Timing

Although the nausea has abated, the second week after chemo usually involves a lot of pain in the area around my tumor - the equivalent of having a stomach ache or intestinal cramps, but in my upper thigh. I can usually keep it in check with a steady dose of ibuprofen, but if I miss the timing on the dose by as little as twenty minutes or so, the pain comes back with a vengeance, and there's nothing I can do about it until the tardy drugs work their way back around through the bloodstream to take care of it.

Last night, though, my body woke me up at precisely midnight, and then again at precisely four A.M. for my dose, keeping me from hurting - the fact of which I found so wholly amazing and awesome that I found myself standing on the subway platform this morning, composing an ode to the body in its dumb wisdom, singing (in my head) Praise! to the holy body that works small wonders for us every day, despite its suffering and mistaken cells, Praise! to the sacred flesh that supports us and would die for us, if it could, all Praise!....

Until this guy prodded me, not unkindly, in the shoulder to get me to move out of the way on the crowded platform so a lady could get by me to get on her train.