The next few minutes are like a fever dream.
I feel the cold gel on my skin, the pressure of the transducer before the blurred black-and-white shapes appear on the screen, shapes I ought to be able to interpret. I hear his words, which I ought to understand. Then he hands me some paper towels and looks so satisfied as he does it that I dare to return from my fever dream.
‘No swelling? No enlarged lymph nodes?’ I ask, out of breath.
‘Nothing abnormal.’
Nothing abnormal. Thank God.
Without thinking, I fall into his arms, feeling for a moment as free as I used to. And when, in the subsequent conversation, he also announces that the follow-up examinations can now take place at longer intervals, it is only too clear to me what that means.
I am healthy.
For now, warns a voice inside me.
‘One thing is important to me,’ Dr. Becker now says earnestly. ‘I’m sure you know about the power of our thoughts.’
I nod.
‘Letting go of an illness like this is not easy.’ Dr. Becker places his hands on mine. ‘You’ve done a great job so far.’
Well aware of what he’s getting at, I lower my eyelids.
‘I’d like you to leave your notebook here with me,’ I hear him say warmly. ‘You don’t need it anymore.’
I immediately look around for it. It’s lying on the desk, where I put it down before the ultrasound examination. Now I pick it up and trace the edges with my index finger.
For months it has been my constant companion. It was my anchor, my partner, my life insurance—at least in my imagination.
If Jaden knew about this notebook, he would probably call it something else: my ankle shackle, my prison, my killjoy. He would cheer for me if I left it here with Dr. Becker today. He would kiss me, on the spot and without asking, because it would make him so happy and proud.
‘You are healthy,’ I hear my doctor say in the midst of my thoughts.
I nod, because I know he’s right. I am healthy and even if I will never again be a one-percent person, I am alive.
Not alivefor now. Just alive.
Every part of me is trembling. ‘Yeah, I’m healthy,’ I say anyway and hand him the notebook.
The first few hours without my notebook felt strange. And even now, as I’m sitting with Olive, June, Sonora, and Autumn in a cozy bar on the Halifax Harbor waterfront, it’s as if an important part of me were missing.
‘Cheers, girls.’ Olive raises her cocktail.
We clink our glasses.
‘So great that we finally made it happen.’ Sonora sips her white wine, her mane of curls falling into her face.
With the sea breeze on my skin and the sound of the waves in my ears, I let my gaze wander over the colorful wooden houses on the pier and the lights of the city on the opposite side of the channel. There’s positive energy all around, and I want to be positive tonight too.
At Sonora’s urging, I even ordered an alcoholic cocktail. Now the Malibu Beach is sitting in front of me, and I’m ready to drink it. At least a little of it.
‘Okay, guys, I’ve got a suggestion.’ I pull the little umbrella out of the pineapple decorating my cocktail and set it down on the napkin. ‘Tonight we’re not doctors. The Halifax Harbor Hospital doesn’t exist. We’re just having fun.’
Wow, did I really just say that? The words that had become so foreign to me lately, but were apparently still hidden somewhere inside me, echo within me: We’re just having fun.
Like we used to.
‘We’re just having fun!’ My heart races with anticipation as I throw my friend a challenging look.