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Intro: The week and a half leading to diagnosis, were somnambolustic, drenched in unreal days, groggy and sleepy but without sleep. Everyone taking pills or drinking to sleep a few hours a night. The sweep of events from the discovery of the tumor, to the MRIs, to the day of the surgery, to the appointments with unknown agents of medicine (Doctors). Trying to keep a head above the deluge to make decisions, ask questions and pin-down doctors. It felt like we were dumped into a water slide, with high walls and no lights, the water choking us and the way terrifying, but with no escape. We just kept going.
ACT TWO:

Puppet theatre!
(Cue circus music, ba-ba-ba-da-da-da-rummpa)


Pop! A floodlight illuminates the tiny stage as red velvet curtains peel back to reveal a family tableau set against the backdrop of a doctor's office. Here sit the parents, the father flipping through an tiny issue of Sunset magazine, distractedly, the mother's anxious half-smiles flitting across her face while her eyes remain flat. The adult children occasionally try to say something clever or comforting to alleviate some of the incessant strain, that hums, buzzes and fills the silence.

The Doctor sweeps in quickly, as if he had no strings, his wake ruffling the pages of the magazines and carrying in it the company of his nurse. He is small and graceful despite being short and plump, well-groomed, middle-aged with olive skin and balding hair. He is wearing the most elegantly pointed clown shoes that have been crafted from a single piece of soft black leather, pointy enough to skewer a hot dog or clean small dusty cornes.
(As the music plays, the Doctor moves toward the center of the room, twirling into a seat at the final drum beat hits)
He turns to the family, his large dark brown eyes, contacting each person in crammed in the examination room. It is his show. The results of the biopsy.

Doctor: Hello, I see we have the whole family here. (Pause, looking around- eye contact) How are you, Cindy?

Cindy: Pretty nervous, waiting to hear the results.

Doctor: Well, I have the lab results and I'm sorry that your tumor is a glioblastoma multiforme, this is an aggressive cancer, its fatal.........

(The Doctor asks a few more questions, apologizes and as the music starts again, wheels out of the room)

End of Scene.

At this point, we've heard what we came to hear- results. Leaving things in the hands of cancer doctors was both necessary and unacceptable. The approach to health and the body chained to an interpretation of life through an sterile lens. Instinctually, talking, we all knew there is so much more. Up next: As my mom said, "Holy holistics, hope!"