Looking for What’s Wrong

 

I am no longer worried so much about cancer.

 

I never thought (since my initial diagnosis in late 2004) that I would write a sentence like that.

 

But things change.

 

Cancer is still what most certainly will open the elevator to my final journey (up or down?), but it’s the living part that’s become more of a clear and present danger (to coin a phrase). My balance has grown worse and worse; I’ve had a couple of very bad falls in recent weeks, and I now feel what it must have been like to be punched in the face by Joe Frazier. (I look as if that has happened.) And I am grateful I chose English as my major instead of boxing.

 

I often use a walker, and when we go to medical facilities (we’re in one right now), I use a wheelchair. That chair and my bed and Joyce’s arms are the only places I feel completely safe anymore.

 

Yesterday, we went to Seidman Cancer Center, where I learned my numbers are still down, but the oncologist (a wonderful man) and I know that those numbers are only temporary; one day my PSA will wake up, start to rise, and then some really grim things will ensue.

 

Today, we’re here at Ajuah Medical Center (a huge facility just south of Beachwood, directly across I-271 from Seidman), where they are prepping me for a DAT Scan. They’re looking for Parkinson’s.  (Link to info on the scan.)

 

As if that weren’t enough, Friday we’ll go down to UH Main Campus in University Circle for a spinal tap; this time they’re looking for signs of MS.

 

My neurologist will put all the results together and will get back to me. I like him a lot, too, even though we’ve met only twice—and both times were virtual. 

 

Things fall apart—some great poet said that (yeah, I know it was Yeats!).

 

A year and a half ago I was working out pretty much every day at a local health club, walking to and from my home-away-from home (Hudson’s Open Door Coffee Co.—each round trip about a mile), and doing pretty much whatever I wanted whenever I wanted.

 

Now I creep around, holding on to every solid surface as I do so. The 1962 Me would have shaken his head and dribbled into enemy territory and launched a three-pointer … nothing but net (I know: there were no three-pointers in 1962–never mind), and said: “That is not the 2021 me!”

 

So … there seems to be a dark competition among cancer, MS, and Parkinson’s: Who’s gonna get this dude first!?

 

Till then, I will try to make it as hard for them as I can. And, although like Rocky in that first film, I will lose, the love of my life will be holding my hand. Who could ever ask for more?