Test Day

While the guys watched football last night, I sat on the floor reading the giant notebook they gave me last week as my UVA door prize (door stop is more like it)! I kept a notepad nearby, and jotted down questions for today.

This is complicated. Dr. Brenin at UVA is my surgical oncologist. I will also need a medical oncologist, and perhaps a radiation oncologist, a plastic surgeon (or reconstructive surgeon, as they prefer to be called), and a host of others that I don't even know about yet? I guess these are all the butterflies from my dream, right? Or are those butterflies just what I feel in my stomach right now?

As a result of all the information I barely assimilated, I woke up a little fuzzy and confused this morning (no, it wasn't the wine with dinner last night)! I did some push-ups (keep up those arm muscles!), washed my face and did some deep breathing. Get a grip! Buck myself up!

Today, I may or may not find out the results from Thursday night's MRI. Today, I present myself to be poked, prodded, photographed, ultrasounded, biopsied, and whatever else they need from my body. My brain keeps going around and around with questions like "But, what about?" and "What if?" and I just push them away. They don't know what they need to know yet. This is not the time for me to pummel them with questions about the future. Today I am but a mere vessel, a collection of parts and signs and symptoms.

I am not a person today, I am a medical problem to be investigated. I resolve to be cheerful and stoic today. I resolve to remind Bill to go to the market for bags of frozen vegetables to put in my bra when they are done with me today.