text: I haven’t been feeling good for weeks. There is pain in my stomach. I generally just don’t feel like myself. I tell my mom, because I am only nineteen, and can still run to my mom when I don’t feel good (Besides, as a mom, she has been diagnosing my odd aches and pains for almost two decades). She tells me that it’s probably nothing, but if I want to go to the doctor then I should. Her assurance means that I do not call the doctor for another few weeks, when the pain starts to get worse. I make the next available appointment, which is two weeks away. They are a good doctor and have a lot of patients. They tell me that if it’s urgent they can squeeze me in today. I don’t think about it again until two weeks later - the day of the appointment. There is no sense in worrying about it. I go to the doctor alone, because, again, it’s probably nothing. They run some tests and I’m on my way. I tell my mom the next time we talk, that they took some blood and I should know the results in about a week. We don’t talk about it again until I get the results, except the day after my appointment when she asks me if I’m feeling any better. I’m not, but I don’t want to worry her, so I say, “A little.” I get out of class and there is a voicemail on my cell phone. It’s the doctor’s office. They want me to come in and speak with the doctor. Tomorrow. That’s odd. They usually don’t have appointments available on such short notice. “Can you just tell me the test results over the phone?” “I just work at the front desk, I’m not qualified to provide you any medical information” “Ok, then can the doctor or a nurse just tell me over the phone?” “I’m sorry but none are available right now. Besides, the doctor really wants to speak with you in person.” I send my best friend, Katie, a text. “Hey, remember that test I was waiting for results on? The doctor called, they want to see me ASAP so the doctor can tell me in person. Kinda strange, lol” I’m worried, but I still go alone. I feel stronger when I am alone in this type of situation. The only person I would even bring is my mom, but I know that if she is with me, she will do the whole “supermom” thing, and I will revert back to being a child. If I go alone, I have to be strong because I have to be the adult. I’m waiting in the waiting room for about 10 minutes. And then 20. And then 30. Just tell me already. “Carly, the doctor will see you now.” I go back into the doctor’s office. Not the “doctor’s office,” his actual office within the doctor’s office, where he eats his lunch, and listens to NPR podcasts between appointments. He asks me how I’m doing. “I’m fine.” (Just tell me already) Well, we got your test results back, and the results are rather disturbing.” Just fucking tell me already. “You have stomach cancer. Based on the results, I would say it is either stage 3 or stage 4.” You know those “anti-gravity” rides at the fair, where you get inside and stand against the wall, and it spins around really fast and you can’t move much because the centrifugal force is so great? That’s what my body feels like. The force of gravity just increased tenfold. I weigh 1000 pounds. My heart is slowly inching down to the floor. I can’t move. “Ok.” “Because it is in such an advanced stage, there really is not a whole lot we can do. We can try chemotherapy and radiation, but I am afraid your cancer is terminal. I would like to have you come back in to do a PET scan, to see exactly where the cancer is and if it has metastasized.” To see if it’s spread? I don’t care where it’s spread. Why would I care if it’s spread? It’s killing me. I am dying regardless. Did you even go to medical school? Are you a real doctor? “To see if it’s metastasized” - are you joking? I decide right then and there: No more doctor’s appointments, no more tests, no treatments, no drugs. Fuck that. But I can’t move, much less form a sentence. “Ok.” The next thing I remember I am sitting in my car, in the parking lot, crying. I think to myself after a few minutes that crying is stupid and this is all going to be okay. I decide to go on a drive, kill a little bit of time, before I have to go home and back to reality. I drive past my old office. I miss work. I drive a little ways up the Interstate, past the mountains, and think about having my ashes spread in the mountains. I turn around, and realize that this could be my last time driving by these particular mountains. I have a few more of those realizations the whole way home. “This could be my last time hearing this song on the radio, this could be my last time being stuck in traffic, this could be my last time stopping at this stop sign” (The realizations got progressively more pathetic the more emotional I got). I don’t want to tell any one yet. I don’t even want to tell my self yet. I want to get a pack of menthols and a chocolate glazed donut. I stop at the gas station I used to go to every day before I quit smoking. There’s a new clerk. Must be new because he is way too enthusiastic to be working at this shitty old convenience store. “Smoking is bad for you, you know!” Ha. You don’t say. I wake up the next morning to my dog, Max, licking my face, and my phone ringing. It’s my mom. She asks how the doctor went. I’m not going to make her wait like the doctor made me wait. I’m not going to give her that kind of anxiety. Do I want to tell her over the phone? No. But I also don’t want her entire body to shake with nervousness like mine did for the 20 minutes it would have taken me to get to her house. “He told me that I have