Day After Tomorrow

And it's all I can do to not totally lose cohesion.  My head has felt wrong off and on for a couple of weeks, but starting a few days ago, it became pretty constant.  It's not quite a headache, it's not quite dizziness.  It's a buzzing feeling like pressure.  Think that strange "off" sensation you get when you move your head into an odd position or stand up too quickly.  That weird feeling when you close your eyes, then roll them hard and tense up.  Sort of dizzy.  Sort of stoned.  Sort of painful.  Behind my nose, eyes, and forehead, mostly.  I know, it's probably stress, but there's a voice that whispers "It's spread to your head."

I need an answer.  I need to know what's going on.  And I may not get that answer, come Tuesday.  I may just get a referral to an oncologist.

Which is, in itself, an answer, I suppose.

Going to Shenandoah again today.  Hoping for some fall color.  Can't afford it, doing it anyway, because . . . well, you know.

Doing the obits today, came across a woman who died at my age of cancer.  I may have to hand this task over to someone else until I know what's happening to me.  While it's great that I can shower and cry at the same time (something I already knew from my late teens, but good to know I haven't lost that skill), I'd rather not.  I'd rather be okay.

Please.

More doctors, more scared

Doctor's appointment today.  Orthopedic surgeon a couple towns over.  On the bright side, the traffic was greatly reduced, thanks to the wingnut teabaggers shutting down the government.  On the not so bright side?

Doctor said just what I feared he would--that my PCP screwed up, that she should have ordered an MRI the instant the ultrasound came back showing nothing.  In other words, I should have had an MRI over a year ago.  Instead, this thing, whatever it is, has had an extra 16 months to slowly gain ground.

Thanks, Dr. White.  In case you've ever wondered why I abruptly stopped seeing you?  It's because you always left me feeling I was getting the least you had to offer.

MRI scheduled for next Monday.  Then I'll be seeing the Ortho guy again.  He was good--better than the online review sites led me to think he would be (no, I don't make decisions based upon those, but it's nice to see how folks feel they were treated).  He even refrained from pulling a "nameless female PAC from Ogden Clinic who has a boy's name" act and rolling his eyes and telling me that he didn't have time to read the paperwork I'd brought in.  In fact, he read what I brought in (labs and a previous radiology report), then asked if it was okay to make copies for my file.  It was nice, not being treated like a dull-wit who doesn't have the vaguest clue.

One small complaint--the Ortho guy's receptionist was a rude hag.  Impatient, imperious, clearly irritated by my existence.  I can understand that at the end of the day, but when the office has just opened for the morning?  Paste a smile on, sweetheart.  I may have cancer, and I put one on for you.

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My boy had an appointment today, too.  With my old urologist.  As feared, rather than addressing the actual problem (which is not even vaguely foreskin related), he began squealing about circumcising my son.  Because slashing off a perfectly normal, functioning, highly innervated part of the penis is, of course, what American doctors do when faced with the fearful foreskin.  Never mind that the rest of the western world is overwhelmingly intact.  Never mind that nearly 65% of American newborn boys are spared genital modification.  We still have a generation of circumcised doctors who still turn a profit from performing unnecessary surgery on boys.  So we're left scrambling, trying to find a less barbaric doctor who knows more about the foreskin and is capable of addressing the actual issue rather than focusing on my son's foreskin.  I swear, is everyone's life like this? Because it really doesn't seem that way.  It doesn't seem MY life used to be this riddled with disasters and stress.  Is it a "getting old" thing, or is it just ME?

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Watching Boehner flip-flop on the debt ceiling, the ACA, and pretty much everything else. Watched an interview with him, and the blustering defensiveness leaves me wondering just how scared he is?  These past few weeks have given me much deeper insight into just how the "Tea Party Patriots" work.  I always knew they were never a "grass roots" organization--they were put together by the Koch brothers to stir up the stupid with jingoistic slogans, whipping them into a frenzy of flag waving and immigrant/poor/women-hating.  But what I didn't get was this--how were they winning these elections when so many Americans don't agree with them?

