Checkup

I went to the hospital in Chiba for an MRI of my back. I was surprised how calm and composed I walked around in the hospital. Actually I had strange thoughts as I walked around for an hour, waiting for the result. I looked at all those patients, from primary school to retired, and I kept on thinking that I was the only one without cancer. Very strange and not logical. Was it a defense mechanism?

I enjoyed sitting in the hospital garden, next to a waterfall, recording short video messages to my family. The sun felt warm on my face, my skin completely healed from the radiation burns. That's when I was called by the doctor's office and I walked slowly along the flower beds and greenery, greeting a young couple with a bald child in their arms. Our eyes met, and we shared so many emotions in that split second.

The doctor received me with his usual smile and showed me images with a small grey shadow. He said it had grown since the MRI last month. It was suspicious activity, the description I had come to dread since I had heard the same about my hip bone in Singapore in January. That suspicion had turned out to be nothing. As I had no pain symptoms the doctor said we would wait with next MRI's until August. 3 months...

Dr Zenda explained that he would then decide to start Immunotherapy, Nivolumab, to stop and reverse POSSIBLE spreading of melanoma and seemed happy that my wife and son would join then so he could explain more details. He had informed my wife that he had confirmed that the melanoma had not spread to lungs, liver, prostate or other organs. So starting with medicins would have to be based solely on the result of another set of scans of my back and head.

Relieved yet concerned, smiling and wondering to be alarmed or not, I shook dr Zenda's hand and thanked him. I took a picture of the screen where the blip was highlighted. I felt peaceful and reassured. Back on the bus to the station, I felt healthy, calm, serene..... I smiled at my fellow passengers as they changed seats, complaining about the hot sun, grilling us in our seats.

Wherever they moved, the sun would find them again as the bus turned and turned through the narrow streets of Kashiwa. Sweet afternoon sun, thank you for warming me, making me feel alive!