W.T.F.

As I drove home from St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma yesterday my thoughts were crowding me.  I had a hard time putting crap into perspective, rationalizing some new realities and all the other bullshit having to do with cancer.  July 15th I had a successful surgery to remove the tumor in my pancreas, they got all the cancer, then oh no! spots on your liver that -- yea! -- turn out to be an infection so just take a bunch of antibiotics and we're golden.  Then...oopsies...looks like we may have biopsied the wrong spot -- could be cancer after all.  What!?  You see, Dr. Picozzi, my oncologist, called me at round 7:00 p.m. with the results from Monday's CT scan, while I was sitting bedside chatting with my sister.  Ergo, my really pissy mood right now.  But you know what?  Let me get back to that. I want to focus on some good things about this past week. 

The last couple of days have been so cathartic for me.  A handsome long-time friend from eastern Washington paid me a visit.  Although he and I connect daily by cell, I hadn’t seen him since February.  He swept me off my feet for a few days distraction, we spent an evening listening to a little Al Green (sang:  I’m so in love with you…); we laughed a lot, partook of some libation (yes I did!), and danced – showing off some funky moves from the good ole days, and we did a lot of reminiscing.  He took me to breakfast at Elmers, one of my favorite breakfast spots and I ordered my usual, classic and creamy Eggs Benedict – yum-mie.  We went to see “Runner Runner” with Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake – I love to see movies with Ben trying to be bad.  The movie was riveting and I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen, and all the while my hand was dipping into a bag of some overly buttered popcorn to deliver the goods to my mouth.  Is there even such a thing as too much butter on popcorn? (so good).  Two days of good company and conversation and not thinking about the “Big C” was medicine to my weathered body and soul.  

So about my sister, my dear beloved sister who opened her home to me after I was diagnosed with cancer, has been everything you want a big sis to be, a frickin' Rock of Gibraltar.  Now she’s needing a return on that T.L.C.  She suffered a stroke a couple of months ago, and was finally just approved by the insurance company to move forward with a procedure to heal up the culprit behind the stroke, a hole in her heart.  The procedure was done yesterday and lasted little over an hour; it couldn’t have gone better (thank you God!).  She had some minor bleeding so they kept her overnight for observation.  My sister is a badass, a powerhouse in a petite frame, and I know she’s going to be just fine. But until she's better, I will be her rock.

Okay, so let's get to the matter at hand. I was told earlier by Dr. Picozzi’s nurse he would be calling me between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m.  I thought that was odd because they usually call you into the office to hear news on test results so they can charge you the $40 co-pay.  So at around 7:00 p.m. my phone rings.  There went my heart a pounding.  “You have an unusual situation going on.  There is now one additional spot on your liver.”  O-kay. I felt my tightly held nerves start to crumble.  He said, “I’ve had a couple of specialist look over your test and one feels that perhaps it is cancer and we didn’t take the specimen from the right spot during the biopsy.” Shit, shit!  “The other opinion is that we got the right spot but that there may have been bleeding in that area which caused the new spot."  Please, I prayed, let it be option 2.  I held my words as he continued.  “We are trying to decide if we should ignore it for now and continue on with further radiation/chemo treatment or if we should do another biopsy of the area.”  Since being diagnosed with cancer it feels like I’m always holding my breath waiting for the other shoe to drop, and lately they just keep dropping.  So now, my doctor is waiting for an opinion from one other colleague and will get back to me either today or Saturday to tell me our next move.  I said okay.  Even though there were probably a hundred questions I should have asked, I just said okay. 

Fear and the weight of it all are literally and figuratively breaking my back.  On some days, it takes everything just to move forward, to keep my spirit from becoming a casualty. This is one of those days, and I just can not let this break me. But oh my this space I'm in right now is closing in on me.    Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!

 

 

 

"Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts.  It's what you do with what you have left."  ~Hubert Humphrey