Never Better

In a couple of weeks I'll be going back to Dublin for some more of the fancy radiotherapy I had last year. 
(SABR is it's official title, I've learned, which means stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, but also has a pretty appropriate meaning in Arabic).

I have to go back because there are two small white bits on my CT scans in my right lung. They've been there a while, on three scans in a row. They're a little bit bigger now than they were four months ago. 5mm now instead of 4. Or something weenchy like that. 

They could be cancer. They could be snot. They could be little pieces of popcorn I inhaled while I snoozed on the couch. 

I have metastatic cancer, cancer that spreads. Once the cat is out of the bag, you can never get it back in again. Even if the cat is really good at hiding, you know it's out there somewhere. (Let's not even get Shrodinger-y about this; my brain might burst).

So when stuff pops up that "could be cancer", the wise money is on it, in fact, being cancer. Not snot. Or popcorn. 

I could takes my chances and stand firm on the snotcorn theory. I could have another few scans and see does it suddenly leap out of the picture hissing and spitting, saying "I AM cancer you dumbass, what did you think I was? A misplaced salty cinema snack??" 

But the Too-Lateness of that is a little bit offputting.

So I will set the GPS for Poshville again and go for a few sessions of very expensive snotcorn removal.  

No to No

I am anti-abortion.

I am pro-choice.  

For years, I have been able to have these thoughts, in my head, keeping them to myself, reasonably happy with how they felt. I never had to commit them to paper, or proclaim my opinions publicly. I never had to get off the fence. 

I have been broadly liberal, mostly tree-hugging, fairly non-discriminatory, largely into Equality and Diversity and Inclusion and all those lovely buzzwords which make me feel like a Good Person. 

I have been unshackled by religion and yet a staunch believer in morality and integrity, and lots of other "christian" ideals. 

But now it's time to pick the splinters out of my backside and jump off that fence. 

Ticking the NO box on the ballot paper would be easy. 
NO = I don't like killing babies.
NO = I think all women should love and cherish the life growing inside them.
NO = all life should be valued.
NO = abortion should never have to happen.

But that's not what NO means. 
NO means all the same stuff still happens, in the same unsafe, demeaning, traumatic, shame-inducing way that it currently happens every day.
NO means that we continue to brush the uncomfortable thoughts under the carpet, and fool ourselves into thinking we are morally good and right for doing so.

In my lifetime I have held five two-lined peed-on pregnancy tests in my shaking hands. 
Only three of those potential lives came into the world. The other two were just as precious to me, but they simply didn't make it.

I could get pregnant now. I have functioning ovaries and a wonky-but-working womb. 

But I have been radiated upside-down and sideways for three and a half years. I'm pretty sure that's not doing my eggs any favours. And I will continue to be radiated for the rest of my life,  getting scanned every few months, getting superstrength zaps any time  any straggly cancer bits raise their ugly heads. If the cancery bits get very feisty they'll need a good dose of Toxic Waste chemo to beat them into submission. 

None of which is in the What to Expect guide to a successful and healthy pregnancy. 

What would I do? 
Would I suspend all treatment for my Should-Be-Dead-By-Now cancer, and try to nurture the potential life inside me? Knowing that both of us could end up in the morgue, leaving behind the three lives I have painstakingly brought this far? 
Or would I erase that potential life, with a reluctant and broken heart, to grasp at the fragile straw of saving my own skin? 

I don't want to have to think about it. I don't want to face up to the reality of that choice. I wish it would all go away.

Voting No doesn't make it all go away.

It just makes those decisions so much harder.