits to my oncologist, pulmonologist, internist, and holistic doctor.

She tried again with more lidocaine, we waited and this time she was able to go further. She turned the monitor so I could see. Then she pulled out her phone, snapped a picture, and left the room. My stomach sank. That’s never a good sign.

When she returned, she showed me a large mound at the base of my tongue.
“It’s a tumor,” she said. “You’ll need a CT scan and biopsy immediately. By the look of it, there’s very little chance it’s benign.” My legitimate response was, “I have a trip planned to New York and Pennsylvania. Can I still go?”
“This type of cancer is slow-growing. You’ll be fine,” she answered. Then added, “But if I were you, I couldn’t go. My anxiety would be too great.”

I looked her dead in the eye and said, “Quite frankly, you are not me.”

And I went.

I went to the Highlights Foundation retreat and the Novels-in-Verse workshop. I went to Broadway and saw Audra McDonald star in Gypsy. I carried the heavy weight of her words the whole time—breaking down often, crying in private, but still living. I enjoyed my trip. I was really living each day like I had another cancer diagnosis tagged on to it. It made every bite of food more precious. Every conversation more memorable, but I was fragile beyond belief. I was in alot of pain too because my symptoms still had not been treated. So, I took it in and I took it slow. Muscle relaxers. Sleep meds. Rest. Water and good food.

When I got home, I had the CT scan on the 15th. On the 17th, my nurse practitioner called.
“I have good news,” she said. “There is no tumor.”

I nearly collapsed with relief.

Just two weeks earlier, she had already told me the treatment would involve resection and radiation—cutting part of my tongue out, followed by a grueling recovery. I told her I was a poet, that I speak for a living. I have no failure of imagination so I had seen the grim intervention in my mind’s eye. This is how my brain rolls, a video camera playing out all of the possibilities.

I am grateful to be all-clear. Yet I am shaken by how this was handled. I don’t believe the NP was being malicious, but only acting from her inexperience—playing fast and loose without fully grasping the repercussions of how she laid out my medical symptoms and condition. She could have couched this so differently. It could have been like my other cancer find. “I am testing, watching and waiting. I will have answers for you when the testing is all done. Go on your trip. I’ll let you know when I know something definitely. “

My family and friends where praying, waiting and watching with me. It was the darkest of times. I went to some really dark place. I am so glad I had the wherewithal to keep me from going down that deep shadowed place. But, what about people who do not have that capacity? This enrages me evenmore. It is why I strive to be a medical advocate these days. There are people way less resourced and fortunate as I am.

I had to summon my faith. I did. It came as it always does. I have been kept me held in God’s green palm.

But my faith in the medical establishment now hangs by the thinnest thread. I am searching for a new ENT team.

Still, I am deeply grateful I didn’t cancel my trip. If I had missed Audra McDonald’s brilliance on stage, if I had missed the gift of my Highlights retreat and seeing old friends, I would have been furious at the lost joy.

The Divine. The Universe. The Ancestors. The Angels. They watched over me every step of the way. And yes, I am back on a heavy course of steroids as I write this, still searching for answers about these flares. But I have the energy to keep seeking joy.

And that is enough. I have celebrated my latest new South Carolina State Park Book Launch.

Photo by Amy Randall

Photo by Amy Randall

I finished all but two remaining the state parks on my list this weekend. I will celebrate turning 62 on Wednesday. I am happy to be alive even in these tumultous times.

I write this post knowing so many of you are battling in your own lives in so many ways. I know my life is not singular in its suffering. It is my hope you will continue to fight for your life and find beauty in your living. I hope this post is a reminder, an orange flare. Orange is my liefmotif. My spirit. My aura. I hope it radiates outward to you like spiral of sunrays.

As for me, I am looking forward to a low key birthday on Wednesday and celebrating on the weekend with family and friends––mostly with my grandkids. There will be dancing, bubbles, hoopla hoops and hopscoth.

I hope you remember to do as I do to Bloom Anyhow.