Flat circles and knowing

Flat Circle

I've been watching the show True Detective, in which Matthew McConaughey's character discusses the idea that outside of our universe is another universe of eternity, where the eternal ones are looking down upon our sphere, but they see it as a flat circle. In this circle we are going around and around and around uninterrupted, living our same lives over and over and over again - unaware and unable to change anything. So whatever you're going through, you've already gone through an infinite number of times, and you will again and again. The plane will disappear from Malaysia, or the China Sea, again. It has already disappeared. It will disappear again, and again, and again, and again. Your father will be born and bear you and hold you again, over and over. You will laugh. I will undergo chemotherapy again, and again, and again. 

This is interesting, but different from the Buddhist idea, where you are reborn and live life over and over again, but each life time in a different state (What will you be next - a Chinese president, a skinny rich heroin dealer, a heroine, a sniveling slumlord, a eunuch, a fat happy ice cream scooper, an artist in Thailand, a preacher, a Haitian baby? Or even more esoterically - a pineapple, a Dover cliff, or a pebble fallen off the cliff?) with the idea that you are to strive to reach a higher state each in each life, until you finally reach nirvana, or enlightenment. So whatever problems you're having now (Are you bitchy? Strident? Incurious? Self centered? Unkind? Not good at friendship, sandwich making, or empathy? Sharing much?) may be informed by something you needed to learn from a past life. Uh oh. That hurts.

Then there's the Christian idea where you're supposed to praise a God who promises you eternal life. Are any of these things true? Or are they all true? Or just a little bit of each one is true, all being the same thing? I have no idea, don't ask me. Or, do ask me let's talk about it. I think the character in True Detective knows something

I like the idea of a flat circle. I feel like a flat circle right now. Today I saw a very kind cardiologist, an old ally. His name is Arthur Smith, and I first met him in 1995, after I had a grand mal (big and horrifying to spectators, nada to participants) seizure one day at work. This was my first introduction to the world of medicine, where I learned how to be a patient. I was so good at it. I won't tell you that whole story here, that's another story from another time, but it ended up with me meeting Dr. Smith, who led the safari into the Africa of my body, only to discover that my heart had a hole in it that needed to be repaired. Right in the middle - hidden like a secret. A secret murderer in the chamber. At the age of 35 I embarked on the heart surgery of a newborn baby born with a heart defect. A round, quarter-sized, neatly stitched patch was sewn into me and I was repaired. Quilted.

Today. I hadn't seen Dr. Smith for over 13 years. He had pronounced me perfectly healthy in 2000 and said get outta here. Because I fainted a few weeks ago after chemotherapy, my oncologist invited me make an appointment to see him again, so he could give his blessing that my heart is not chemo-trashed. To make sure my "long Q rhythm" was a fluke caused by the stress of chemotherapy, rather than something perfectly deadly. 

When he walked in I was seeing an old friend. He was short and kind and he said "I'm an old man now," which wasn't true. He is not an old man. His wife had breast cancer last year. He said. He looked at me with the kindest, most sympathetic eyes. Luckily for her, she had one small surgery and radiation. But he knew. He knew what I was feeling. He looked at me and he knew.

Right now I am wearing a bunch of electronic snaps with long green snaky wires that are stuck to my skin all over my chest and under my hilariously annoying and way too attention-seeking breasts (please stop) clipped to a little tiny computer stuck to the side of my jeans. It watches my heart. The heart monitor sticker-onner-of-leads-and-metal-things today said in all earnestness: "See this button on your cardiac monitor? Please press it IN THE EVENT OF A CARDIAC EVENT, and then be sure to note it in your jourmal." So if I go into cardiac arrest or tachycardia or full out clunk to the floor passing out please pause for a moment while I press my button. Thank you.  I am bionic. I am the Borg. Resistance is futile.

I shalll be monitored as such for 24 hours. Then in a few days I will have the carotid arteries in my neck looked at with ultrasound, just to make sure they're not all clogged up and about to cause me to drop dead. All this attention to my arteries and veins and heart seems ridiculous to me, but my oncologist is on supreme caution watch. I wish to be normal and not be treated with caution. 

This is just another non event - a piece of iceberg lettuce.

Here are a few things that I know:

1. Or infer: I am having another surgery. I know this because my planning session to set up radiation, which was scheduled for this Friday, has been canceled. The party has been canceled, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, cancel the catering, cancel the CAT scan, cancel the whole shooting match. Cancel any awareness of what might happen, or ability to make plans. I'm in my flat circle rut, I can't seem to move on from the surgical station to the radiation station, or get closer to the end of this journey.

2. My surgeon, Jane Nelson, will be making a decision tomorrow. Lumpectomy for Amy, or mastectomy. Apparently my case file is at the top of her towering pile of list of things to do tomorrow. On her desk. What color is the folder? And apparently that case file is completely covered with scribbled notes from my radiologist. I'm scribbled. I asked the on-phone nurse, Nancy, to sneakily tell me what those notes said. "It's a tossup" and then "Oh, dear, I hope you don't have to have a mastectomy." She knows.

3. Chemotherapy alters your body chemistry. Alcohol no longer renders me tipsy, or pleasantly anything. This freaking irritates the shit out of me. I like to drink gin and tonics, and I like to drink wine. I like the idea of having my cocktail take the edge off my afternoon or evening. This is no longer the case. What almost annoys me more than anything, is the idea that oncologists and the whole world of cancer medical blah blah kind of lie to us patients. Everything is made more mild with euphemisms like, you may feel some discomfort, chemotherapy may make you feel "different" (from what?!), radiation may cause you to feel a little bit warm or pink in your skin. Et damn cetera. It's all a bunch of euphemistic bullshit. You want the real info, ask me. There is no evidence online that says that this alcohol thing is true, yet my friends who are going through chemotherapy with me have told me that this is true for them too. I could take a Vicodin and a Xanax and a Valium and drink five drinks and a Vicodin (yeah I know I already said that) and still feel perfectly normal. Take it! Take another little piece of my life now baby! Janice Joplin knew.

4. I'm in a good mood. I am completely sick of people telling me that I seem a little down, or why am I not in a very good mood? I am in a goddamn stupendously excellent mood! How the fuck do you think this feels dealing with this shit day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day after day? I'm eating drinking driving caring washing cleaning cooking dressing vacuuming dusting sponging rinsing flossing texting folding talking singing chatting Facebooking blogging reading going being wearing scrubbing shampooing shaving caring holding setting weeding typing spraying toasting frying sleeping laughing talking getting trying dressing writing hugging tucking corresponding mailing making listening doing the best I can and I think it's excellent. 

5. My hair is slowly maybe somethinging. But not enough. I'm like a hedgehog without the hedge. Chia pet unamusement. Almost six weeks later. There are two layers, like a husky or a goose. Layer one: thin insubstantial floating screwy insubstantial fluffs that are the color of clear. Layer two: dark dirt colored pretend Tiggywinkle prickles that are not really there or prickly. Effect: dead goat. 

I'll be ok. You know. I know. Don't tell me it looks good.

5. Violet snuggled with a cat today and yesterday a guy in a punk band leapt off a stage and threw himself on her and knocked her down and she cut her ankle and today she did 5 out of 42 algebra problems assigned to her over her two week Spring break. 

6. Today Fifi put a chinchilla on her head and shot real arrows with Zora and ate a bowl of Cheezits and Sunday she rollerbladed all over our neighborhood, and helped transform our under the stairs closet into a Harry Potter cupboard/library - come see.

7. Our girly two week Spring break has been fun so far full of silly friends and silly laughs.

8. I know how to have fun. I know how to. I know how. I know.