Day 1

I got a call this morning.
The kind of call you never think will happen to you.
My doctor's disembodied voice said "Abe, you have a tumor in your head the size of a golf ball."
"I'm sorry?" I replied. You never think this will happen to you.
"A tumor, Abe. Quite frankly, I'm surprised you are still around."
My doctor's name is Frank. Then name fit.
"I'm sorry?" I said again. "Uh..."
"In all my years," Frank started again, "you've never seen me sugar cote things, right?"
"Yeah. No. You haven't."
"Well, here it is, all on the table. I took a look at the MRI from yesterday...the one we ran after your collapse. There is a sizable malignant tumor toward the back right of the cerebellum. I perused your files...you've been with our clinic for over ten years. I can't find any indication that this is hereditary. Nor can I place a time on when this developed. But I can make a best guess estimate on how long you have."
"Uh..." I said again.
"I understand your speechlessness here. I really do. What I'm going to tell you is something pretty drastic and you won't like it. You can even choose to ignore it. But I have to honestly and truthfully tell you that my best estimate is that I give you a month until this is terminal. Now, you can choose to let this call of mine be a limitation...or you can choose to stand up right now and live as much as possible in the time you have left. After 50 years of diagnosing illnesses, watching people walk out of here with their heads hanging low, depressed...trust me when I say that quality of life is what you make of it and you should take advantage of what you have."
I'd known Frank since I moved to Philadelphia. Not being in love with the idea of doctors, I'd always put off getting checkups. My wife did not have this preoccupation. And so she introduced me to Frank after she started seeing him.
"How many times have you made this kind of call?" I asked Frank this more to stall his hanging up and leaving me alone than to really find out. His answer was brief and full of unspoken burden and remorse.
"132. Well, 133."
Emptiness.
"Abe, come in tomorrow morning at 9am and we can talk. Right now you should take the rest of the day and digest."
"Thank you Frank. I appreciate it."
I hung up. I looked up at the computer screens surrounding me in the dark little cubicle I was sitting in. Each screen sat full of programs open and waiting. I looked at them not registering what was showing. Nothing seemed important. They warily hummed, not sure what I would do to them if I decided to hell with it and rampaged my work area.
It was 10 am and I no longer had time on my side.