Dressing Dowdy for Death
By Nathaniel Hellerstein
Written August 11, 2015
Old Hollow-Head demanded these dates. Insisted on them; and how do you turn down the Grim Reaper? So I
went along with it; I scheduled the dates, I got bling, tattoos and something
to wear. But my heart wasn’t into it, and it showed.
Death announced its interest in me by a test result. The
doctor said uh-oh, PSAs; hie thee to a urologist! The urologist poked me
intimately and said, yup, a tumor in the prostate gland.
Prostate cancer. It killed my uncle, it killed my father.
The doctors didn’t catch theirs in time. Mine they caught early. Hey
Hollow-Head, you thought we weren’t expecting
this?
The doctors gave me a choice; robotic laproscopic surgery
or X-radiation. Both very high-tech; I dig it. I chose the X-rays over the
robot because the robot’s spiffy, new and advanced, but I didn’t feel like
being an experiment. X-rays are boring and routine; good!
Also,
when my wife recently went in for surgery, she caught a spiffy, new and
advanced strain of hospital-bred pneumonia.
So rather than letting them cut me open, I let them irradiate me.
They scheduled 28 sessions; but first the urologist had to
implant three ‘gold seeds’. These are tiny spheres, smaller than the ball at
the end of a ballpoint pen, which the urologist shot into my prostate-gland
tumor, in order to guide the X-ray beams. He did this with a gizmo that made a
noise like a spring-loaded stapler. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! I peed orange for a day,
and my continence continued to decline.
Ah yes, continence issues. And urgency issues. I sit down,
I gotta go. I stand up, I gotta go. And by evening, damp reeking underpants. I
gave in and got a supply of adult diapers. At Safeway, I asked a worker where
to find Depends. He sent me to the pens. I went back, I spelled it out to him,
and I felt no shame.
I don’t take invasive procedures or gross side-effects
personally. It’s Death that wants to get real personal with my aging body. I
admit that at 57, I’ve outlived Hitler, let alone Jesus and Mozart; but still,
Hollow-Head, isn’t this rushing things? Go date someone more your own age! Do
you want me, or just another trophy?
I feel so objectified.
The first day of the X-ray sessions, they put me in a
futuristic-looking CAT scanner; guided by this, they inked three tiny dots on
my hips, to help guide the X-rays. These are my tattoos; the gold seeds are my
bling. I got bling and tattoos for my 28 dates with Death; both tiny; in
keeping with my level of attraction to my suitor.
As
for what to wear for being irradiated, there’s the diaper; also I must take off
my pants and put on one of those hospital gowns that open to the back. A
dowdier dress you cannot imagine. Again, a sign of my feelings about the date.
28 sessions; weekdays at 3 PM, for five weeks and three
days. I drive; by now I know the route by heart. I park; I walk in; I show the
receptionist my card; she buzzes the door; I go change into the dowdy dress I
mentioned above; I sit and wait.
A
technician comes, we walk down the hall, around a corner, into a room, past a FOOT
THICK radiation-shield door, and into the presence of the Machine. I lie down
on the pad, fit my feet to the stirrups, and try to relax. The technicians give
me a big rubber ring to hold onto with both hands; something for my hands to
do. They pull and tug me until my tiny tattoos are in line with the machine’s laser
beams. The technicians tell me to hold still, and they leave the room.
Hold
still? Sure, yeah, I’ll hold still, the Grim Reaper likes them quiet. What a creep.
The
machine rotates around me. The small emitter beeps; an X-ray scan. The pad
shifts a bit this way and that, to put me in exact alignment. The small emitter
retracts, the big emitter rotates to directly underneath me. It rests a moment,
then starts to rotate and buzz.
“Fry
and die, you tiny traitors,” I whisper to my cancer cells. Then I say, “Alas
poor prostate, I knew you well.”
This
afternoon, when the big emitter came a quarter-turn around, to my left, I said,
“Twenty-six and an eighth.” When it swung above me, past my upturned face, I
said, “Twenty-six and two eighths.” And so on through twenty-six and three
eights and twenty-six and four eights. I count by eighths as a self-comforting
ritual, like a scared cat purring.
The
machine paused, silent, then started to buzz and to rotate the other direction.
Again I whispered fry-and-die and alas-poor-prostate; and I counted out
twenty-six and five eights (as the big emitter rose on my right), twenty-six
and six eights (as it swung above me), twenty-six and seven eights (as it set, to
my left). Finally it reached nadir, it clicked off, and I said, “Twenty-seven.”
One
more zap to go. I write this story today as a present to the technicians and
doctors. After tomorrow, August 12, I will wait three months for another PSA
test, to see if irradiation worked. Meanwhile I will recover from the effects
of the therapy itself. Soon, I hope, no more diapers or stool-softening pills.
It’ll be nice to have regularity back.
One
more zap, one more date with Death. Hey Grim, can’t you take a hint? The
micro-bling, the micro-tattoo, the dress so dowdy that you wouldn’t be caught dead
in it? ‘Cause that’s the plan,
Hollow-Head!
Death,
Death, go away! Come again some other day!
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