When life changes in an instant

 Whenever anything of merit happens in my life, my first instinct has always been to write about it.

Writing to me is a cathartic exercise, guaranteed to make me think carefully, choose the right words and put on paper my feelings, however mixed or confusing.

There is no confusion now. On the 29th of November, I'll be having surgery. Who would have thought it?

Just a routine visit on Halloween (how ironic!) to check on some discomfort I'd been having. My excellent primary care physician fit me in the day I called. Then, after some probing questions and an exam, he sent me for a CT scan. The order simply said "Stat."

We read the report together 20 minutes later. A mass was spotted on my left ovary. The doctor ordered an ultrasound for the next day. When that report came in, he called me at home to discuss the finding. Obviously, another opinion was needed, that of a gynecologic oncologist, and he gave me some names from which to choose. Doctors to whom he would send his wife, he said. He's comforting that way.

So yesterday, after a weekend that seemed to stretch for a very long time, Howard and I sat in the office of Dr. Randolph Deger. I'd read his credentials and patient reviews and decided he would be my choice to help me deal with whatever is ahead.

We were with him for an hour. He ordered new studies with greater accuracy to help him "see" what we're up against. He did an internal exam and felt the thing, about three and a half inches in size, that's lurking where it doesn't belong. We set the surgery date and today I began the series of studies necessary to provide information to guide the rest of the way.

I'm not normally a calm, rational being. I'm emotional and one who rarely sees the positive side of things. But this has brought out a part of me that's been hidden away, waiting I suppose, for something of this magnitude to emerge.

I'm not crying myself to sleep. I'm not wringing my hands and saying "Woe is me!" I'm taking this one day at a time, one test at a time, until the 29th. Since I can't control any of it, I have no tasks assigned to myself. I'm not terrified; I'm scared of the surgery and its aftermath, but that's a way off yet, so until I have to, I'm shutting it in a corner room with the door firmly shut. 

Call it denial. Call it whatever works for you. I intend to go on with my life, root for the Phillies to win the World Series, prepare for Thanksgiving with my daughter and grandchildren and know that, four days later, the hospital will call and tell me when to show up on Tuesday to meet Dr. Deger again. Until that call comes, I don't want to concentrate on all the possibilities that lie ahead.

That's what works for me.