"Your CT Scan Was Interesting"

Getting a chemotherapy port installed was supposed to be yesterday's big dire medical event. It seemed dire at the time (I threatened to run through the halls screaming, but I think the prep nurse knew I was not serious), but instead the stresser was reviewing my pre-chemo CT scans. I've been prepared for years of anxiety as new test results come through, but did think this single starter set would be inconsequential. I just got a pretty clear CT before surgery a month ago, when this all began, and surely nothing grows in a month.

Well.

The fellow started out by telling us "Your CT scan was interesting". This was the moment when he got a permanent F in bedside manners. Even in my limited experience, I can guarantee no cancer patient wants an "interesting" scan. We want "clear" and 'boring".

Initially, we learned, the radiologists thought I had enormous sudden metasteses to my liver, which would have meant cancelling chemo, getting biopsies, and seriously revising my outlook on the future. Fortunately -- I know this is fortunate -- they later determined these were "only" blood clots. Months of blood-thinners now on order.

Once again, the whiplash of grateful/ungrateful is in effect.

"Your Insurance Is On The Phone"

BC (Before Cancer, that is, until a month ago) I would have been considered a cash cow for the insurance industry. I've paid in hundreds every month for decades, while barely costing them a dime. (Except for the childbirths, about all they've had to pay for are flu shots and the occasional strep throat.) Then I suddenly racked up a stream of four-figure bills -- and those are just the ones that have been "processed" so far. So I was alarmed when, a couple days out of the hospital, I got the message "Your insurance company is on the phone".

I knew that they could no longer throw me off the plan just for getting sick. (Lucky I didn't get cancer in some of the less regulated days). But I was pleasantly surprised to hear that my "complex case manager", while trying to save money, was trying to do it in ways that were good for me too, e.g., making sure my incision didn't look infected, making sure I wasn't at risk of falls... all good things. I asked her if I had any nasty surprises coming up as far as coverage -- e.g., would anyone try to argue that I should have been discharged faster and deny coverage for part of the hospital stay? She told me that she has been in contact with my doctors this whole time, and that if anyone tried to deny coverage she has all the notes to show that everything they have done so far was justified. I believe the words "advocate" were used.

The big guns (surgery bills, hospital bills, chemo bills) haven't even come through yet, so I'll withhold any blanket praise until we're further down the financial line. But I never before have had cause to say "insurance" and "advocate" in the same sentence when I was talking about a for-profit company.

The Whiplash of Grateful/Ungrateful

Grateful: One doctor said it was the divine hand of Providence that my cancer was discovered before it had spread to the point of being incurable. It was an accident that we learned some minor family history that called for an early colonoscopy (not that we expected to find anything). If we had waited until I was old enough for the regular recommendation, well, I wouldn't have been around to get it.

Ungrateful: Couldn't the divine hand of Providence have been just slightly more divine? Stage I cancer would have felt diviner than stage III.

Grateful: Husband knew I should get screened and nagged me into it.

Ungrateful: Initial doctor was not that concerned, and it took months to schedule.

Grateful: Only in one lymph node!

Ungrateful: @#@#@$#@, it's in a lymph node!

Grateful: Good survival odds.

Ungrateful: Terrifying to have "odds" at all.

Why The Space Aliens?

It was still dark when we drove to the hospital for the early-morning surgery, and it occurred to me that this felt like I was about to be kidnapped by space aliens. I would wake up in a few hours and have no idea at first what had been done to my insides and what it meant.

In fact, when I did come home the next week and return to normal-life activities like showering, I kept feeling the same surreal sense of surprise, like "What's this wound on my stomach?" I know it's another one of the laparascopic incisions, but there's an eerie back-sense of "Oh my God, that's where they stuck another one of their probes."

Next week I am getting a port implanted under my skin for chemo.  It seems very Cylon-esque, like the aliens are taking me for one of their own.

How To Wean Your Child Before Starting Chemotherapy

That is the term I kept searching for a few weeks, until I realized no one had answers. Aren't nursing moms with cancer somewhere on the long tail?  I did come across stories of people who miraculously found they *didn't* have to wean after all. But no one was about to say that in my case, and I wouldn't have believed them anyway. So the little one still snuggles with me in the morning when she wakes up, and I smell her sweet, soft hair while she nurses, and the rest of the day I put her off and distract her with other things, and starting next week there will be no snuggling in the morning and no nursing either. I think she will handle this OK. I will always be angry and sad. This is technically the least of my worries, but it winds up being the most bitter.