Rolling Still

(Or, happy-sad)

The results from my most recent PET scan are back, and I remain stable.

The immunotherapy is working.

The proof is on the scan and in the heat pad currently wrapped around my shoulder. This round, the side effects are exhaustion and joint pain. I am told the pain mimics arthritis. What it actually feels like is a lingering ache that settles in and dulls everything, even the good moments.

I wish it would stop.

Usually, I celebrate good scans like a Super Bowl win. Today, they made me sad.

Maybe it was the shoulder pain. Maybe it was superstition. I am a lifelong New Englander, and with the AFC Championship on Sunday, I refuse to be the person who links her own good news to the big game and somehow jinxes Patriot Nation. (According to Coach Vrabel, our new motto is “No Naps.”)

But more honestly, I think it is because today the language around Stage IV melanoma feels heavier than I usually allow it to be. No one uses words like cured, remission, or even no evidence of disease in my world. There is only stable. There is only working.

Stable means it is not winning.
Stable also means it is not over.

(Though, apologies, Coach, stable also means plenty of actual naps, but absolutely no napping on melanoma vigilance.)

I believe deeply in the power of words. In English, we use the verb spell to describe both language and magic. What we name matters. What we refuse to name matters too.

That is part of why I identify as a Cancer Shark instead of a cancer patient. I have very little interest in being patient with melanoma, even if melanoma has, in some ways, been patient with me.

Fair and unfair do not apply here. They never have. This is not a system that keeps score or offers credit for endurance.

I am not ready to give melanoma much acknowledgment, but I will leave room for the smallest truth. Today, it is not gaining ground. Today, this body is stable.

That has to be enough.

The feeling that comes with that is not joy. It is not relief. It is something quieter and heavier. Happy-sad, if I am being honest.

Which is why, today, I’ve been ruminating on Cameron Crowe’s memoir The Uncool and thinking about the Almost Famous Tiny Dancer scene.

Everyone exhausted. Everyone bruised. No one fixed. The music comes on, not to solve anything, but to remind them they are still together and still moving.

No one gets off the bus healed.
They just keep going.

That is what today feels like. The scan did not end the story. The pain is not either. The bus is still rolling. The music is on.

And today, I just need to hold me closer.