Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Scanning

There will be a scan soon, which is scary for me, and I am sure, for Mark.  Dr. Smith clearly wanted Mark to agree to a CT scan but because Mark is the patient and the center of the team, he decides.  He was hesitating and the doc met my eyes.  I dropped the ball.  I should have said, "You should really have that scan," and he'd have done it.  As it is, we decided on it back in the infusion room after Patty came back with a prescription for higher dosage pain medication.  She told me (he was in the men's room) that he should have it before he retires (probably a money issue) and then wouldn't need another.  I wonder, but yes, I think I knew what she meant by that.  I said that I'd encourage him to go for it, which he did right away.   The appointment is for Tuesday, August 30th.  He admitted later to Annie that there "is always the fear of what they'll find".   You can't hide from the truth revealed in a scan.  You can't be in denial. 

I don't think I've been in denial.  You get used to the status quo: lots of pain meds, chemo every other week, seeing an oncologist, living with cancer as it takes an ever larger role in our life, knowing that you won't get to have the retirement and old age together that you always thought you'd have.  You can get used to seeing your husband unable to sit comfortably, to watching him run to the bathroom every hour or so.  You get used to the increasingly shrinking world we both inhabit as "people of cancer".  You can actually get used to terrible things like the cliched frog gets used to be in increasingly warm water until it boils.  This scan results will be like the temperature being turned up under the poor frog in the water.  The frog will get used to that too.  The cycle begins again: shock, sadness, acceptance.  How long will the frog last though?  How many cycles?

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