Its Nothing

Because X found a lump in her breast, of course we dropped everything

Which

was

of

course

impossible

to

do

what

with

the

HVWAC

volleyball

Championships

and

all.

But people can be really nice when you let them in and ask for help.  I called and got an emergency appointment at her GYN office, yes, they could see her on Monday, so we could bring her home 

early

from the Championship Celebration dinner

at the Eveready Diner

in

Hyde

Park

The Doctor was annoying. "Nineteen year olds don't get cancer" was her comment, even before she had examined her, which I probably wouldn't have taken well  from a male MD, but...

"Its probably nothing."

Is this meant to be reassuring?

She looks, and examines, 

carefully,

which is good.

She says it could be this or that, both benign, that its not cancer, but writes a prescription for an ultrasound, bilateral, which she suggest X have before she goes back to school. She says its probably normal, but X should cut out caffeine, chocolate, soda and coffee...yikes! this is hitting close to home!  X asks questions, but we still feel unrequited....  

None-

the-

less,

rather than have it hanging over her head for the remainder of the semester,

X rearranges her classes, reveals her predicament to her two professors by way of explaining about missing yet another day of classes, ( when it becomes clear we cannot schedule her until 10:30 the next day, even with the help of the kind scheduler at our local hospital. ) 

We watch stupid soothing TV

and

eat 

stir-fry

and try not to 

worry

The next morning its hard to get up.  If she wasn't here I would stay in bed.  I feel awful. Instead, we get up, borrow a car from a friend when ours won't start, and rush to the appointment, only arriving 10 minutes late, at the wrong place, and having to walk all the way thorough the hospital. By the time we get there, all my pills have clicked in and I've forgotten I was feeling bad. We wait.

They make her wait in the freezing room,

for a long time;

it turn out,

while 

I 

watch

remodeling

shows

on

TV

"Its Nothing"

We get all the way out to the Valet Parking before I realize we didn't make arrangements to pick up the report and the files tomorrow. 

( They send the report to the ordering physician, but unless you arrange to pick up the report, 

yourself, and fill out a little form, and bring along a written permission to be allowed to pick up her report, you don't get the report.)

"Its nothing" is meant to be a good diagnosis... 

but, really its not a good diagnosis, when you come to think  about it, 

because even though they don't know what it is, and hopefully they DO know what it isn't, 

it is clearly not nothing.

Maybe the report will be clearer.

Good News, Bad news

 My daughter found a lump in her breast.

That's the bad news.

I can hardly say it.  Then she found another.  She called, had it checked out at the health center -- she's in college -- and they said it was probably nothing and to have it looked at over Thanksgiving, some three weeks away. THREE WEEKS.  So even if its cystic, and not cancer, she has to think "maybe I have cancer" for three weeks!  She's freaked out, naturally, and (to state the obvious) more sensitized to this situation because of MY cancer...my death sentence.

Though, really, any woman would be worried, any of us, all of us suffer the ... the what? The feeling that our body holds an alien invader?  That we are mortal? That we are now engaged in a fight for our lives with the medical profession as our allies, as our saviors, as our tormentors, as a mediator between us and our future, our happiness, that we are no longer care-free, independent. ANY woman would feel that. It is a terrible feeling.

When I walk through the Women's Center at my Cancer hospital, I can see these worries etched on the faces of the women and men there.  I try to stride, purposefully, as though the bounce in my step can signal them: "Look, I'm doing OK.  You can be OK, too."  I have the energy to care, now.

I didn't used to.


So I remember how it felt to be so bone tired, to not care about being seen in public with hair un-combed, outfit mismatched but comfortable. I see the bravery in the make-up.  I told my daughter to be brave.  And she is.  Just getting out of bed, and going to class, and practice, and "trying not to worry", going through the motions of her day-to-day life and "trying not to worry".  But it is impossible not to worry.  My brilliant pain Doctor said that he could not necessarily relieve all my pain, but he COULD give me the information that would relieve my suffering. I understand him now. Because even if it all checks out OK for her, and is a common benign "mass", in some ways she will have spent three weeks suffering from cancer.

As for me....

CEA = 41.4 !!

Forty-one point four!

That's the good news.

From what I understand, the CEA is a specific chemical marker for colon cancer -- something the tumors actually give off that can be measured.  Less is better.  People with no cancer have practically none, and normal ranges from 0.1 to about three.

My CEA was 1450 at first, and has gone down, and then up...
and now down again.

Last time it was 88.  Now its 41.4.
That's still double digits, but coming  down, more and more.

I don't want my child on this cancer roller-coaster with me ... I'd give anything to have it not be so.