I had another endoscopy the next day, and began what would be a week of waiting--for the results, and then for a double-check from the University of Chicago.
Being diagnosed with two cancers, one of which takes you to some unhappy places on the internet, can't help but bring you around to thinking about death. You imagine your funeral, wonder who'll care, who might be devastated, where you want to be buried, how they'll get into your apartment, whether you left it a mess, whether there's anything embarrassing on your computer, who you might want to get in touch with, how much you'll waste away before you die, whether it's time to move to Oregon and off yourself early, how quickly you can train a replacement at work, and about your poor, poor mother.
And I found, not to my complete surprise, that though I'm afraid of plenty of things--going blind, losing mental clarity--I'm not particularly afraid to die. The thing about expecting to get cancer is that you have to more or less make your peace with death. No one lives forever, the light goes out, and then you're dead, and don't care anymore. That's what I thought, anyway.
