Fandango’s Flashback Friday – Cancer and Daisy Chains

https://fivedotoh.com/2021/10/22/fandangos-flashback-friday-october-22nd/

I’ve never been good at being brave
And here I was
About to fail
At cancer
I heard the words but I didn’t
“You have cancer
You may die,”
Well that was a bang on the head
For a day filled with pink blossom
But he ignored the pink blossom on the trees
And talked about daisy chains
“It’s like a daisy chain,” he said
“It goes from lymph node to lymph node”
And instantly
I was back at my grandparents’ farm again
Just a little girl in a green field
Making a pretty daisy chain
But this daisy chain was not pretty
Oh no
It held me in a vice
From which there was no escape
And here I was, trapped,
Trapped in cancer
I used to be able to run
But there was no running now
And the daisy chain could not be broken
Except, possibly,
By the horror of chemo
No hair chemo
Not that I was bothered about hair
I never liked mine anyway
“It might be nice to be bald,” I thought
But in order to get bald
I had to have a bag
Well, many of them
Over time
Bags filled with poison
“We get you better in here”
One nurse said
But better was far from my mind
I was still stuck on daisy chains
And pretty white and yellow flowers
Entwined around my lymph nodes
And what are lymph nodes anyway?
I never saw one
But I had to have one taken out
For a biopsy
Wedge shaped it was, they said,
“I’m going to pinch one of your lymph nodes,”
The surgeon said
“But your chest is full of tumours
Not sure the air can get round them”
My mind boggled
Just a narrow tunnel
Through which air was passing
No wonder I hooted like an express train
Going through a tunnel
When I breathed
But those daisies
I hung onto those daisies
Maybe one day they would be pretty