Bagel

Today I called it a year on the email for academic 19-20.  Usually I archive everything and start new folders at the end of May.  The way things have been going this year it took me a little longer to get to it.  Folders in my email typically are 1920_Something or F19_Something or S20_Something.  Next years folders will be 2021_Something (That we're into academic 2021 is something else altogether.  If you asked me what year it was 20 years ago I would probably say like 1987.)  One of the folders I archived today was different.  It was just called "bagel."

There's this episode of The West Wing where they are talking about a likely economic downturn and in the midst of the discussion somebody says "recession" and everyone else in the meeting harps on him for using the word.  (The audio here isn't great.)

The idea is that if you use the word recession you give the idea life and so instead you use a placeholder word to be able to talk about the thing without helping to make it real.

Several years ago I got sick.  Not sick like a cold, sick where my life was in jeopardy and a significant disruption of my day to day was required to protect my life.  I haven't really posted much about it here or on Twitter or on Facebook.  There have been some oblique references here and there, but really to know what was going on you had to really know what was going on.  Partly it just never seemed like the right kind of thing to talk about online.  Partly not talking about it was a way to try to keep from fueling it.

There were hundreds of emails associated with the process of getting through the thing.  Emails to and from docs.  Emails to and from insurance carriers.  Emails to and from work.  Lots of travel emails, coordination with airlines and hotels and babysitters.  At the end of the thing I had a stack of papers in a cabinet that was probably 18 inches tall.  Mrs. TANBI and I had a shared Evernote notebook with hundreds of documents.  Those two together probably couldn't even begin to touch the total amount of correspondence.

I am fairly anal about email as you might be able to tell from the annual archiving and the folder naming conventions.  So I needed a place to put all these emails, but somehow a folder called "Medical" or "Doctors" or God forbid "CANCER" seemed a little too on the nose.  And following the West Wing rule putting that name on it would give it power.  So once again following the West Wing rules I called the folder "Bagel."

Today I archived the "Bagel" folder.

It took a very long time to take that step.  A lot about being sick this way puts you in a frame of mind where you don't want to jinx something.  There's lots of tests and they never really use the word "cured."  You just don't want to tempt fate.  Even writing this feels... foolish.

To put it in perspective, at one point I went to the hospital for a scan - what was supposed to be the last scan for a while, the magical one where they give you the best news they give you.  I had done this trip a handful of times now but this time I booked the airfare as aggressively as I could.  I only planned one hotel night.  I'd never done that before.  That turned out to be tempting fate and when they did the scan they thought they saw something, one night became five.  One scan became a scan and a needle biopsy and a surgical biopsy.  I had to go to Target to buy clothes.  I'd only packed for one day.  It turned out to be nothing.  I couldn't help but think if I hadn't planned so aggressively that the process would have gone more smoothly.

On that same trip I remember being happy because I had finally remembered to bring my earbuds.  When you do a scan you get a tracer injection and then you have to sit quietly for a half hour but they don't want you to read or watch video.  The previous times I had done it I had always forgotten my earbuds, but this time I had remembered.  Shuffling the songs on my phone, the last song I heard before going in for the scan was Melissa Etheridge: "I Run For Life."  That's her anthem for cancer survival.  It felt like a sign.  I think I tweeted at her that I was going in for my last scan and that hearing that song was an omen.  You know me, I don't smile much.  When that song came on I smiled ear to ear.  That was tempting fate.  I already told you what happened.

So you don't tempt fate and you don't do anything to give it life.  I've been ostensibly clear for a long time but that bagel folder stayed in my personal portion of the folder tree for year after year while other emails were archived.

Until today.  Here's hoping that isn't tempting fate.