Oh, here we go. Now I’m overwhelmed. Things are moving pretty quickly.

Today I saw the oncologist and my head started spinning. He’s a very nice man, and is from Ecuador, so he probably speaks much better Spanish than I do. My sister Sara says oncologists are always the kindest physicians and I believe her. I’ve never known one who wasn’t and I’ve known more oncologists than anyone should have to.

Tomorrow (Thursday, June 22) morning I’ve got two CT scans then pre-op testing. I also have to (warning: potential TMI here) collect a very large amount of urine (think gallon jug) for further testing, as I’m anemic. They did bloodwork today. You should know, if you don’t already, that professional blood-drawing people, whether they are technicians, nurses, or phlebotomists, are very good at what they do. When you see them coming toward you with a sharp thing, don’t worry. You won’t even feel the stick — I don’t even flinch anymore. But this nice woman probably drew about 10 vials of blood. I started to ask her if she left any for me, but I figured she’d heard that corny question as many times as I heard “What did you say?” when I told people I was an audiologist.

I also have to have a PET scan to look for signs of metastatic disease and, y’all, this is cray. I have to follow a special diet the day before the test, and it’s going to take about two hours. The actual scan only takes about 30 minutes, but they have to give you a intravenous solution that enhances the image and it takes about 90 minutes for it to get through your entire body. Here’s the freaky thing: for six hours after the procedure, I will be radioactive. The instructions say to go directly home and avoid contact with anyone under 18 years of age or any small animals, which includes Artie, our 12-pound mini Aussiedoodle. Because I am radioactive.

I’ll get the results of tomorrow’s CT scans pretty quickly though, which will be the first answers I’ve gotten about this mess. I’m more than ready for an answer, for someone to say, “Oh, this is very bad, and here’s what we’re going to do about it” or to say, “Oh, this isn’t so bad at all. Here’s what we’re going to do about it. You’re going to be fine.” Right now the only answer I get is, “We don’t know that until we take the darn thing out of you.”

I wish I could say I’m calm and peaceful right now, but I try not to lie on the internet. I’m headed upstairs to take a nice hot shower followed by Happy Hour on the patio. Jim cooks steaks on Wednesday nights (Mom’s favorite and he sure doesn’t mind) but a steak on my plate makes me wish it were a nicely-grilled piece of fish.

We’ll watch a little baseball tonight and I’ll go to bed early because the fun begins tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. sharp.