Thursday, December 28, 2006

The C Word

"Good morning! Gynecology office, how may I assist you?"

"Hello, Perky. Did you get any results for me yet?" I'd called every day this week.

"Dr. Lee isn't in until tomorrow," Nurse Perky responded.

"I understand that, but I'm travelling tomorrow at noon. I just want to know what the results are."

"He'll call you in the morning, then, and you can go over treatment options."

"Perky, I don't want to discuss treatment with you - I just want to know the results of the test. What did it say?"

"You have cervical cancer, Mouth. Dr. Lee will call you in the morning. Cheer up, though. At least we caught it."

I wanted to scream at her to cheer up while I shoved the receiver through her ridiculously broad smile and down her choking throat. Instead, I very politely said, "Thank you," and gave her my mobile number.

I don't know how bad it is, or how long it's been there. I don't know what the coming months will bring. All I know is that the new year is four days away, and I'm supposed to get on a plane bound for Tennessee to meet M's family tomorrow. I'm supposed to go down there and smile. I'm supposed to be gracious and charming and fun. What I want to do is crawl under my bed and sleep through the weekend, until the bells at the cathedral sound midnight on Sunday.

What I'm going to do is somewhere in between. I'm going to charge my phone tonight to make sure it's got power when Dr. Lee calls in the morning. I'm going to go pick up a new prescription from Dr. Internist - some new wonder-pill he's found for chronic pain. I'm going to call and confirm my appointment with the other GYN's office, so I can get a second opinion on Dr. Lee's treatment suggestion.

After all that, I'll probably sit down and have a nice, long cry.

2007, here I come.

3 comments:

LV said...

M, so sorry to hear. Best of luck

Mouth said...

Thanks, LV. I appreciate that.

Caryn said...

Ohhhhhh sweetie! I am so so sorry to hear that. Please let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do!