Something bizarre happened yesterday. Something that made my head spin around three times and then snap off my neck and bounce on the floor.
I called the breast cancer clinic to find out if my pathology report for my tumour was in, because it’s now been over three weeks since the operation and it was supposed to be ready in two weeks.
Much to my happy surprise, they said yes it WAS in. However my surgeon wasn’t in – she was at the hospital all day and she wouldn’t be back in the clinic until Monday. I didn’t want to wait until Monday, so they were kind enough to offer to fax it over to the hospital.
A little while later I got a call from someone who said my doctor wouldn’t have a chance to call me until much later, but since I was anxious for the results, she’d be happy, in the meantime, to tell me what the bottom line was.
And then she read the bottom line. It said something about no evidence of dysplasia, and no evidence of any malignancy.
I gasped.
“No evidence of any malignancy?” I asked, incredulous.
“Right. That’s a good thing,” she replied.
“Doesn’t that mean there’s no cancer?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said happily.
Then there was a long silence while I absorbed this incredible news. It was during this long pause that my head did that weird spinning thing and snapped off my neck and bounced on the floor.
She read a little bit more out loud. She got to the word bilateral, and then something clicked and I interrupted her.
“Are you sure you’re not looking at the pathology report for the biopsy on my left breast?” I asked.
She paused.
“Yes,” she said, “That’s what it is.”
“I’ve already gotten those results,” I said, “I’m waiting for the pathology report from the lumpectomy on my right breast.”
“Oh!” she cried. And then she was very very apologetic, and said this was what had just been faxed to her so she just assumed it was the correct report. She was so sorry. And she said she’d call the clinic right back to see if they had the other report.
She didn’t call back, so I assume my pathology report is still MIA.
Anyway, it was so weird, for a minute there, thinking I didn’t have cancer after all. I’ve heard of this happening to other people – finding out they didn’t have cancer after all – and they sued the pants off everybody in sight. I always wondered why they were so litigious about the whole thing – after all, it was a happy ending, a second chance, a reprieve. Why wouldn’t they just fall to their knees, weeping with joy?
Well, now I know. I didn’t feel even an iota of joy or relief during that moment when I thought I didn’t have cancer after all. All I felt was absolutely incredulous that the health care system could have put me through so much for so long for nothing. By mistake.
So anyway, I still have cancer. And my head was okay after I dusted it off and screwed it back on. Life goes on.
Yes, as I read that I just felt bile and ire rising that you’d been put through so much in all this!
We’re coming down next weekend, what paint chips should I bring over to your house???? Should I bring brushes and tarps too? I have a week to fill after giving Wild Thing his birthday hugs and kisses) until we get the kids so I’m game if you want your house painted
I also went through all of those anger/shock feelings. I still have the sick feeling in my stomach so i can imagine how you felt. Where the hell are the pathology reports for the lumpectomy? Thank God you realised the error…I might not have figured that out.
Now to a different issue…next weekend?????
Hey Mud, I’d LOVE that. I just want to paint the bedroom for now, but could use your colour expertise in mapping out the long-range colour scheme for the whole house. I’m going to Deb’s for the weekend – let’s get together during the week.
Deb – it’s on my calendar, in permanent ink.
Okay. I wish, or do I wonder, hard, if this is all just fiction? The whole cancer trip. You make it seem so. Like only you can.
Or is truth stranger than fiction? And we’re all going to hell in a hand basket?
Tom obviously doesn’t know you very well. Zoom is one of the kindest people that I have had the privilege of knowing and I have known her for her whole life. She would never put her friends through the emotional roller coaster that this cancer has created for the sake of a ‘story’.
Thanks Deb. I think Tom meant it as a back-handed compliment, but I’m not entirely sure. 😉
Zoom, you ARE entirely sure! Your blog is a goddammed page-turner! And I know it’s ALL true; I just wish it WASN’T.
Although we’ve never met face-to-face, I know you better than Deb knows that I know you. Or something like that.
hmm – savour the preview sensation of the forthcoming all-clear, or sue the nurse? january is a rotten time to begin the in-and-outricacies of free-wheeling, or so i hear; what still resonates is your comment about feeling like a fraud – in high school i spent three months in a leg cast, then in a mortifying nightmare i forgot to fake my limp…(absentee fodder for all those jung freud-eggheads)
Hi Noam. Oh, I’d never sue the nurse. Not my style. Unless I really didn’t have cancer and then I’d sue somebody for putting me through months of unnecessarily thinking and acting as if I had cancer.