I've figured it out.

They're active at the primary level.  They get out there EARLY, before any of us sane folks, and they ramrod through whatever extremist freak they're rooting for.  Because the rest of us are fast asleep in our beds on  Primary day, they get to choose who WE get to choose between, come the general election.  So we're left feeling we have a choice when, in fact, our options have been viciously limited through Tea Party manipulation of the primaries.  Yes, there are other issues, like gerrymandering/redistricting and voter fraud and widespread disenfranchisement, but the primaries--that's where it starts.  THAT'S where we can make a difference.  

I remember when I first heard about "Teapublicans" registering as Democrats so they could intentionally ram through the least viable democratic candidate.  Because the average person doesn't vote in primaries, this wasn't hard for them to do.  So, come general election time, folks had a choice to make--the clearly nutty teabagger OR the clearly unqualified democrat.  Republicans who always vote red voted for their nutty teabagger regardless of how they felt about him, democrats didn't vote at all because they weren't enthused by the democratic candidate.  And there you go--bagger wins, even though he doesn't actually have the hearts and minds of most people.  I heard about this, and I was horrified.

How to fix it?

Start voting in the primaries.  Specifically, in the REPUBLICAN primaries.  No, not like the wingnuts do, not trying to ramrod through the least competent republican (they're already doing that--doesn't matter, red votes red regardless in most cases, it seems), but rather trying to bring the sanest republican through the primary so that, even if our guy LOSES, the guy who WINS isn't crazy.

I don't see another way.

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Speaking of misinformation and Tea Party hyperbole, this nastiness came across my wall the other day:

And here's the point-by-point debunking of this willfully misleading, politically charged garbage spray..  Thanks to ILLINOIS HEALTH MATTERS for the well-reasoned rebuttal.  

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And that's about all.  I napped hard this evening and feel more tired for the sleep.  I think that, emotionally, I may be all used up.  So here, have this--makes me happy, and happy is good:

Congressional Battering and a Lesson in Fear

Today, I had the talk with our son.  You know, the "honey, because of those cruel, petty asshats in DC playing politics with our lives, your daddy may be out of work next week" talk.  The talk that details the things that will immediately fall by the wayside.  Like cable TV.  Like the paintball Zombie-fest he's been looking forward to since March.  Like the strings for his electric guitar and the new cord to stop that crazy buzzing.

Like his beloved Hapkido classes that represent the only real "in person" interaction he gets with other kids his age. It's three nights a week he gets to hang out and learn and grow with other kids.

And it is OUTTA HERE if those mean, politicking monsters in Congress keep it up.

Explaining to him that, unlike the last time this happened, these bastards almost certainly won't reimburse the families they're devastating.

And make no mistake--they are threatening to devastate us.  It's his first lesson in what happens when bills don't get paid.  How they don't just scoot forward a month, but they become overdue, compounded with fees and fines and penalty interest rates, then lumped into the next month's bill, which is still due.  Things don't get pushed back, they get piled up.  And then the vicious tide of endless calls from creditors starts.  The three, four, five calls a day per creditor.  And each time they pretend they don't know you've already called, already explained.

Already begged.

We are working so hard to drag ourselves up and out of debt.  This will be the end of us, financially.  There will be no recovering from this.

Add that that my looming medical appointments for the large, growing mass in my forearm.  Oh, the copays.  Not just the 35 bucks a pop for doctor's visits, but the fifty+ for the MRI, the 100+ per hospital, etc.  Like having a possible sarcoma growing in my arm wasn't enough, the Republican Party has to trap us under their boot and gleefully threaten to twist that heel.

And it is gleeful.  Don't you DARE tell me otherwise, I read their words, I see their satisfied little smirks.  What happened to public service?  They're not serving anyone but themselves and their corporate masters.

