TheBanyanTree: hecky-pecky

[Julie Anna Teague]

When we were little, my mom used to tell my brother and I that we'd die of
hecky-pecky if we didn't wash our hands, take a bath, stop picking our
noses, etc. One of those strange, idle threats that parents use to get a
little cooperation, a little sanitation. I don't know why I thought of
that except that we are suddenly up to our necks in something here, and it
crossed my mind that it's the mysterious hecky-pecky come to haunt us. We
just learned yesterday that my love of many years has lymphoma. The doctor
who performed the biopsy used terms like "low grade" and "stage one" which
are all optimistic words. Little words. Short words. Words that haven't
yet spread into big, scary sentences.

We don't know much, yet. We will know more as the weeks progress. I've
already started researching the whole thing because that is what I do. I
am a person who needs all the facts and figures. I have read about the
process of "staging" and know that the first doctor, while he could give
it damned good guess I suppose, couldn't really "stage" the level of the
cancer. That will come with the CT scan and whatever else the oncologist
does. Oncologist is one of those scary words and I want to go back to
using "doctor".

This has not all registered yet. Not really. For the longest time, there
was just this stupid lump that was probably nothing and me nagging and
nagging him to have it looked into.  And him waving it off and diddling
around with not drinking caffeinated coffee anymore and upping his carrot
juice intake and talking about kidney cleanses, until finally the lump
(and me) could not, and would not, be ignored. And now there is all of
this. There are a hundred reasons to remain positive, and for the most
part we are. It is just in the odd moments, when we look at each other in
a certain way, or a familiar-shaped cloud passes through our thoughts,
that we break down, both together and individually, into fears and tears. 

Julie