cellini's Diaryland Diary

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I think I might have colon cancer

Cosmologists calculated the odds of every atom in this solar system existing anywhere else in the same combination anywhere else in the universe. It turns out that there are thousands of instance of exactly this.

Some happened in the past. Some are now. Some will happen in the future.

Without even getting into the idea of other dimensions, or parallel universes, just within this physical universe where things are separated by space and the ability to move through it, there are other instances of me. And of you.

I am not special. There are other instances of me, in other places, typing this same sentence.

What interrupts these instances, what takes them into new directions? Probably observations of interstellar phenomena. Someone sees a nova or a nebula and she writes her thesis on it, and in one instance of this solar system she writes it about the Crab nebula and in another she gets very interested in a pulsar from another galaxy. In the second case, a university in New Zealand invites her to do a post-doctoral. She meets an Australian there, they marry, have kids, and that version of this solar system diverges on the basis of what's outside of the solar system.

I have diarrhea, bloody stool every few weeks, constant exhaustion. I have days where I wake up and just want to lie down all fucking day. I make myself go out and do things. I had cancer when I was very small, and a kidney was removed. I think that I might have colon cancer.

I'm not going to do anything about it.

I don't have a whole lot to live for, other than finishing my book. There's nobody who is going to sit holding my hand through chemo appointments. There is no woman whom I get to enjoy crawling into bed with. There's no happy old age with a woman I love.

Alex is not going to make the jump. Trish would make some dramatic gesture but totally fail to actually be who I would need her to be. Helenah is gone. I don't have what it takes to deal with fighting cancer alone.

There must be other instances of myself, in other places in this universe, in which I live to my 90's and write a dozen books and dote on half a dozen kids and an array of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Right around now in human history seems to be when the interferences from interstellar observations would change things.

As things stand, I don't care if I have cancer. I don't want to fight it if I have it. Having a end date might help with getting my book done.

Tomorrow I'm flying to New Orleans by accident. I booked a hotel there almost a year ago on openended terms while booking a hotel in DC during a snowstorm. I forgot about it. So I booked a plane ticket there a few days ago.

I have no idea what I will do in New Orleans. Probably text B@rt Bull and ask him where I should go, since he was married to M1chelle Sh0cked and lived there for a decade. Bart has been asking me for help on his book lately.

I look at this constellation of symptoms, and colon cancer is what I have to take seriously. And if that is what is happening, I have to look at my time as limited to the next two years or so.

I have no health insurance. No recourse to treatment.

I'm an instance of myself. One of many. I'm not essential. When I'm gone, I will occur again. Hopefully in some of my reoccurrances, I will have both health insurance and someone in my life who cares enough about me to hold my hand through surgery and chemo. Because on this particular trip, there is nothing to live for and nobody to live with it.

12:29 a.m. - 2022-11-13

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