My second-line treatment of fulvestrant and palbociclib stopped working. I didn’t need the test results to find out. The truth is in my chest, in that lumpen foreign mass prodding my right lung with each inhale, prickling my mind when I lie in bed at night. 

Do you have asthma? You know how, with asthma, when you breathe in it feels like everything’s full already and you can’t get more oxygen? A lung met is a little like that:  an uncanny something taking up space where the air would like to be. 

It’s a very weird feeling. 

I think I also have a new small met in my throat which says “hello there” when I swallow. Gotta wait on the next scan to confirm that one.

I’m at the crest of the roller coaster. When I gaze around I can see for decades.  But right now my hands are gripping the harness and I’m focused on the track ahead: there are corkscrews and a 360 in front of me. 

When I went to Disneyland with Katie in 2017 we rode California Screamin’ for hours, heading back down to the ‘single rider’ queue again and again. 

There’s no do-over this time. 

I have more medication options. Not as many as I’d like. I am waiting on next steps. 

I have to finish the story I’m working on.  That’s priority. I have to prune everything else and focus on rest, on writing, on pulling in a paycheck to pay the bills, on the people I care about. When I have confirmed there’s less than 6 months left I can cash in my retirement fund and stop work and just focus on three out of those four. Ain’t that a double-edged sword.

I can make five years, surely? I can make five. March 2023. That’s nine more months. Wow, that feels like a big fucking ask right now.

Still, I’m asking, Universe. Give me the five.