C-Day

As in surgical consult day. 2:30 pm, EST.

I took the entire day off...I was going to do some proofreading/editing work on a website consulting job that Fellow Traveler has been working on, on the barter system, for a local business...but I just couldn't concentrate this morning, so I sent her off to that office for an hour or two while I stay home. I'm somewhere between angst and residual shock from last Friday...all I want to do is crawl under a comforter until I have to get dressed for my appointment.

Actually, I can't do that because at this moment Cassie and Gertie are both jammed next to me, their chins pressed into my thigh, looking up at me with such sweet doggie faces. Why are you home, Auh-wuh? Why are you still in your nightgown? I can't tell if they're picking up on my stress or if they're just cold.

I don't want to think about this afternoon at all -- none of the possible scenarios, even the good ones. I don't want to incorrectly anticipate the worst news or incorrectly hang on to the best news.

I don't want to be sick. I don't want to be operated on. I don't want to be in pain. I don't want to be burdensome. I don't want our imminent plans for my cutting back on work, and studying, and freelancing, and doing more with my lay ministry, to be interrupted. Why is this all happening now?

I know; existential question; why ask why; read Job.

At work I've had a few people be very kind and supportive to me; others kind of brush off the whole story because their own cancer scares turned out to be nothing (it's easy to be sanguine when it comes to someone else's body); other people who won't even look me in the eye or talk to me in other than a task-oriented way. On the other hand, my fellow church members, my friends in the greater Church in the world, and other friends and folks of good will, have been incredibly supportive.

And, in the meantime, a friend of Fellow Traveler's and mine just e-mailed us to share that her mom -- whom she'd just visited, whose birthday she'd just celebrated, just got similarly troubling news about a mass on her ovary, and is also scheduled for tests today.