Repurposed music

30/3/2015

The beast that is my tumour started out life as a lower-grade creature, probably taking several years to grow and finally growl. As I mix my veggie smoothies these days, I chuckle about about all the champagne-soaked evenings of ignorant bliss, and reminisce about the songs that may have been a missed warning:

All alone
On the edge of sleep
My old familiar friend
Comes and lies down next to me
And I can see you coming from the edge of the room
Smiling in the streetlight
Even with my eyes shut tight
I still see you coming now

Oh, I think I'm breaking down again

When doctors ask ‘how are you feeling emotionally? Are you angry?’ I consider my answer, how the best way to understand it might be to grab a Walkman, crank it up to maximum volume, and press PLAY on Guns n’ Roses’s most raggedly enraged hits--Back off Bitch, Dust n’ Bones, Get in the Ring, Nightrain; the kind a teenager would have relished while blowing shit up over an Axis of Evil state on an F15 Strike Eagle III mission until the AA batteries began succumbing to their long-drawn-out demise and the tape reels slowed so much Axl Rose’s voice started hitting bass notes ‘well, I got one chance left in a niiine liiiife caaaat’…

STOP.

I don’t mention any of this. I smile. ‘I’m fine’.

Because I am. I think a more appropriate comparison is that GBM is painful the way a treadmill is. If you keep fighting, you may just stay on. And maybe the going gets tougher the longer you’re on there. And the thought of crashing out is scary (you may even play some Guns n’ Roses). But you keep running and you get stronger (I'm almost down to zero headaches) and you keep coming across new foods and supplements and medicines (this week: check out polio vaccines at Duke on 60 Minutes) and doctors and prayers and hopes. And then you realise that what you thought was your top running song was actually your top survival song all along

Race,
It's a race
But I'm gonna win
Yes, I'm gonna win
And I will light the fuse
And I'll never lose

And I choose to survive
Whatever it takes