005-๐
๐ is the emoji my grandma now sends at the end of her text messages, or at least the majority of them. Was it the Dexamethasone? my sister, R, and I wondered to one another when we noticed it start. And then a beat later one of us would say well, she did have brain surgery. The absoluteness of that makes it our grounding fact. That alongside the reason for the brain surgery which was not viral meningitis as the doctors all thought for the first few days but stage 4 glioblastoma.
The brain has special cell types. Astrocytes, named for the stars they mimic are one type. Normally they do too much to sum down into a sentence, but when cancer is present itโs much simpler. All those stars, they help it grow. On the first MRI they went over with us it was there undoubtedly, a large planet and her satellite moon in the right temporal lobe.
It always strikes me when I finally get something Iโve said I wanted, how imprecise Iโve been. I said I wanted to learn a language for years!
Here, now, learning the language of cancer Iโm struck with how little I know of anything I ask for. I don't want to speak this one and at the same time there is no choice.
So, R and I are mainlining scheduling and multiple doctorsโ offices and all of the medication. Food here and there. We end up on the phone a lot. Relaying things to one another, trying to figure out passwords, venting, and ultimately always dizzying ourselves with questions like the emoji thing.
๐ captures it perfectly. ๐: Whatโs happened, whatโs happening?
And yet, we keep asking each other for a way out of our confusion and inability to reconcile. Every question a door, and every door is better than the room weโre in with the one thing weโre avoiding saying to each otherโsheโs changed, sheโs changing.