And here's the truly bitter part: any one of them could fix our financial woes in a second. They have that kind of money.  They could just say, "Oh, shoot, 15 grand is all you need to be solvent? Here you go."  But that would be welfare.  That would be wrong.  Bootstraps and all that crap.  Except they're looking to slash those bootstraps and then, once again, castigate us for not being able to save ourselves when they've taken away our only means of salvation.  We are trying, we are paying things down and paying things off, but it's going take about two years to get it all done.  Unless they shut down the government.

Then it won't ever happen.

And all of this over a program the American People have already weighed in on.  They did--they VOTED FOR BARACK OBAMA!  Seriously, what do these bastards think that meant?   They ran their boy Mitt on a platform of killing Affordable Care, and they LOST.  They LOST, and yet they keep terrorizing Americans in attempt after attempt to  . . . unlose?

I know what they're trying to do.  They hope that, if they can make things as painful and miserable and bloody as possible for folks like us, we'll throw our sad, terrified hands in the air and say "Fine! Defund Obamacare, just please, please don't sink my family!"  They know that, given enough fear and hurt, we'll eventually buckle under and throw our fellow Americans under the bus to save our own families.

According to one nutty windbag down in Texas, if the American people get a taste of affordable care, they'll be "hooked."

"Hooked" on affordable health care for everyone.  Oh, the horror!

The stress kills.  They say that it shortens your life and opens you up to all sorts of awful ailments. From obesity to cancer, there's a stress link.  So it's not much of a stretch to say that the Republicans in Congress are attempting to murder me.

This is terrorism.  There's no other word for it.  Every few months, they come at us with threats of shutdowns and furloughs and slashing of services, using us and our lives as game pieces, bargaining chips.  And each time, the constant, thrumming adrenaline, the panic, the insomnia, the tears.  It's terrorism, plain and simple.

Congressional Republicans are terrorists.  They're why Guantanamo Bay needs to stay open for business.

Arizona's Leading Export?

I came across this disaster of stupidity today, thought for sure it had to be satire.  You know, like there's no way people could be this stupid?

And then I remembered Tara.

Tara used to hang out on a breastfeeding support board I frequented.  Tara was every single thing you fear in fundamentalist Christians.

Tara believed that Harry Potter was from the devil, that JK Rowling was an imp of Satan.  Tara believed the same of L. Frank Baum and the Wizard of Oz.  Toto?  More like Asmodeus.  

And Star Trek?  Oh!  Oh, the rant was perfectly crazy, with cries of "Satan!" and "aliens are demons!" and "the earth is only a few thousand years old and is the ONLY place that supports life! Other planets?  Put there by SATAN to sully our faith and tempt us from GAWD!"

I'm not exaggerating.  Tara homeschooled to keep her children from being exposed such evil ideas as dinosaurs (fossils are the work of Satan, created to fool us and make us doubt our creator), evolution (I don't even have to repeat the protestations there, do I?), and climate change (God will provide, and if God doesn't provide, it's because it's the END TIMES).  

In other words, she homeschooled for the exact opposite reason we do.

That Tara was also a chain-smoking, foul-mouthed creature who lived off aid from the government she despised (loudly and vociferously) and, according to folks who knew her personally, was churning out kids who couldn't read or write?  All the better, you know?  

After recalling dear Tara, I realize that maybe the Harry Potter-slaying thumper weirdos from Arizona are the real deal.  After all, Arizona gave us Joe Arpaio and Jan Brewer.  Makes these ladies seem like typical Arizona fare.

