pronoia: Swallowing the Fireseed

We pulled into the hospital parking garage early. Ms. P has contracted a cold, and at some point I just couldn't stand to do one more thing at work when I was worrying about the radiation treatment, so we grabbed a quick sandwich and then sat kissing in the car, trying to get some touch in before we went on hiatus.

The waiting room of nuclear medicine is small and overpowered by Fox daytime television. (I haven't watched daytime television in years; it's gotten just abominable.) There are small clusters of people listlessly flipping through magazines about boats, and every so often someone is wheeled by in a wheelchair or a bed. Ms. P and I read Figure magazine and then sat trying to ignore Judge Alex. After a while I got called to the desk to sign yet another piece of paper asserting that I'm not pregnant, and then I sat holding my order and my consent form.

I was finally called back, where I had to produce two forms of ID to prove that I am, indeed, myself. Although that is debatable right about now, my driver's license didn't dispute it. I asked a few questions of the PA, and then the tech picked up a large leaded jar with my prescription on the front and the top taped down with RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL tape. She twisted open the top and pulled out a small plastic tube, from which she dropped a white capsule into a small plastic cup. I swallowed the pill, swallowed some water, and that was that. I was done.

Home again home again jiggety jig, where I got restless watching Gilmore Girls, cleaned the kitchen, got grumpy with Ms. P, and halfheartedly attempted to clean up the art room. Until Tuesday night, I am in the house. I have my distractions, but my distractions only work if I can sink into them. I suspect that by the end the house will be spotless and I will have begun eight different projects and finished none.

R is preferring to think of my treatment mythically, thus swallowing the fireseed. I am at my wits' end with my body and my crappy immune system and my endless treatments for this or that. I cannot enter myth right now; I'm too much in the moment. I will try to see this as a time of retreat and rejuvenation instead.