Benign

Since the beginning of September, I have lived in a fog of uncertainty. Despite getting a fairly decent report on my LifeScan testing, two weeks later, I had a medical setback that resulted in more testing and hearing the dreaded word--cancer. 

The C-word. 

It's a word that freezes time. I can tell you, I remember nothing after my doctor uttered the C-word.

The first test came back abnormal, and an appointment was necessary with a specialist. Apparently, not as essential for the appointment scheduler because she told me the soonest I could get in to see the doctor recommended by my own doctor was November. I refrained from reaching through the phone line to strangle her scrawny, twenty-something neck and insisted I get in sooner. That resulted in a change of doctors, but I was in luck--the doctor she suggested had been my GYN long ago. She delivered Darcy, and she was willing to see me sooner than November, albeit not right away.

I waited for two weeks, and when I saw her, she too uttered the dreaded word. It is an altogether different word when referencing yourself. It sounds different in the ear--biting, sharp, and angry--and it shut down my brain, stopped my heart, and left me drenched in sweat and smelling like fear. 

It is not a nice word.

My doctor scheduled more testing and then a biopsy for a month later. That was the soonest appointment. A month! By then, I was too numb to reach through the telephone wires. I've juggled my way through our healthcare system with my mother, and immediate attention is rare unless one is hospitalized. I should've fought, but it wasn't in me at the time. Instead, I looked at it as a month reprieve--to live my life.

Only I didn't. 

I put things on the backburner. I refused to commit to dates too far ahead. I thought of the amends I needed to make and refused to imagine the future beyond the current day. I realized in the four years since my mother's death, I've been fearful of the order of succession, and I'd--in essence--given up. Yet, even then, I couldn't charge forward because hovering around me was the C-word and all it might mean for my family and me.

On the day of the testing, I went alone. No one told me differently, but when the nurse asked if I had someone, and I shook my head, I realized it would've been nice to have had a hand to squeeze. 

The discovery and subsequent removal of two polyps were more than uncomfortable, but I did not want to wait another month for a different procedure, and, so, I silently cheered on my specialist, sucking up the pain. You can do this. Get in there and get those suckers. 

My doctor is my age, and she has a child that swam against Darcy in high school, so she got it--what I was feeling--and the two polyps.

Afterward, she patted my arm and told me she didn't feel too concerned but that she'd send the polyps off to make sure. Then she told me to take as much time in the room as I needed. I guess she read my face. 

I burst into tears and cried as soon as the door closed behind her. I cried for myself, and for those before me, and for those who will come after me. I cried for a stranger I follow on social media who lost her husband within two months after hearing the C-word. I cried for my SIL, who fought cancer and survived. 

Then I wiped my tears, got dressed, and began the long wait for the results.

I was told a week. Ridiculous. 

Blood work is done in hours, not days. I hear from my primary doctor with my yearly blood work within two days. 

A week came and went, and while I appreciated my specialist's insight and her words, only the official biopsy would eradicate that word. 

After two weeks of continually checking my medical portal and barely leaving my home in case the news came via my cell, I called the doctor's office. There was dead silence while the girl clicked on her computer, and then there was nothing but her breathing. For two solid minutes, my mind went into deep, dark places.

Her: "Yeah. Um. It looks like those results did come in."

Another minute of silence left me shaking. Dear, god, just tell me!

Her: "Would you...uh...like a nurse to call you?"

I wished I'd exploded, and said the things that came later. 

Me: "What do you think? I began this journey to discover whether or not I had cancer two months ago. Two months! I was told I would hear within a week. It's been two weeks! I still don't know whether or not I'm going to have to fight a disease that kills someone every day. You're damn right, I want a nurse to call me. I wanted one to call me two weeks ago. What the FUCK?"

Instead, I sobbed, "Yes, please." 

Then I turned to the Internet, researching the lab. I discovered they have a patient portal where patients don't have to rely on their doctors' offices. I wonder how that came about.

I created a portal, verified my information twice, and VIOLA, there were my lab results--two separate results, one for each polyp, in color for me to download, completed the day after the specimen reached their lab.

BENIGN.

BENIGN.

That word I like.

I didn't get the official call until after 5:00 that evening, and it came from the physician herself who thought the results had been posted to my portal a long time ago. I thanked her for calling without a reprimand. 

I think I'll be letting a lot more go now. 

The word benign helped me do so. It also is jumpstarting my new mindset.

Bring on the next fifty years, world. I'm ready to LIVE!