1. Travel Update.
I am home, back in the Witchnest, after a day of such travel win that I’m almost a-feared to talk about it. So, I will just take it as payback for all those travel fail days.
Briefly: tillyjane fetched me to the airport–no traffic. Got there crazy early, so I had a nice sit-down breakfast. Went through security–was the only one in line. Still early, and only a dozen or so people at the gate, but the plane was already there. We boarded right on time. The flight was way undersold; by the time we took off (early) the last 15 or so rows were completely empty. I had my whole row to myself. We landed early, and got off the plane superfast, since there were so few of us. The long-term parking bus was just pulling up when I got to the sidewalk. The Witchmobile conveyed me to the Witchnest without incident, even down to the parking–which, okay, isn’t rockstar, but it is a half a block away, so I’m going to call that a win.
Then I realized I’d forgotten to get my mail on the way home. It’s a nice hilly walk over there, though, so I decided to make exercise out of it. (Helps that it’s a nice day here.)
And now I am back from that…and thinking about how to write about It All.
2. It All.
As nervous as we were, as anxious, as ready for anything–we weren’t ready for the oncologist to walk in and say, “Well, the results were interesting.” You do not want to be “interesting” to an oncologist. You want to be very, VERY boring to an oncologist. You want the oncologist to say, Go, get out of my office, never darken my door again! Why were you pretending to have cancer? Fie! Begone!
“Interesting”? Not so much.
But it *is* interesting, of course. There we were, all freaked out about colon cancer, about recurring polyps, last May. But whoops! What’s this in the liver?
Then we were all freaked out about cancer in the liver. Jay, never a big drinker, stopped drinking alcohol altogether. The weird little lung spot–even the doctors didn’t seem all that interested in it, especially after hearing about Jay’s childhood in the tropics.
So there we are, ready for the worst…and she walks in and calls it “interesting.” There was no reasonable (noncancerous) explanation for the liver spot…except now it’s gone. But the lung spot? “Interesting.”
I don’t do well with surprises, with deeply unexpected things. I’m slow to adjust, to take in the new information, to let my lizard brain gnaw on it and figure out what it means. Then I do, after a while, and then I can handle it. I’m much better today: we have a diagnosis, something reasonably definitive (though of course there are still questions–is it metastasized colon cancer, or a novel lung cancer?). We have an action plan, though no dates yet–just, “Soon.” There will be things to do, hands to hold, hospitals to sit in, logistics to take care of. I can do that stuff: I’m good with that stuff.
So is it wrong to be feeling some kind of relief here? It is relief from the anxiety of the unknown, at least.
But it’s also deeply unfair, and that really hit me last night. I went all the way to the bottom of the wallowing well–“This isn’t fair, I just found you, don’t leave me, you’re too young, why is this happening,” etc etc. Jay held me and listened to all of that and comforted me and did all the right things. Then I felt guilty, because, as I said before, this isn’t about me.
Except it is, too; it’s just mostly about him. He’s at the center of it, and he will not be able to be taking care of me so much as this goes forward. I’ll be taking care of him, as will his huge and incredible network of loved ones. And many of them will be taking care of me as well.
This is the part that bowls me over: the network. Never in my life have I been a part of such a deep and rich circle, so many people, who care so much. It says a lot for Jay that he is loved like this–and that I have been welcomed so thoroughly into the circle, even though I haven’t been here that long. We hadn’t even met when he had his first round of this last year.
Okay, I’m getting maudlin here. I just want to say, thank you all for listening, for being there, for offering help, for loving Jay. For accepting me as a part of his life. For continuing to offer support, which we will both need as these “excellent cancer adventures” move forward. For everything.