hecky-pecky

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, 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. Small 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. There was just this stupid lump that was probably nothing and me nagging and nagging him to have it looked into and him not drinking caffeinated coffee anymore and upping his carrot juice intake and talking about kidney cleanses, until finally it 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.