CANCER! To coin a phrase: WTF?
This morning I called the dermatologist’s office to ask if they had the results of the biopsy and whether, even if they didn’t, could we please make an appointment to have this THING on my paw excised because it hurts and it itches and it’s driving me fricking crazy.
Silence ensued. Eventually the office spokesindividual came back on the line: Yes, they did have the results. No, it is not squamous cell cancer, as diagnosed by not one but two medical professionals. It’s “just” (heh) a fairly extreme actinic keratosis. It can be frozen off with the application of iced nitrogen.
Well. Sumbiche.
In the aftermath, comes the weirdest feeling. It’s not “a great weight lifted from your shoulders” (gimme a break!). I mean, puhleeze…after having both boobs lobbed off, I am not frightened by slicing away a small lump from the back of my hand, thankyouverymuch.
It’s more like…
Suddenly, after six or eight goddamn nightmarish weeks, the hassles and the worries and the effing nightmares come to a DEAD STOP.
Abruptly, I realized about two-thirds of the “gotta-do-it-today” To-Do’s do not have to be done today, fuckthemverymuch. It was like…a door to normalcy flang itself open.
Cassie was coughing when she woke up this morning and plainly isn’t well today. Call vet, hurry her over there, rack up another thousand bucks? Maybe not so much. The world didn’t end for me; quite possibly it’s not ending for the dog. Watch dog; see what happens. Open back door: dog flies out like a rocket. If that was Death’s door, she seems not to have minded.
Am I broke? Yeah, I am broke. BFD. I’ve been broke before. Remember the time when I was stockpiling canned goods whenever I could find them on sale? Perhaps that predates my blogging period.
Today I do not give a damn that I am broke.
Today I am not calling the vet yet again.
Today I am not spending another hour or two online with an Apple tech trying to figure out why my MacMail doesn’t work.
Today I am not driving halfway across the city and paying to have the half-baked ID card (NOT) from the Medigap provider encased in plastic.
Today I am not posting a damn thing to Plain & Simple Press.
Today I am not finishing the chapter I was writing to post to Plain & Simple Press.
Today I am not depositing Crystal’s check for the latest paid post I published at FaM.
My son gave me four packages of chicken parts, thighs & drumsticks, which have been residing in the freezer. Remembering these and then remembering, from many MANY years ago when I was a young thang and had a young husband for whom I cooked dinner every evening, an accidentally marvelous chicken recipe that involved braising in a LOT of garlic and white wine and chicken broth after laying slices of lemon across the pieces of dead bird, I thought: I’m celebrating with this.
Trot down to AJs, pick up a bottle of cheap white wine, a new chunk of overpriced cheese, a package of made-in-Italy pasta, and some other delectables.
Drive home. Chow down on freshly made rye bread and overpriced cheese and a glass or two of said cheap wine. And am now about to put the dog and myself on the bed. Whenever we roll out of the sack: it’s on to chicken in garlic (one hell of a lot of it) and wine and Meyer lemon. And…oh, yeah…the rest of the bottle of wine. 🙂
Onward.
It is really strange to be told It is Not Cancer in some ways. My wife was all primed after a surgeon explained how so many of her problems would be mitigated when he excised that nasty Parathyroid gland…
A week later after all re-test arrived and he said she doesn’t have that problem.
Good News and Bad News. Now we have to start all over to find REASONS
That is extremely frustrating and distressing. The problem is, o’course, when you don’t know, you sit around making yourself more and more scared. And that, sometimes, is worse than the disease.
I hope they either figure out the issue or it just darned goes away.
Have they tested her for diabetes? One of my editors had a daughter who was thought to have this ailment, that ailment and the other ailment. Eventually she went to a doctor who took her entire set of records home with him and sat down to read them from beginning to end. He called her that evening and told her to get her tail into the hospital — it was an emergency. Met her there and disclosed that he’d figured out she had an undiagnosed case of diabetes, which had gone untreated so long it was affecting her heart. Once she was correctly treated, she recovered her health to a very significant degree.
I’m glad for you for the ” It’s Not” diagnosis! Isn’t it funny how one good thing can change your outlook. I would have taken the day off too!
Seems like you were clearly expecting the bad news and hadn’t even really considered the idea that it might not be the bad news.
But I got a smile on my face reading your plans for celebration. Enjoy that chicken. I hope it’s as good as you remember.
Actually, I’d been told by both a medical doctor and the dermatologist’s nurse practitioner, who clearly knew whereof she spoke, that it was a squamous-cell carcinoma and would need surgery ASAP. Apparently the protocol is to do a biopsy, even if you’re sure it is cancer…I gathered, from something the NP said, that the biopsy had to do with determining more accurately what type of cancer it was, how fast it was growing, and how widespread it probably was. Could be I misinterpreted that…but it was what I understood her to say.
Hallelujah! It’s NOT cancer! Here’s hoping whatever it is clears up soon. Enjoy your day off.