stage 3 or stage 4 stomach cancer and there is nothing that they can do.” “ Stage 3 or Stage 4? What the fuck does that mean? Which one is it? There is nothing they can do?! That’s the biggest load of crap I have ever heard, I’m calling them.” Ok Mom. She comes over shortly afterwards. I don’t think she actually called the doctor. But I’m wrong, she did, and thank god she did because I don’t think I could have told her any more details without completely losing it. She doesn’t want me to “give up,” but she says that I should do what ever I think is best for myself. I think it would be best for me to move back to Colorado. Spend my last few months in the mountains, in the snow, where my best friend lives, and smoke a ridiculous amount of marijuana. I never really smoked pot. I mean, I did a few times in high school, but it was just never my thing. I think now I would like it to be “my thing.” I want my mom to come with me. She likes Colorado, too. She used to live in a little ski town in the mountains. Her and my dad got married there. She comes with me, and I don’t even have to ask. I call Katie after my mom leaves. “So I have good news and bad news. Good news is, I’m moving back to Colorado. Bad news is it’s because I have stomach cancer... and I’m not going to, well, it’s terminal.” Katie and her husband grow marijuana for one of the local medical marijuana dispensaries there. She decides that she is going to grow a new strain of marijuana for me, one that she says will have really high amounts of the chemical compound in the plant that helps with cancer symptoms. I don’t remember the science-y part of it. CDC, maybe? No. That’s Center for Disease Control. CBD. The chemical’s name is CBD. Some friends send you flowers when you get cancer. Katie personally grows a pot plant for me. This is why she’s my best friend. She knows that I don’t want to cry about it, or get depressed and sulk around for the next six months. She knows that I want to enjoy the little things and do a couple of the items on the bucket list we made together in seventh grade. It doesn’t matter which ones. My mom and I work out all of the logistics. I don’t think I’ll make it a full year, so we get a vacation rental. You can rent those by the month. We make sure to pick a place that has a big backyard for Max. My mom can pretty much run her business from anywhere there is internet connection, so we go to the Apple store and I help her pick out a laptop. I’ve never been to an Apple store before. It’s pretty cool. I wonder if anyone here can tell I’m dying. I’ve lost ten pounds. My hair is thinning. My skin looks grey? This is new. Just noticed that in the reflection of one of the computers. Maybe it’s these fluorescent lights. Two months later, we hire a professional caregiver to come and stay with me while my mom has to go back to Arizona for a couple of days for work stuff. We also have our neighbor come over and help take care of Otis. He’s pretty low maintenance, but I can’t lift his dog food bag to feed him. Otis and I watch a lot of movies together. I like that he is a dog and doesn’t understand that I’m dying. I’m glad that my mom is getting a break from taking care of me; A break from having to pretend to be so strong all of the time. Sometimes I hear her crying, and it hurts more than the giant tumor in my stomach hurts. I know Katie would come take care of me at the drop of a hat, but I can’t ask her to do that. I don’t do much, except sometimes my mom wraps a bunch of blankets around me and we go sit next to the biggest window in the house and watch the snowfall. Something about growing up in the desert makes me feel like snow is a little bit magical. I can still walk, but only for short amounts of time. I’m having a hard time eating. I’ve lost another ten pounds, and I’m starting to look like a skeleton. Too bad Halloween already passed. The day that I fall trying to get out of bed is the day. I’ve read about dying enough to know that once the falling starts, the really slow, terrible death starts - The pain, the loss of mental facilities, the incontinence, the sleeping 23 hours a day. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to lose all independence. I don’t want my mom to see me like that. I call Katie. I’m getting weaker. When did it start to take so much energy to talk? This is new. I tell her that I love her and that’s all I need to say. She knows; We have talked about this. She starts crying. I start crying. “I love you too. I’ll see you later. And I’ll bring you a jet pack if we have them by then.” My mom and I had previously discussed this, but unlike Katie, she doesn’t want me to tell her. She just wants me to sneak out while she is sleeping, and do it. I’m ok with that. I don’t think I could tell her, anyways. I put a coat on. And then I put my shoes on. Max wags his tail like he think’s we’re going on a walk. “Not you, buddy, just me.” I’m scared. How will my body know it’s time? I don’t want to be stuck out there, alive. Hopefully the cold will help. I make it about 500 feet, which is a lot less further than I was hoping to be, but a lot more than I thought I actually could get. I can hear Max barking. I fall on my knees. About a minute passes. It feels like 5000 years, but I’m glad this minute felt so long because it’s my last minute. For 5000 years, I am thinking of all of the reasons not to do this. “What if I had tried chemo?” “What if I start to try chemo now?” “What if I miraculously recover?” “What if tomorrow they find a cure for cancer?” Ridiculous.