trick or treating cancer

halloween is the time of year we not only face our fears, but open our doors to monsters, demons and ghouls and offer them something sweet, hoping to make them go away. october is also breast cancer month. cancer is truly terrifying. unlike trick-or-treaters, it doesn't go back home, take off its mask and eat candy until its tummy hurts. it silently slips into our bodies and makes itself at home, helping itself to whatever it can get its greedy hands on, making us sick. well, life played a little trick on me this month and gave me my own cancer scare. very clever indeed, life!

i knew it would come knocking on my door sooner or later, ever since we lost my maternal grandmother to breast cancer when i was eight years old (it's known to skip a generation, you see), but now? can't it see the belly-shaped no vacancy sign? my body is already occupied by a beautiful and wanted guest. there is absolutely no room for a deathly parasite. or is there? after a session of my specialized surgeon softly kneading my breast, maybe. after no coffee, (almost) no chocolate and vitamin E, maybe. after an ultrasound, maybe. after a needle poking me seven times and waiting for three days for the biopsy result, apparently not.

so bring it on, halloween. i was already scared shitless this month, so send me all of your witches and zombies and goblins. i will welcome them with open arms and lots and lots of chocolate.

pedro

panzón makes his morning commute by kick scooter and bus, unless it rains, in which case coco and i take him in the sarcophagus, which is our beloved (and only) car. on a bright and sunny summer morning last year, as panzón arrived at work, he noticed two tree-trimmers and their tree-trimming truck right outside his building. he stopped, cautiously stepped off of his two-wheeled vehicle, folded it and waited for permission to pass from the street-level-tree-trimmer, who blew his whistle. the tree-level-tree-trimmer must have not heard the whistle over his chainsaw because while panzón was making a dash for the door below, after receiving a hand signal to do so, a cross section of the tree trunk whistled past his ear and hit him on the shoulder, barely missing his head, and knocking him to the ground.

at that moment, the tree-trimmers began to argue in spanish about whose fault it had been with a lot of pendejo-calling and finger-pointing. they, of course, tried to blame panzón, who surprised them by being mexican, but didn't get very far. by the time the tree-level-tree-trimmer had descended, and panzón had stopped seeing estrellitas (little stars), the street-level-tree-trimmer, who had a name tag that said pedro, offered him an ambulance. panzón refused the offer, figuring that if a tylenol at a hospital can cost up to fifty dollars, ambulance rides must be in the thousands. a co-worker took him to the hospital, where his cuts and abrasions were treated.

about a week later, as panzón was leaving for work, he opened the front door and saw pedro walking up our street towards our home. i thought maybe he had been fired and was seeking some sort of revenge. or maybe he felt terribly about what had happened and wanted to apologize. most of all, i speculated about how he had gotten our address. when they made eye contact, pedro got a puzzled look on his face and said, "hey, it's you! what are you doing here?". to which panzón responded perplexedly, "i live here. what are you doing here?". he was trimming a tree across the street.