Found this in a clearinghouse of shots, but if Tara had something other than
a rusted out pick-up truck, it'd look just like this

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Tired of hearing the "Obama recklessly jumped for unilateral war in moments, while G.W. Bush carefully deliberated for months before making a decision backed by a coalition of world leaders" crap.  Um--one glaring issue here?  G.W. Bush spent months drumming up support (through the use of fabricated "intelligence") to attack a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and had, until we blundered in, zero Al Qaeda presence.  So don't.  Be honest, admit it--no matter WHAT our President does, the right will condemn it.  If we go in, he's a warmonger, and if we hold back, he's a coward who coddles murderous dictators.  And, at its heart, it all boils down to this--he's the "liberal" (in as much as any politician is these days) black guy they didn't want to win.  And they will do whatever they can to obstruct and thwart the liberal black guy, not because they find his policies abhorrent (they LOVED "Obamacare" when Mitt Romney was pushing it), but because they find HIM abhorrent.  

Found this image on a lovely blog called "Don't Eat the Daisies."

And this one on a brilliant blog called "Sticking Points" on Souciant.com

Notice BOTH these trucks are from Arizona?  Sort of hearkens back to the first bit, huh?

Me?  I don't think there's any right answer, but I know this--anything that moves into the vacuum created by Assad's ouster will be at least as bad as Assad.  Probably worse, because it will have the nutbag fundamentalist contingent running the show.  We can either pick our poison or stay out and let the region settle itself.  And since we know we won't do the latter, and we know that Assad pisses us off with his refusal to butt-kiss, I'm guessing we'll take him down.  I don't like him, but that doesn't make taking him out a smart, good, or right thing to do.  Like I said, short of staying out of it, I don't think there IS a "right" thing to do, and I'm not sure staying out of it is RIGHT, either.  

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Obviously no news on might-be-cancer arm.  Won't be for almost a month.  I did find myself sitting alone in bed, completely losing cohesion.  I had something of an epiphany, though.  A double one, really, A seemingly mutually exclusive pair, yet somehow it works.

Oh, yeah, the thing?

It turns out that, when you're sitting on the bed, hugging a pillow while sobbing/chanting "I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm alright, I'm okay," you're probably not.  Regardless, doing that for 20 minutes?

Makes you feel a whole a lot better.

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And now, for a really bad name?  

Braxton Hicks.  I am not kidding, someone named their kid Braxton Hicks (that's first and middle). Do they think they're funny?  Do they think they're cute?  Is it some dim-witted inside joke? Because your child's name shouldn't be an inside joke.  My ex-roommate planned to name her son "Brock Lee."  Thought it was hilarious, insisted no one would "get it."  The only thing that saved him?  All of her friends ganged up on her and swore we'd never babysit if she did.  But I'd be lying if I said I didn't lose respect for her.  Sure, she changed her mind, but just that she considered it is enough to knock her down a few rungs.

Or it would be, if she weren't dead.  But that's another story.

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So here--have something ugly to cleanse the palate:

Clearly, I'm having formatting issues again.  It's beyond me, and I refuse to obsess.  Much.

Robbie the Robot , Cicadas, and Various Cancer References

I was thinking today about one of my glaring parental failures.  One that sticks with me always, one that will likely stick with our boy forever, too.

It didn't start out as a failure.  In fact, it started out as a wowser victory.  You see, we saved a lot of old boxes of varying size (and some large wrapping paper tubes) and, with a LOT of aluminum foil, built our boy a robot.

Our boy,  many years ago, with "Robbie" the robot

Oh, our boy LOVED his robot.  "Robbie" hung around for a couple of YEARS, though it wasn't long before he started taking damage--cat scratches here, a crushing wound there, parts falling off over time.  Understand, too, that "Robbie" was LARGE.  He was large, and he took up a large portion of our boy's room.  And then, one day, "Robbie" got cat-pissed upon.

And that was it.  My boy was, at the time, very into Viking-type things.  I explained to him that "Robbie" had lived a long, productive robot life, but it was time for him to go.  Our boy agreed.  I asked if he'd like to send "Robbie" out in style, with a real, live funeral pyre ala the old Norse.  He agreed.

Eagerly.

