white space

I feel as though I am living within the white space between what is happening now and what might happen a moment from now. It is a precarious position, to say the least. I always loved using white space in my poems---those pregnant pauses where so little is said and so much is implied. It's amazing how life just seems to stop between the onset of tests to reveal, or not, that which might be gnawing away at my insides thanks to the modern men and women of nuclear medicine. Why they have solutions for all sorts of things, and one of them is for adenocarcinoids. You see, you are injected with a radioactive solution that contains something or other that zips right through your entire body. As it journeys along, if carcinoid tumor cells are nearby, why they act like a magnet to capture the liposomething or another and pull it right in. Hence it glows thanks to the radioactivity and a dimensional scan of four hours for several days will pick it up.It is a long involved process of laying in wait without moving. And whammo, you have the little sucker located!

Now the point is, you, the patient, don't want the solutions' journey interrupted. You want the radioactivity to whip around for three days and leave without a trace, and wa-la, you are clean of cancer. But those nuclear scientists, although pleasant, and a few with a sense of humor, hope to find things that make them look in awe and wonder, huddle around the computer and say, "There, you see that. Isn't that amazing?" No, I am tired of being "amazing," of being "unique," of having a disease that makes it to the hit parade of medical conferences. Give me the anonymity of the city or the forest or anything, but this endless specialness and these unrestful moments within the white space of waiting to find out what, if anything, has been found and then eventually conveyed to the doctor who will eventally have an opportunity to tell you, the patient who is anything but.

As I await the outcome of these latest tests, I try to live within the white space. In this place, it is disasterous to look back, damn depressing actually, when you consider all the time and energy spent on survival. And if you look ahead, you might start thinking about the kayak that awaits you up north, the white pines that sing, and the rain on the metal roof that soothes. No, can't go there right now because if those nuclear geniuses found something that glows, you won't be going anywhere; instead, you will begin more treatments and/or surgery. No, don't want to set yourself up emotionally. So I live in the white space where I don't have to distance myself, protect myself, with the third person pronouns. It's spring like weather today. That should be enough for now. Think of myself as if I am resting within the pregnant pause of a poem, waiting for the rest of this stanza to reveal itself.