Elephants and Tea - September 2021 - 4

Mental Health PRIORITIZING YOURSELF
Apology
From a
Bridge
BY RUTH ARNOLD
4
ELEPHANTSANDTEA.COM
SEPTEMBER 2021
I
glanced at the text. The words " liver, "
" enzyme " and " scans " popped out at
me, and I wondered what they meant.
In a nanosecond I thought back to my
Thursday blood draw where my oncologist
told me that my liver enzyme results had
not come back yet. In the same nanosecond, I
assumed and made up that this text was negative
about my liver enzyme results and that
I now had to go in for extra scans. In that
time of less than a quick intake of breath, I
had decided that this was a scary text about
my bloodwork from my oncologist. Who else
uses these terms?
I waited another split second and read the
entire text. It was from a woman I speak to
on the phone who lives in Virginia. I live in
Illinois. We got connected as I take phone
calls here and there for a pharmaceutical
company for a drug they make for metastatic
breast cancer patients. She and I got
connected and somehow became oddly
metastatic breast cancer (MBC) friends.
When you find somebody who not only
is living with the very same thing you are
living with, but who also shares the same
fears, hopes and worries, it is delicious. It is
something not easily found and something
you wish to hang on to. It is like a love. And
with this woman whom I had never met, I
found this, and we became familiar quickly.
I assumed the role of being ahead of her in
the timeline of living with cancer and usually
served to comfort and share thoughts.
We just understood each other readily. Our
MBC brought us together, but we were also
developing a camaraderie.
So the text was from her. She was the one
with the odd liver enzyme results from a
blood test - not me. She was the one going
in for extra scans because of the funky liver
enzyme results - not me. And, in spite of
my love for her, I exhaled, breathed and
celebrated that it was not my bad news.
I had quickly re-engaged that always-waiting
fear of imminent death, that I managed
to keep at bay day after day, hour after hour,
minute after minute. It is always waiting
to spring, and, in that moment, it was unleashed.
I felt it, and it started to take me
into the pit of fear. The pit of death. But I
quickly removed it and gladly let that fear
move to another person on the planet. A
person I care about and a person I share
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Elephants and Tea - September 2021

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