The Weight Of The Wait

I was an OK student in school. Mostly B's and C's and a few A's. It felt good when I got the occasional A. It was usually in courses that I actually liked, like political science and art. I was terrible in math, biology and Spanish. I may have gotten a couple of D's in those, but overall I was an average student, I guess.

I had to wait about 5 days for my biopsy report. I've heard that with cancer, you really must get a handle on the waiting part. Tests, appointments, scans, drawn blood, more lab work..you get the picture. As the days went by, I got more anxious of course, but I soon realized that if my particular health group has good news to give, they don't mind sending it in an e-mail. If it's bad news, the doctor will call you at home. Seems right to me, but as each day passed without an e-mail, I was really starting to tweak out a bit. Valium helped to a degree, but by the fifth day not much could settle me down.

As I mentioned earlier, my first name is George, and that is how my doctors know me. But the message on my answering machine is for Gil. I found out later that this was the cause for some of the delay - the doctor thought he was getting a wrong number! After this happened yet again, I wised-up, (remember, I was only an average student), and changed my message to "George, also known as Gil") A real AKA for little ol' me! Word.

The call finally came early one evening, and I could tell it wasn't gonna be good news - I even sort of expected it, but I was not prepared to deal with my final test score, and I scored big, baby! 100%. Of the 12 samples they took, all 12 had cancer in them. I made an A+.

Damn!

I scribbled a few notes on a piece of paper as the Doc was telling me this, and of the different options available in dealing with it. They aren't very good notes, and my mind was vaguely somewhere else at that point. It was like I was watching a movie and suddenly a continuous low bass note was playing in the background. Message heard, loud and clear, Doc...but let's continue this conversation any other time except for right now.

So there I was, at home alone with Dexter. Stacey was just about leaving her work and was car-pooling, so I thought there was no need to call her - she'd be home soon enough. I sat on the couch and cried. I suppose just about everyone who hears this sort of news does the same thing, so I just let it come out. Suddenly I noticed Dexter was at my side, not attacking my head or being bad in any way. He was just sitting with me. He knew, too. Good cat!

OK...this is getting too sad, and I've flayed enough of my inner soul than I'm comfortable with. I'll wrap this section up just by saying that I'm the luckiest man on this planet to have the most amazing support from a perfect wife, family, friends and cat (somewhat...we'll see...). When I get weepy, feeling upset that I'm putting these people through this, these people love me enough to smack me upside the head and tell me - "this is what we're here for!". I think I'm finally getting it.

Damn!...The surgery date (July 7) is time-warping it's way towards me and there's so much...funny shit I've got to write about...I hope I can cover it all, and I'll certainly try before the surgery. For instance:

1. Hilarious hi-jinks of an intern injecting me with some kind of radioactive shit!
2. Bone scan...ambiguity!
3. Late pelvic scan results = an insane questionnaire from my primary care physician!
4. Becoming a member of "The Cancer Cult"!
5. My CD - I Am Atomic Man! was disturbingly prophetic. A robot will help cure me!
6. Potential "Accidental Clown-Leg"!
7. And most unsettling of all: MY SURGEON LOOKS LIKE GUI FROM GAME THEORY!!!!

Great.