Strong. Fighting. Surviving.

Eek. It’s not much of a word, but I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m collecting copies of my medical records (scans, reports, etc) for an upcoming appointment at Johns Hopkins. I tried to avoid reading them, but finally caved in a few days ago. I’ve been obsessing about the word eek ever since. It looks very innocent, only three letters, kind of cute, really. It’s the noise a cartoon elephant makes when a mouse scurries across the floor.

So, why should the word eek give me so much grief? In looking through my medical records, I saw a lot of words and phrases that were bigger and scarier. The results of my first PET scan included words like:

-para-aortic adenopathy
-confluent ground glass opacification (huh?)
-too numerous to count
-satellite hypodensities

I understand a few of them, and, yes, they are worrisome, but they don’t compare to eek. You see, eek is the word my oncologist chose to use in a letter to my primary care physician when I was first diagnosed.

“We will try to eek out a remission.”

After years of medical training and practice, my doctor decided that eek was the most appropriate word for my situation. There is no strength or determination in eek, certainly no confidence. There is a hint of hope, but not much. Funny, but I can’t think of a word that is more opposite to how I’m feeling today.

That letter was dated January 13th and, over the past eight months, I’ve eeked myself into partial remission and plan to keep eeking until I’m in full remission. Then I plan to eek myself to the Caribbean for a nice long vacation.