By Kim kjagain Moes

I’m running out of time part one. Last week I was crushing my writing goals.

Now I type with one hand and think with an uncooperative brain. A few days ago, I noticed my motor skills were getting weaker. 40 years of typing and my left hand has forgotten how to navigate the keyboard.

Just last month my fingers would automatically hit the backspace key when or if I’d moved to the wrong letters. Not now. Earlier today, reaching behind my laptop for my charger, I almost fell into the nightstand because my left leg refused to work.

My leg has been dragging lately. I’m not talking about Igor from that Young Frankenstein movie, but I have to concentrate my entire energy to lift that foot above the ground before stepping down again to avoid hearing that swooshing sound as my shoe scuffs along the floor. This extra effort to lift it up feels like an exaggerated pedaling of a bike, like swimming through sludge, and that’s just my body, the bit I sort of understand.

Describing it is a challenge. I’m frightened and need to get these thoughts and experiences recorded before they are lost forever. I think I’m losing my mind. My words often tangle up, creating confusion in any communication: like saying Antigone instead of anything or using interest in a sentence instead of principle after working in finance for over three decades. Or struggling to find any words at all.  

I’m struggling to find any words at all. How can I be a writer without words? I have no vertigo, yet I have no balance. I walk into walls and door jams with my left side.

It’s a struggle to put on my pants or pull up my shorts. I’m 10 years old again at the outdoor pool, changing into street clothes while still damp because my mom will arrive any minute to pick me up. The difference in efficiency between my left and right side makes the clothes roll against my skin.

While waiting for answers, I tried some underwater physio. It was most encouraging to walk without a limp. However, my arms didn’t benefit with the same level of coordination.

There I was swimming in slow circles with my one T-Rex arm barely moving at all. Swimming in circles or drowning? Surely the latter is worse. All of the answers I’ve received so far only tell me what this likely is not.

It’s not a stroke. The progression is too slow. It’s not MS. The progression is too fast.

There are more questions in my life than on a marathon of Jeopardy episodes. 

Today? Answers. MRI confirms progression was just right for a brain tumour. Fuck my life. 

I’m running out of time, part two. My craniotomy is scheduled for Saturday. 

How do I find the time to say goodbye to all my loved ones? What happens if I don’t wake up on Sunday? I can’t even type out an email that makes any sense or find the right buttons to switch between apps on my phone. How am I going to find the time to call all my loved ones and tell them I love them? I have the opportunity to actually say goodbye if I have to say goodbye, but I can’t do so unless I can phone and get them together on a video call.

Can’t very well message them by text and say, hey, by the way, I’ve got a tumour and I may or may not wake up on Sunday morning. So, one by one I give the calls and keep typing. Fuck.

I’m running out of time, part three. Looking for “lasts.”

I keep looking for opportunities like a last supper or last monster burger or a last coffee with Bailey’s or a last latte from my favorite coffee shop. My partner, good soul that he is, says, “Can you please stop joking and laughing because it makes it hard to think about the future with you asking for all these last moments, and we DO have a future, Kim. So instead, I’ve decided to flip those lasts upside down and make them into firsts so that when, not if, but when I wake up on Sunday morning, I will enjoy every single latte like it is my last and every single monster burger like it is my last because I will live in every single moment that is gifted to me by the opportunity to wake up in the first place. 

Oh my God, I’m still running out of time, part four.

They are wheeling me to the elevator that will bring me to the Operating Room and I’m not done yet. I’m not done:

• living, 
• laughing, 
• loving, 
• sneezing, 
• writing, 
• reading, 
• learning, 
• travelling. 
• I’m not fucking done yet.
• Where am I supposed to pack up all these emotions so that I can process them later? Do they have lockers for that? How do I apologize to my kids and grandkids for abandoning them and crushing their hearts?

But first. I need to wake up to write the next part. I need to be alive to write part five. Universe, please let me wake up.

Guess what Radiant Roses and Ridiculous Rock Stars? I SURVIVED and I’m back to finish my story!

However, I’m still running out of time, part five.

There are some things I need to relearn now, like 

• colouring inside the lines, 
• typing with both hands, 
• holding the paper with my left hand while I write with my right hand, 
• tying my shoes,
• practicing patience with myself while I re-learn (omg, might as well shoot me now, this is going to be almost impossible),
• Asking for help (kill me now, please)
• lifting my left hand all the way up and into the bathroom sink to rub soap against my right hand, 
• how to spell the simplest of words even though in grade three I had to learn how to spell Czechoslovakia and that doesn’t do me any good anymore now, does it? What a waste of space in my head. 

On the other hand (no pun intended), there are some actions that have come back to me like riding a bike:

• temper tantrums
• crying,
• kicking and screaming,
• driving my partner crazy

Every one of us is running out of time, part six

My humble advice to you now:

Do not wait for the rain to jump in mud puddles. Do not wait for the sun to shine for a picnic in the park. Do not wait for stuff to happen, 

• MAKE IT HAPPEN. 
• smile at your neighbour, tell someone you care about them. 
• at every interaction with someone whether you know them or not, spread a little love. it can and will save lives.

*   *   *

Kim kjagain Moes loves dandelions, exploring fresh places, and laughing at herself. Her work can be found online, recently in Jake Magazine and Bright Flash Literary Review. @kjagain on almost all social media. On writing, she says, “Write the life we live, explore the lessons not yet learned, and then, eat catharsis for dinner.”