My surgeon called me on the weekend to tell me the results of my pathology report. There was good news and bad news, and I’ll share it with you in the order she shared it with me.

The good news – aside from the fact that my pathology report was finally available and my tumour hadn’t gotten lost in the shuffle – was that the tumour was smaller than expected. It was 1.1cm instead of 1.9cm.

The second piece of good news was that the tumour was very low grade. This three-point scale measures how aggressive the tumour is. Mine was a ‘1’ – a nice, mellow, laid-back tumour.

The third piece of good news was that pathology confirmed that the lymph nodes were clear (there was a 5% chance that they would be cancerous even though the initial exam during surgery said they were clear. But they’re 100% clear.).

The fourth piece of good news was that the “highways” to the lymph nodes were also clear, which I think means that the cancer wasn’t even on its way to the lymph nodes yet.

Then she got to the bad news, which is that there’s a chance she didn’t get all the cancer the first time round, and I need more surgery. She got clear margins around the tumour on almost all sides, but there’s an area of microscopic growth in one area that extends beyond the edges of the tissue that was removed. In order to ensure that the tumour doesn’t regrow, she needs to go back in and take out more tissue.

Which leads us to the other bad news, which is that it’s going to be difficult to schedule this surgery in a timely manner, because the operating rooms are booked solid from now until the end of time. It looks like we’re waiting for a cancellation or other stroke of luck.

“So,” I said, “I guess this is going to delay everything else – chemo, radiation, the referral to the oncologist?”

That’s when she gave me the final piece of good news. I may not need chemo after all. Normally they do chemo if the lump is over a centimeter, and mine is just over. But since it’s a very low-grade tumour, they might decide chemo isn’t necessary. It’s the oncologist’s call (and mine too, of course, but I’ll attach a lot of weight to the oncologist’s recommendation).

So, in the end, this feels like a healthy balance of good and bad news. Even though it sucks that I have to do everything twice (ultrasound, biopsy, and now surgery), it’ll be well worth it if it means I get out of chemotherapy.

Chemo works on the premise of poisoning you for your own good. It takes four or five months and it’s hard and unpleasant. You lose all your hair and it has other more hidden and more disturbing side effects that most people are reluctant to talk about.

Of course, if she finds more cancer when she goes back in (there’s a 10% chance), then I’ll likely have to go through chemo after all. It’s a chance I have to take, because I have no choice.

But right now I’m feeling lucky.

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.

Things have been moving ahead ever so slowly on the health care front.

In the good news department, the neurosurgeon’s office called to schedule an intake appointment! I’m seeing him on July 30th. This is a great big step in the right direction. I have no idea how long his surgical wait times are, but I feel much better now that I’m no longer sitting in limbo, gathering dust.

Meanwhile, my breast tumour appears to be sitting in limbo, gathering dust. After they remove a breast tumour they send it to the pathology lab where it’s carefully examined and subjected to numerous tests. This is because every tumour is different, and each individual’s treatment plan must be tailored to each individual’s unique tumour.

At the conclusion of all these tests, a pathology report is prepared for the surgeon. The surgeon then conveys the results to the patient, and refers her to an oncologist who uses the pathology report to prepare a treatment plan.

Anyway, this whole process normally takes two weeks. My tumour went into the system three weeks ago, and hasn’t been heard from since. No pathology report. No referral to an oncologist. No treatment plan. Just more waiting, and once again, more worrying. (What if they lost my tumour? What if they found something really freaky about my tumour so they had to do extra tests?)

The nice thing about having two big health issues at the same time is that you can use one to distract yourself from the other. I probably worry far less about my breast cancer than most people because my back problem is more demanding. Breast cancer can be deadly but at least it’s painless and quiet. Back pain, on the other hand, is like a two-year-old locked in a perpetual temper tantrum.

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I don’t need the wheelchair all the time. I don’t need it around the house, fortunately, since my house is a veritable wheelchair obstacle course. And I don’t need it for things that consist mostly of sitting down. But I do need it for anything that requires me to walk or stand more than three consecutive minutes. Like the Farmers Market, or Canadian Tire, or the art gallery, or the corner store, or going out for a ‘walk.’

I have mixed feelings about the wheelchair. I’m still not used to having it in my house, so this morning when I came downstairs and saw it there, I felt a bit of an emotional jolt.

My self image is incompatible with a wheelchair. I’ve always been a walker, and not just in the sense that I have legs and I’m human. I loved walking. I walked way more than anybody I knew. It was my primary mode of transportation. I walked everywhere. I was a natural born walker.

You see what’s happening? I’m talking about walking in the past tense. Because now I can only walk for three minutes, and there’s a wheelchair in my vestibule.

On the other hand, I’m kind of excited about the wheelchair, because it represents a little freedom. I can start doing things again. I can get out there. Besides, it’s only temporary, right? Until I get my legs back.