Stomaching it.

Yesterday I spent the morning having my stomach reamed out through a tube. The doctor found three polyps, one big, two small, and took them all out to be biopsied. Funny how that can drain you. I sat in bed the rest of the day, and skipped my company holiday party because it seemed like too much effort to shower and get dressed, much less step into the elevator and out to an actual street alone. No spouses invited. This morning everyone showed up with hangovers and stories (apparently the place lent itself to misbehavior.

But I wasn't allowed to drink alcohol, or eat anything that might disturb what was left of my stomach lining. So I missed: editors, supervisors and vice presidents of this and that jumping on the catwalks and bars, dancing till they fell off; someone tossing a drink on someone else's head; a vice president falling into a tree planter. Women in high heels falling down stairs. I should have gone, if only because this Boschian scenario suits me drunk or sober. I'm sure I'd be paying for my glimpse into the eternal fate of the souls of my coworkers though. And I don't mean like Young Goodman Brown, because I already kinda know what they're all capable of. I mean I'd feel even lousier if I'd torn myself away from my DVR full of Dr. Phil and Chocolate News to witness their descent into irredeemable corruption.

This morning though, someone asked me if I was worried about the biopsy. It seems so odd and far away: I won't know for a week. And I said no. I have so many things going on, so much has happened these last couple of years, that I just can't make myself worry about it. She asked me what I meant and made a few wrong guesses. I didn't want to tell her, because Jesse is dead and any fear of the possibility of myself getting cancer is wrapped in the same cotton batting as the real loss. My own death just means I don't have to lose anyone else. I love that I will probably be here to watch my younger son start his life and live it, don't get me wrong. I don't love my fear that he might not get that chance.