Re-Mission

Celebrating three years!

I remember the moment three years ago today when I picked up the phone.

“Negative,” the nurse said, flatly.

“Negative,” I repeated back, dazed. Then, “Fuck yeah!!” followed by an apology for cursing. The nurse seemed unsure why I would drop celebratory F bombs. But I knew. I would live to plant my garden that spring.

I kept her on the phone while I pulled up the result on my portal. My latest bone marrow biopsy had found no cells with the chromosomal flip, inv(16), that had fomented a zombie apocalypse in my bloodstream. Meaning: I had no detectable cancer. Meaning: I was in remission!

The nurse put me on hold to ask a question of my oncologist. I pranced around the house, shrieking like a banshee, Muzak in my ear.

I would live to purr with my cat and love on my peeps and make more drawings of my weird body and write a book about all of it. I would live to hike the rainforest of Costa Rica that summer and feel fresh powder sink under my skis the following winter.

After hanging up I put on my dance playlist and cranked the stereo to maximum volume. I took a selfie of my elation, one finger pointing to the ceiling in a disco pose. I was emaciated by chemo, except that my belly ballooned like a three-month pregnancy. I wore blue and neon pink beanies over my bald head and a lavender turtleneck that my port device poked at like a high, third nipple. I posted the image to Facebook, not caring that it showed my lack of eyebrows framing deep eye sockets and a manic, open-mouthed grin. My phone started blowing up. I was gonna live. I danced like a fool, skipping from room to room with the most ridiculous moves. I wanted a neighbor to hear, inquire what the fracas was about, dance with me. Though I didn’t mind dancing with just my body and me: whatever “me” was besides my body. We needed those moments together. We had been through the wars and we had survived and only we knew what that meant. We were going to live—and never again be asleep to the blessing of having a life, nor to the knowledge that this life could end at any moment.

My new mission, my re-mission.

I’m knocking on my wooden head as I write this, but the three-year remission mark is considered a milestone in AML recovery, after which relapse is uncommon—11% of us, or a bit higher. At this point, it appears I have a better chance of dying from something else, given that the rate of death is eventually 100%. Hell, that’s reason enough to crank the stereo and twerk through my house right now!

A coda: When the phone rang three years ago, I happened to be watching my very first YouTube of the queer poet Andrea Gibson, an interview with a fashion magazine in which they gradually strip down to their underwear while speaking about how their cancer diagnosis had cured them of anxiety and woken them to divine bliss.

I didn’t know then that my friend Stef Willen was a close friend of Gibson’s, and that Stef and other lesbi-luminaries (Tig, Glennon, Abby!) would go on to produce Come See Me in the Good Light, an astonishing documentary about the last year of Gibson’s life, which, by coincidence (except that there are no coincidences), is up for Best Documentary at the Oscars tonight, March 15! Let’s all send good vibes and goosebumps their way!