Six is the number:

six weeks
between blood tests
when in the throes of toxicity.
Now things are calm
six months.

Three times six.
The first time; the time it took
from start to diagnosis
and recognition:
eighteen months.

Eighteen months
to treat the disease
bring it back under control.
A sort of normality after
eighteen months.

Six months
earlier my recognition
of the return of the symptoms.
Blood tests reveal it in
six months.

At twenty six I first met my enemy.
An anomolous ten years later
it greeted me again
neither stranger nor friend
just my travelling companion.