Comparison Essay #8 pg 1

Comparison Essay #8
A hurricane is a powerful storm that builds slowly collecting moisture and warm air preparing for the attack, then when it makes land fall it unleashes its wrath of precipitation and high devastating winds, and then is if it was just a fleeting memory it is gone and the calm ensues leaving scars on the landscape and the opportunity to rebuild. I think cancer is like a hurricane because one it hides collecting cells to infect silently sinking its tendril into your body tissues, then second it unleashes the full storm as you discover the cancer and the storm rages as you fight the storm with chemo, radiation, prayer, and then the storm moves out the cancer moves out and all is calm. You have survived the storm or the storm has taken you but the calm remains almost as if the whole thing didn’t happen and you must start anew.
Your grandmother is fine sitting in her kitchen downing coffee like a sailor downs rum with the telephone permanently attached to her head as if an added appendage. She is like a firmly rooted tree always there when you enter the house and almost always at the kitchen table cooking, drinking coffee, playing pokeno, as if she waits ready to listen and share our lives. Little did we know the storm was building every so clever ever so sinister as the cancer cells multiplied. They were invading her lungs as we sat talking about the wedding. Planning was her thing she was envisioning tiny white flowers on a cake while tiny cancer cells were invading her pancreas. I was being married in less than a year and my grandmother was more excited than me and I let her enjoy it all and I never sensed in this moment the subtle signs, of the storm preparing its attack. It was gathering power as we sat laughing at her kitchen table office.
My grandmother was having some pain in her chest and came down with at terrible could that February and she was treating herself with whiskey tea and honey when I arrived to find her at her office. (Kitchen table) She had photos of her wedding day stuck in the kind of album that has the little black triangles pasted in holding each black and white photo that were tinged with yellow from age. I see her wince as she coughs, and recall she had this in the fall too. I question her about the cold symptoms and tell her I want her to go to the doctor and she balks. I then start to scrutinize her and notice she looks thinner, to me and upon further prodding she mentions some other symptoms that start to sound sinister. She went to the doctor the following week and had a check-up, x-rays, and a host of tests that encompassed her whole day. Two days later she was called to the doctor’s office and my father was asked to go with her. To me, my father, and my grandmother it was reminiscent of being called to the principal office knowing that something was awry and carefully chronologically going through your recent memory trying to find an offense that may have been committed. The doctor gave the news of lung cancer that was quite advanced and then with the swiftness of Mother Nature the hurricane descended upon our family. We weren’t prepared we never battened up the windows, or got the boat out of the water anymore than we were prepared for medications, appointments, and chemotherapy. The hurricane raged as the prognosis was bleak and chemo must start next week. My grandmother went home to her office (kitchen table) at age 79 and as the storm raged, she drank coffee as the winds howled. We at her side watched her endure 2 rounds of chemo as the winds howled around our family trying to uproot the foundation of our family. The rain was torrential as we muddled