Day 2

Wake now to something that is starting to feel familiar. The bug spray, the sunscreen, the honking, the van.

There is a speech. There is shaking hands in a cold room. There are photos. There is another speech. Wonder if the words mean anything at all. Look at the equipment all displayed on the x-ray table. Realize that they represent a hope, future, dream. Wonder at their expiration dates. Notice this time when you walk through the blue hallways that the diabetic foot clinic is just a few steps from the radiology department.

Sit in the dark and count down years, so few. Count the metastases, so many. Count the systems, body parts affected. Ask about HPV screening. Ask about vaccines. Ask about MRI and PET-CT's. Ask about chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation oncology, pathology. Get to the end of your report and hem and haw about what to say. What can one possibly say.

There are more. Observe an ultrasound-guided biopsy for a pelvic mass so large, you could hit it from across the room. That's the joke, they say. That a blind man could hit it from across the room. Watch them prep the ultrasound probe anyway. 

Ask the anesthesiology resident staying with you why she cannot take the hospital van without you. Think that maybe this is a mistake, they've mistaken you for an attending here. Or something else is going on, something that gives you the power to sign reports full of cancer and empty of hope, something you resent.

Finish the overly sweet jamoon wine. Eat eggs mixed with leftover curried mushrooms mixed with sauce you find in the fridge. Peel the tiniest banana. Think about the medical student who came with you. Think about him eating instant oatmeal, instant noodles in a small room alone. Think about the things you have and the things you do not. Think about the things you had and the things you did not.