Delay on the Nuclear Test, some poetry news and a Few Words about Luck

Thank you again for all your continued good thoughts and prayers. Had to delay my scheduled nuclear SPECT test from last Friday to this Wednesday because they wouldn’t let me in for the test at the nuclear lab with a high fever and flu-like symptoms because they have so many immunocompromised patients (can’t blame them, although I literally caught it AT the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance Blood Lab, which last Monday was crowded and full of people coughing without covering their mouths) but it has prolonged the suspense over this test a few extra days. Still won’t know whether or not I need to schedule a liver biopsy til after this test. But it’s been okay – I rested up from the flu, read up a little more on the test, the types of benign growths it might reveal, and even treatment options for said benign growths, just for good measure. It was nice to think about options OTHER than cancer. I think I feel a little less scared. In the meantime, I’ve received real mail, flowers, and even a pink unicorn in the mail from friends – friends that I realized can be a real boost when dealing with serious life crises like, say, a cancer scare. In a way, this unwelcome health discovery has also revealed how lucky I am in my friends and even acquaintances – that a world that can seem indifferent can also be surprisingly comforting. In two days, hopefully I’ll have more news for you – good news, I’m hoping!

After a week of getting three rejections, I also had a little bit of good news about The Robot Scientist’s Daughter – that it is a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Montaigne Medal for thought-provoking books from small or indie publishers.

I’ve been writing poems lately about the nature of luck – good luck charms, bad luck omens, the thing we think of as lucky and unlucky. Getting, for instance, the news that you might have metastasized cancer at 42 might be considered bad luck – but only having some benign growths that might require some surgery would really only be average or mildly bad luck. I’ve had good luck in some things – not health stuff, maybe, but in my marriage, my writing life, my friends.

Here are two poems I’ve written in the last few weeks. Maybe not my best work, so these poems will probably go “poof” in the next few days. Think good thoughts for me this Wednesday (hopefully this time I will be well enough to actually get the SPECT test!)

Lucky Fox

The black fox has told me a secret:

Death is a plaything. The fox holds it in her mouth

the way she might hold something she is considering

eating. Death might lurk around every sandy burrow

but equally, rabbits. We cannot make ourselves unhappy

seeking death out, or avoiding it. Life arrives as sudden

as a rainstorm, as uninvited. Kits underground make a sharp

squeaking, waiting for the squirrel or bit of trash

their vixen mother brings home.

The black fox looks long at me, with her white-tipped tail

as bright as the moon, her eyes an eerie grey.

What can foxes teach us? They are painted as tricksters,

but their story may be sadder than that, more rooted in survival.

Small and sharp-toothed, aren’t we very similar, the black fox and I?

Lucky

I said I was lucky. Born with an extra bone,

a single kidney, a love of words. A longing for robotic kittens.

I found a lot of pain along the way – medical mishaps,

loves lost. I might have been too young when I lost a lot of things.

I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals – first, to serve as candy striper,

later, as unwilling guest. The gift shops remain much the same –

bland, full of the same dull flowers and unremarkable greeting cards.

I like the hospital socks, pink and treaded, and the jelly beans.

I like the balloons, their cheery bobbing. I said I was lucky,

though I may be going under. I am not as buoyant as I was.