And so we took "Robbie" (and all his loose, sad pieces) out to the fire pit and did the deed.  Our boy's excitement over the send-off was short-lived.  In fact, it was only a minute or so into the torching that the heartbroken tears began.  It was, of course, entirely too late to pull "Robbie" out of the flames.  

My poor boy.  He cried and cried for his robot, and I cried, too.  I cried for him, I cried because I'd obviously screwed up, and, yeah, I cried a little for "Robbie."  

I'm not the worst mom out there, but who'd aspire to that?  I totally blew it, and I still feel bad.

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Went in at the butt-crack of dawn this morning to have the stitches out of my cancer arm.  It looks awful, and, for all my talk of "What's another scar?" fact is, I feel sad about it.  I don't have a lot of pretty on me, I don't have much to recommend me.  Now I have a big, ugly, puckered, disfiguring scar on my arm.  Yay.

They called later to let me know that the margins were clear, they got it all.  That's something good.  They won't need to see me for a year.  I've taken a bunch of pictures, and once a little more healing has taken place, I'm going to post a big, long series of shots, from before the excision to a few months after.  Maybe someone will get a feel for what they can expect in their own experience.

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It's funny--they say that Red Winged Blackbirds are year-round, that they don't leave for the winter.  That may be true, but they sure do shut up for the winter--I haven't heard one since last fall.  Until today.  The weather has warmed up dramatically, and suddenly my yard is full of the sounds of blackbirds.  Maybe it's a breeding thing, they only come near in the spring because the feeders and breeding grounds attract them.

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Hubby has an ex-girlfriends who's gone deeply woo recently.  Very "natural health" and "conspiracy theory" and the like.  One of her recent ones?  Cancer rates are increasing, and it's because of Monsanto.  

Okay, straight up, I don't like Monsanto.  I don't like the way they actively disregard the health and well-being of folks unfortunate enough to live near their manufacturing facilities, I don't like their predatory farming practices, and I don't like unlabeled GMO crops.  Considering our unwillingness or inability to bring down carbon emissions in a meaningful way, I recognize that the GMO crops I despise may well prove to be our saviours down the line, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it.  All of that aside, there's an "Occam's Razor" kind of answer to the cancer rates that doesn't require conspiracy theories, government cover-ups, or corporate evil.  

An aging population.

When I was born, the average life expectancy was something like 66 for men and 73 for women.  For children born today?  76 for men and 82 for women.  

Most (not all, there are exceptions) cancers become more common with age.  That makes sense--things get old, they break down, DNA screws up, lifetime exposure to various things piles up.  Add to that the fact that we are curing or effectively treating SO many things that used to kill people BEFORE they could get cancer.  Diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, heart failure, etc.  People are living long enough to get cancer.

And let's not forget the BABY BOOMERS, who are all now hanging about in prime cancer territory, age-wise.

No, that doesn't mean that I don't think there are things in our food supply and in our environment that are carcinogenic.  Of COURSE there are, hence CANCER.  But I think people overlook some of the more mundane reasons for more cancer.  We're living long enough to GET more cancer.  

Or at least that's my interpretation of the data.  You know me, that whole "Principle of Parsimony" thing gets me every time.

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So, we put down more grass seed last night.  Temps are supposed to get up to the high 80s this week, and that means . .  .

BROOD II CICADA-SASTER!

That's right.  It's that time, folks!  We had a few cicadas here and there last year, but this is supposed to be a little more . . . horrifying.  Like floods and waves and drifts of cicadas.  While not supposed to be as bad as BROOD X (that's Brood Ten) in a few years, it should be enough to be getting on with.  It'll do 'til the REAL trouble comes, right?

For folks who haven't had to deal with cicada broods, here's a little taste or two:

And from the local news:

Plus a good story right here, from the Baltimore Sun.

Oh, and when is this supposed to happen?  I believe I read that it's "scheduled" to hit when the soil temp hits 64 degrees Fahrenheit.  Considering we're supposed to be up in the 80s this week?  I'm thinking that's VERY soon.

