Galaxies
The bruise will form tonight. Tomorrow, it will expand across the left side of my stomach two inches from my belly button. My own small, violet galaxy. But right now, I am pressing a bag of ice to my belly, freezing the skin before the nurse plunges a needle into it—a trick I’ve learned to avoid pain.
This is my monthly Zoladex. A pellet of medication administered through a needle the diameter of a ball point pen. It is a treatment that quiets my ovaries. Which is to say, it is a sacrificial prayer that the cancer won’t return.
The infusion center sits high on the eleventh floor, a view of the Willamette River. Today, the afternoon sun is reflecting off panes of glass from nearby buildings, shimmering like pools of water. Each infusion chair around me is separated by a curtain that sways from the ceiling—a fragile veil of privacy. The air stings with the acrid scent of alcohol and cleaning solutions, but my nose has adjusted to it, like it’s done for years.
Through the curtain, an older man’s voice quivers with resolve, “I don’t need an IV.”
The nurse’s reply is sing-song, but insistent, “actually you do, you need to get medicine through one today.”
“No. I’m not getting a damn IV. You can put that away.”
In my mind, he is eyeing the needle, grey irises clouded with the smoke of fear.
“Ask my son, he’s in the waiting room. He’ll tell you.”
After a moment: two pairs of footsteps, a clattering of the curtain being drawn closed.
“Dad, they need to put in an IV today. They need to give you medicine.” The son’s words are even, soft.
The man stutters, voice breaking, “but… why?”
“Remember Dad, the radiation is killing the cancer from the outside, and the medicine is killing it from the inside. We’ve done this before and it worked, remember? We have to do it again.” The son’s gentle voice wafts through the curtain, circles the knot forming in my throat. I realize I am holding my breath.
“I really don’t want an IV.”
They volley back and forth. The son’s tone never breaks.
Finally: “I know this is hard, Dad. We are just taking this one day at a time.”
And with that, the man sighs. Surrenders. There is rustling—a settling into the large chair, a shirt sleeve rolled up, thin skin and blue veins.
I no longer feel the biting cold of the ice on my stomach. When I peel away the plastic bag, there is a shock of red skin in the shape of a square, completely numb. I should let the nurse know, let her push the needle inside my soft belly. Yet, I am reluctant to break the spell that has fallen like fog over the room.
Eventually, I too resign and call the nurse’s name. She counts to three, presses the needle, clicks the plunger back. She is quick to cover the puncture with a cotton pad, but blood is saturating it like rain-stained thunderclouds filling a clean sky.
“I’m sorry,” she says, grimacing. “Just hold that there for a moment.”
The feeling is rushing back to my thawing skin. My blood, wet and warm.
As I walk towards the exit, I slow to catch a glimpse of the man and his son in the slivered space between almost-closed curtains. The man is stilled, laying nearly flat on the reclined chair, his chest moving up and down in a slow beat. A tube connects his arm to a hanging plastic bag with a drip, drip, drip of clear liquid. The son is sitting in a metal chair nearby, legs crossed, gazing at his phone, a free hand on the ankle of his slumbering father.
I reach my car in the nearly empty parking garage. Pull the mask from my face, breathe in. The son’s words echo in the dark, sink into me. My belly throbs to the soft rhythm of my heart, and I instinctively cup my hand around the place I am hurting.
Eventually, I’ll drive home, make dinner, fall asleep to the sounds of summer slipping through the trees in the backyard. The bruise will bloom then fade, a shadow giving way to milk skin. But I will, for a very long time, hold the son’s gentleness close to me. His patience. The edges of his love, soft and malleable, stretching to hold it all.
We are just taking this one day at a time.
If you enjoyed this story, please subscribe to receive new posts sent to your inbox!
Thank you so much for reading <3
kira thank you for your words and your work. so much here and so many emotions that arise from reading this! beautiful and moving. please keep writing and sharing and watch as the ripple waves out. ♥️💫
Haunting and homey all in one. Alchemy.