Just before I ran off to the states for the summer I submitted to a series of blood tests. Then I promptly forgot about the whole thing. When I arrived back in the UK and checked six weeks of accumulated mail there were several letters from specialists at the teaching hospital trying to arrange appointments, including a tedious new survey from medical genetics.
The stack also included a letter stating The result of your blood test has now arrived back from the laboratories. Please could you telephone the surgery to speak to Dr. X to discuss….
Now, if everything is fine, they just send a badly copied slip of paper with cryptic notes saying essentially all clear. So, as of Saturday afternoon I was aware that my blood work might indicate one of two things: Option A, cancer-suppressive medication needs to be adjusted. Option B, new and lethal cancer has been detected. Either way, this is significant news. My meds haven’t been changed in ten years, and if it is necessary to do so I’ll have to go to numerous tedious appointments at the sinister teaching hospital, with lots of people gawking. Alternately, if there is cancer brewing somewhere inside me, it is a variety that has limited treatment options.
Welcome to my annual Big Cancer Scare, four months early!
I’ve been through this too often to get excited. I certainly did not let the news detract from my weekend, or the residual glee over a truly excellent summer. That is not to say that I felt sanguine, or that I was in denial. I just declined to panic.
When I am truly frightened the experience is visceral – my body goes into a modified state of shock and (regardless of the temperature) I start shaking with cold – deep, incurable, disastrous. Thinking about my own mortality while waiting to call during office hours did not freak me out.
If my DNA dictates an early death, that is hardly a surprise; I’m not inclined to die at the moment but I’ve had more time than I ever expected.
I do not proactively grieve. I rarely even feel that emotion when appropriate – I react after the fact, when safe. Throughout the weekend I felt variously exasperated and annoyed – but not sad.
During the course of the recent research on Sharing, Relating, and Ladychat it became abundantly clear that even if I can learn a few new skills it will be more on the level of a conjuring trick than a true ability to communicate about certain subjects.
My instinct to tell anyone about this round of medical drama was in fact nonexistent. Partly to protect people; my mother and friends do not need the burden of worry. Beyond that I’ve lost too many dearly beloved over this kind of thing, both over the course of this strange life and in the last few months. I appreciate that particular human frailty.
However, saying that, I don’t want to know which of the people I currently love will abandon me out of fear – or whatever.
I didn’t even remember to tell Byron until late on Sunday. He replied All the cool kids are getting cancer! It’s like the new tattoo!
Yeah, gallows humor does in fact help. Byron is rock steady in that regard. So, what is the outcome, what did the tests indicate?
My medication needs to be adjusted, of course. It is unlikely that I would have mentioned anything if the situation were more serious!
Sign me up for dreary meetings with excitable endocrinologists – they love me since my particular presentation of disease is so very unusual. Back to the experience of being a specimen. Fun.