Scanxiety

So, it's that time again.

Tomorrow, I head up to Durham for my biennial labs, CT scan and meeting with the oncologist. I have no reason to believe that anything's wrong, and the odds are that everything's all right, but still.

I'm remembering the last appointment, when the oncologist's perky new assistant said, "Preliminarily, everything looks okay, but the radiologist hasn't reviewed the scan yet, so we'll call you tomorrow if anything's wrong."

Then she called me the next day.

And talked for about thirty seconds before she got to the buried lead: no evidence of cancer. I had to have her go back and repeat what she had said before that, because I had been so paralyzed by fear, since she said she would call if anything was wrong, and here she was calling and talking about low-attenuation lesions. What the hell are low-attenuation lesions? I will tell you: they are boring cysts which mostly go away on their own (and did). But I did not know this at the time, because I am not a medical person, and lesions sound like disease to me.

So after Count Perkula finished assuring me that the cysts were no big deal, and that there was no evidence of cancer, I allowed as how she was new at her job and so she might not know this yet, but most people who have scans to see if their cancer has returned to kill them would like to know the very first thing that everything's okay. In other words, do not bury the fucking lead. I did not intimate to her that if she ever pulled that crap again I would become her life-threatening condition.. But only because I was too shaken at the time to form threats. Or, you know, coherent thoughts.

And now here we are again. I've done a really good job of containing my anxiety until now, but the workday is done and my appointment is tomorrow, and I am scared that this is my last night of being an ordinary crabby housewife, mother and writer, and that tomorrow night will be my first night of being terminally ill.

It probably won't. But it could.

One of my friends once posted a rallying cry on Facebook for her "prayer worriers," and I wondered what that was for a moment until I realized it had probably autocorrected from "prayer warriors." And then it hit me. I don't think my poor, thin little prayers qualify me as a warrior. But prayer worrier? I am all over that.

Whichever category you fit into, I'd appreciate your prayers for a good outcome tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes.