Sometimes you’re so deep in talk with those you love that you completely forget you’re in a hospital hooked up to The Poisonator 3000.
Returning to the hospital today felt almost suspiciously easy. It’s early August so lots of people are away on holiday and the building itself felt quiet. When I got back to the oncology ward, the nursing staff instantly recognised me and we’ve exchanged some friendly words. To top it all off, I even got the exact same private room I had last time.
The verdict from nurses and doctors was that I was looking and doing exceptionally well. The injections that gently roasted my bones over a charcoal fire last weekend did their job and my white blood cell count is now through the roof.
The first treatment of Cycle 2 was uneventful. In part because like in Cycle 1, I didn’t feel any effects. But largely also because my room turned into quite the social hotspot throughout the afternoon.
First, my parents dropped by shortly after noon with some cold drinks and a bag of crisps (we have learned lessons from Cycle 1). We discussed my treatment but also the books I’ve started reading for this round.
Then, later in the afternoon, two of my closest friends came to see me – and ended up staying for a full three hours. We talked about so many things, from the serious to the silly, and to be honest sort of halfway through the hospital walls around me disappeared and as far as I was concerned we could have been having this conversation in any corner of the world.
Readers of this blog will likely grow tired of my endless gushing over my friends. I am, however, sorry to inform the readers in question that I will mercilessly continue to drive that point home in the hopes that perhaps some day a disillusioned literary critic/historian with crippling self-loathing issues might complain in an almost deleted paragraph for an anthology on Luxembourg’s “lost” poets about how this Tom Weber bloke just wouldn’t shut up about how much he loved his friends.
I end this first day of Cycle 2 feeling fulfilled. As I write these lines, I feel the lingering warmth of their presence. Trust the way you feel – and if you find someone that makes you feel this way, bloody pull them in for a hug whenever you can. Because this life is nothing but a bubble blown into the air by a child without a care in the world. And tomorrow is always a lucky coincidence.
To all of you reading this, may you find happiness and may you be healthy. I’ll see you in the next one.
just thoughts 