It's a fuzzy and watery vision (age does that, I suppose), but it's clear enough for me to get an idea of what is happening in this particular memory. I am staring at my reflection in a full-length mirror that hangs on the bathroom door of my grandmother's NYC apartment. In the reflection, I see an open window and an oscillating fan, and judging from my attire (diaper and nothing else) I can only assume it must be summer. My hair is a brown mushroom cap of a bob, with the top half pulled tightly into a little ponytail that sits atop my head. My sister is jumping up and down behind me, yelling, "Nari is going to die! Nari is going to die!"
And I begin to believe her. My saucer eyes silently trail across the angry red welts on my skin. These foreign, frightful things simultaneously itch and hurt. I don't know what to make of it all. Later, I asked my mom when I had the chicken pox and she told me I was about one or two years old. So that must be my age here.
While in graduate school, I took a course on memoir writing (still by far my most meaningful and productive class) and at one point I took the opportunity to recollect on this memory. In retrospect, I realize why such an early memory stayed with me for so long. It was not the memory itself, that I had the chicken pox, which made such an impact, but the FEELING I had during the experience. I remember feeling something, but at the time, at such a young age, it was hard to articulate such abstract concepts.
But now, as an adult, I know that the feeling was fear. Unadulterated, paralyzing fear.
Fear is my worst enemy. I can think of so many unhappy occasions where fear was a catalyst. It takes over my body and I am blinded by it. I make irrational and impulsive decisions out of sheer panic. Even as I attempt to overcome it...sometimes, I just can't, and I hate when fear has that kind of control over me. If there is anything that I am afraid of most in the world, it is fear.
I am about to leave to have a procedure done this morning. A CT scan of my chest, abdomen, and pelvis, as well as a full-body bone scan. The point of the scans is to determine how to proceed with my current treatment and to maybe see if there might be a complete response - meaning, no visible signs of cancer left in my body. If there is a complete response, then no more chemo treatments (though I will continue the immunotherapy treatments). After the ordeal I have endured with chemo these last four or five months, this is such an overwhelming concept.
And I woke up this morning with a pit of fear beginning to form in my gut. I thought about all of the people who have hope that there will be a complete response. But the idea that I might disappoint them all gives me so much fear and dread. I can't help it. And I wish there was something uplifting I could say here.
But, unfortunately, this is all I have for now.
