Well, it’s just about time for this story—at least this chapter of it—to come to a close. Surgery is in about eight hours, and it will take roughly nine to complete.
Someone pointed out recently that anesthesia is a bit like time travel: you close your eyes, and the world skips ahead without you. That will be one small silver lining tomorrow. The other, more obvious one, is that when the day is over, there’s a very good chance I’ll be cancer-free. That feels like it should be the headline. It is a big deal. And yet, as I sit here in a new hotel room—I tried a different one this time—it doesn’t feel as significant as the long road that led to tomorrow.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the last year. All the appointments, scans, conversations, waiting rooms, and strange little moments in between. I could run through all of that now, but it feels too early for a “year in review.” The story isn’t finished yet. So this will be a short post.
Most people assume I’m scared, or anxious, or overwhelmed tonight. The truth is much less cinematic. I’m tired. And I really want bean and cheese tacos, which I can’t have because I haven’t eaten in the last 24 hours. It turns out it’s hard to be afraid when you’re hungry. Or at least, that’s how it works for me. Strange things you learn when you’re on the doorstep of major surgery.
So that’s it for tonight. It’s time for bed. The faster I get to tomorrow, the faster I get to the other side of all of this.
And when I do—when I wake up on the far side of this long day—I’ll come back and finish telling the story. Not from anticipation or fear, but from whatever comes next. However it ends, it deserves to be told from the other side of the threshold.