Oh my goodness, what a day . . . this morning I signed into the Facing Cancer Together twitter account (@cancer2gether) and wrote out a morning tweet. Ultimately it went like this :

Okay Wednesday, be awesome!

But it started out like this:

Okay Wednesday, surprise me!

And then I thought, “well, I just had an MRI so no surprises are necessary.”

So I switched it to:

Okay Wednesday, delight me!

And then I thought, “but this isn’t really about me.”

Which is how it ended up at general awesomeness. But I feel somewhat convinced that I beckoned the universe to give me a surprise, and therefore shouldn’t have been at all shocked when the hospital called to arrange a CT scan.

Okay, I had an MRI yesterday. Then today, unexpectedly (without my realizing I’d be sent for one) I was called in for a CT scan. In fact, they called my parents house, so my mom called me, and then I called the hospital. I would have asked the lady at the CT booking when this requisition had been sent in, but she was SO grumpy that I didn’t dare. Instead, I followed up that booking (for tomorrow by the way) with a call to my oncologist’s nurse.

Of course, their first point of contact is always the answering machine. Therefore I left a message along the lines of this:

“Hi, yeah, Catherine here. I’m just wondering whether the CT scan was requested before my MRI or as a result of my MRI. CALL ME BACK, PLEASE.”

Then I tried to work.

Ha!

Tried.

Failed.

Then Zsolt and I went for a walk. We basically said nothing to one another the entire time. I asked Zsolt at one point what he was thinking, and he said, “Nothing really, I’m in a blank space.” So that shows you that he was worried too. Personally, I was thinking: “oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.” And then I started thinking: “If I were to die what would I want to have accomplished?” Which lead me to figure I would want to have a child, if possible, and I would want to publish my fiction novel. That led me to some far-fetched day dreams of crowd-funding to raise money for printing the novel and distribution (apparently I have some traces of business woman inside of me, since even in panic mode I was making this ridiculous plan), and people would probably give because they felt sorry for me and the book would sit on their shelf unread as a memorial to that awesome chick who once was, and maybe is somewhere else beyond whatever we know, but it’d never win a GG, and what the fuck is going on, and oh my God I hope it’s nothing, and holy shit I hope it’s nowhere else in my body . . . etc.

Of course, that reality is always a risk. It’s a risk having had breast cancer. It’s a risk resulting from stopping tamoxifen. IT’S a real life risk. And today I had just the smallest taste of how it would feel to hear more bad news.

The good news: I’ve been living my dream, and don’t hold many regrets. I still WANT to have kids, and WANT to publish my writing, and felt that even when in panic mode. So I’m glad it’s all congruent.

The bad news: This shit can be scary. And it can be real.

Then we came home and I decided to try and be productive. That involved working on a slide show for the local community organization.  Somewhere between deciding on transitions between pictures (fade in, pop up, vortex, flip, conveyor belt, and so on!) the mobile phone rang. It was my doctor’s nurse.

Essentially, she has no idea about this CT scan. No clue! But as for the MRI, here is what she said:

“Your MRI has come back indicating no signs of cancer.”

YES. FUCK YES. HIGH FIVE. WOOOHOO. Oh shit. That was stressful. I need a nap . . .

None of which I said to the nurse. Anyhow, I can therefore assume that this CT scan is just to get a full body impression before I move forward to try and get pregnant, and is not at this moment (and hopefully in no future moment) connected to any sort of recurrence or cancer.

Zsolt and I hugged. I called my mom. But damn it, it was scary. Today brought some awesomeness, but not before delivering a big dose of surprise and panic.

Now I’m on my back porch, and typing this out to you. Hello, how are you doing? The sun is shining after many days of rain, and I have a CT scan tomorrow. Later this month we are going to a cottage . . . and in the meanwhile, my apartment is a compete mess since this is a month were I’m a little out of control, and have therefore lost my ability to tidy.

Life goes on. But geez, does it need to be so dramatic?