Dr. Cold

I cannot think of anything interesting to write about today. Everyone always wants to know how I first knew I had the “C” so I guess I will tell that story. I am foggy on the exact sequence of events. I don’t even know if it was July or August. I think it was July but my mom, Carrot, has written that it was August. She is probably right. Strange how I cannot mark the single most important day in my life with certainty. I remember going to Doctor #1 because I had a pain in my side. I remember being scared that they would want to take blood. I am terrified of needles. Hundreds of sticks later and it still takes all the courage I can muster to stretch my arm out and get poked. I still can’t do it without “medicinal support.” Handfuls of Ativan. I remember lying on the table getting the sonogram which was supposed to show that I had a gallbladder problem. I remember Sonogram Tech #1 saying to Sonogram Tech #2, “Look at all of that in there!” I remember being given two big glasses of barium to drink. I remember Carrot being impressed with how quickly I got it down. I remember walking down a long hall to a CT machine. I don’t remember anything else about that first day. I am told that after that we went into a room where Doctor #1 told us that he thought it was the OC. I can recall absolutely nothing about that conversation. Back home. Terror so overwhelming that I cannot process it. Doctor #1 brings the results of the CT scan to my parents’ house. Doctor #1 talks to my dad, PJ. PJ comes in with a book. He shows me a statistic. “45% of people diagnosed with the OC live five years.” Lying on my stomach in bed. Pushing on my abdomen. I feel something hard and like a sausage. I convince myself I am constipated. I talk to the brother of a friend at MD Anderson. He is one of my angels. He arranges to get me into MDA the following Monday. He asks if I have had a CA-125. I don’t know what that is. I don’t yet speak the language. I will learn it quickly. I wish I didn’t know it. Getting a CA-125 requires getting stuck. I don’t want one. He asks if I have noticed any bloating. While he is talking, I pull my shirt up and look at my stomach. It looks like I have swallowed a watermelon. How had I not noticed that? I try to suck it in. I try to remember all of the big meals I have eaten in the past couple of days. It is probably because I have been eating too much. I cannot suck it in. We drive to Houston. It is Sunday night. Carrot and PJ are trying to make me feel better. They drive to find the hospital so we won’t be late for our appointment. I see a bald, skinny, gray-skinned, cancer-ish looking man hooked up to his chemo bag rolling down the street in a wheelchair. I freak. Is that going to be me? I am nasty to Carrot and PJ. I snap at them. They are solid. My rocks. This will become a pattern. I am mean and they are understanding. Keeping their fear hidden for me. We spend the night at La Quinta. I am so afraid I literally cannot speak. We get to MDA. We ride the elevator to the eighth floor. I fill out lots of forms. Still speechless. I am only 37 years old. Too young. I am holding the films from my CT scan. I have not looked at them. I do not know that in just three minutes my life will never be the same. An intern will walk in and matter-of-factly state to me, “As you know, there are three tumors. One on your ovary and two in your abdomen.” I do not know that there are three tumors. I still do not know if that is because I had blocked the conversation with Doctor #1 or because I had not yet been told. I cannot breathe. At all. I lay down on the floor in the examining room. I tell the intern I need Ativan. I feel as if I am literally going to explode. I grab my purse and swallow Ativan. The intern is panicking. She doesn’t know what to do with this reaction. She gets Doctor #2. He is cold. I nickname him “Dr. Cold”. He leads me out of the exam room into a conference room. I ask to see my parents. They are brought in. I ask Dr. Cold if I can be cured. He says he does not know. He does not blink.

Speaking the language and Dr. Cold are two other “fun” things I wish I did not know about Cancer.