Amazing
myself with my restraint to not peek I continued on in flurries to storage to
unload my deejay equipment from the night before then to the grocery store for
corned beef, stew vegetables, and cabbage.
Adding
them all to the crock pot I began Googling the radiologist’s report. The more I
googled the more confounded I got. Offering it to my daughter to read she noted
at least it says there are “no tumors” everything else “is beyond me. If I was
you I would have just waited until Wednesday when you meet with your medical team.”
Winter
weather was distracting and soon I was out taking pictures.
Consumed
by scanxiety and distracted by falling snow, unknown to me about 8 miles away outside Carlisle at about the same time I took this picture young people were dying and in pain
in the 'same falling snow' as a bus carrying a college women’s lacrosse team ran off
the road and hit a tree killing the driver and the head coach and her unborn
child. Seton Hill head coach died from injuries in bus crash on PennsylvaniaTurnpike. In the bigger scheme of things, after learning the news I was ashamed to have dwelled on my unknowns.
Heading
out to pick up Patti for dinner I found myself thinking time with Patti is perfect
to distract me, as Patti can never remember I have lung cancer. Her first words
of greeting were “Yeah, now I can get a ciggy”.
Lighting
a cigarette for her, I stand there monitoring her because physical and
cognitive symptom can make her dangerous to herself when smoking.
Long
story made short corned beef and cabbage was a hit topped only by the chocolate
chip mint ice cream for dessert and of course, 'ciggies'.
Driving
back from Patti’s care facility Bruce Springteen’s “Jungleland” blared through the
speakers:
“… the
poets down here
Don't
write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be …
… they
wind up wounded, not even dead. Tonight in jungleland”
My
daughter snapped me out of my melancholy by asking if I had transferred Patti from
wheelchair to bed by myself. She reminded me of a line that caught her
attention on the radiologist’s report about “degenerative changes observed in
the spine”.
Patrick Leer
Health Activist:
Caregivingly Yours, MS Caregiver @ http://caregivinglyyours.blogspot.com/
My Lung Cancer Odyssey @ http://lung-cancer-survivor.blogspot.com/
care facility multiple sclerosis caregiving
Its interesting they give the patient the report/CD to transport before the fact of meeting with the doctor for the official results. Everyone is going to be curious to read what is said in it and then be confused like you relate Patrick. I could probably interpret it for you, but that definitely is between you and your doctor; had to laugh about the degenerative changes; we are at that age that the majority of us will have them :)
ReplyDeleteGood for you for cooking corned beef; that is one thing I haven't mastered, but maybe because I'm not Irish.
I didn't know you were a deejay (or if I did, I forgot, that's what happens when one gets older :)
try not to be too anxious about what lies ahead when you meet with your doctor next week
betty
Thanks Betty!
ReplyDelete