Playing Russian Roulette with Cancer

After living for seven months with
No Evidence of Disease,
I spent two weeks
Thinking that I had metastasized liver cancer.

There’s only so many times you can say to yourself “It could be nothing,” after seeing the spots on your CT scan.

You’ve already heard the words, “You have cancer.”
So, why not again?
Why not the very next year after treatment?

Before you heard those words, you didn’t know — I didn’t know
That a cancerous tumor was growing in my intestines; that cells my immune system couldn’t fight off
were reaching their tentacles
up through my tissues
An alien invasion
With a mind of its own

I’ll look at pictures of myself before I knew
And then look up in the mirror,
A changed person, in every way
Thinking back on those pictures— if I didn’t know I had cancer then,
how would I know now?

“I could be nothing,” those spots on my liver.
And it turns out they were just that—nothing.
Not cancer, no tumors.
Everyone around me expressed relief.
But I felt like…
if the odds are not in my favor
If this will probably happen to me again,
Just let it happen.
Let’s get it over with.
But it would sound sadistic to say any of that,
so I try to feel relieved as well.
Instead
I feel like I just dodged a bullet
from a gun that’s going to be pointed at me my whole life anyways.

I spent two weeks thinking I had metastasized liver cancer.
And until each next scan shows otherwise
I’ll live my life with cancer,
Guilty until proven innocent,
Never really feeling cancer-free
Knowing that even with all the treatment in the world,
Cancer and I will always be playing this game
And that it never really goes away