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And now?   It's time for something ugly, house-wise.  Maybe paneling, maybe wallpaper, maybe flooring.  It's a surprise!

Do not reprint without permission. © KAQ

Cancer, Cancer Everywhere

No, I don't have an answer here. Saw the Urologist yesterday, one of the Washingtonian's "TOP DOCTORS" for a few years now. A bit chilly, not particularly friendly. Of course, my urogynocologist, also touted as a star in her field, was quite personable, and she totally missed the mass, so maybe personality isn't as important as skill. This guy found the mass with no effort and didn't even have to root around or make me hurt for it.

He says he feels confident it's not a diverticulum. That's in keeping with what my gynecologist (not urogynecologist) said, but he's in a better position to make that determination--he's a urologist, and he's seen the ultrasound results. He seemed lukewarm to the MRI idea, whereas my gyno and GP both want it done. So do I. He wants to do a cystoscopy (I was hoping he'd do it yesterday), and he wants to do it at the hospital so he can do general anesthesia AND do an excision of the mass, too. Get it out and get it to pathology.

That scares the shit out of me.

On the one hand, my brain cries that I want an oncological gynocologist, even though we don't know if this is cancer! On the other hand, this mass, whatever it is, is in the anterior vaginal wall, which means it's right up there with the urethra and bladder. One of the concerns my gyno had was not screwing up and damaging the urinary tract, so the uroligist is my guy, right?

Right?

He's got a gang of oncology experience, so he knows how to look for clean margins and keep track of what and where, and that was my concern with my gyno-that she'd be out of her league. So this is a good choice, isn't it?

Is it?

Shit.

I can't even express how terrified I am, how utterly tharn I've gone. I read and read and read, and nothing makes me feel any calmer or more optimistic. This feels bad, and I am scared half to death.

For now, I guess I hurry up and wait. My GP should be calling tonight so I can discuss this with her--I'm outta my league, maybe she'll have some insight about this approach, right? And then I wait on the insurance, make sure things are covered before the disaster hits. I'm already three grand into this, and that's before the gyno and urologist bills hit. Call it four grand. Add the MRI, surgery, and cystoscopy. IF those are clear, we can probably call it an even ten grand.

Oh, please.

But it's not just me. My beautiful Noodle-niece goes in for surgery next week for a recurrence of her thyroid cancer. She's 14 years old, and this is her second cancer surgery. If, at 46, I feel too young to be dealing with this, how's she got to be feeling? I'm scared for her, and I'm scared that, between the two of us, we're not ever going to get to see each other again.

How messed up is that, folks?

Another Doc-saster

So, before we left Utah, I went to see my gynecologist, get a clean bill of health so I wouldn't be looking for a new gyno right off the bat.

Or not.

The Nurse Practitioner, a nice lady named Mary, found a "mass in the anterior vaginal wall." 7 mm, give or take, possibly a urethral diverticulum. She described it as "firm, but not hard." My Gyno came in, rooted around, echoed Mary's opinion. Said it wasn't an emergency, but that, once I got settled and got my new insurance squared away, I'd want to see a urogynecologist. Not to be confused with a Eurogynecologist, who would likely charge less and serve wine and cheese.

Well, it turns out my new insurance plan only has one urogynecology office covered, and they were backlogged for months. So it was four months between Utah gyno and urogyno. I did make one attempt to see a local onco-gyno back in October, but he wouldn't see me because the letter from FEHB declaring me insured wasn't enough. He wanted a big wad of cash. Needless to say, I was utterly panic-stricken by the time December and my uro-gyno appointment rolled around.

Met my urogynocologist and fell in love. Well, not like that. But she was personable, warm, funny, and seemed absolutely competent. She got up there, rooted around, and declared me mass-free. Nothing there. My husband could still feel it?  Well, then, he was feeling something that was supposed to be there, and that's why they're husbands and not gynocoligists, right?  Sure, we could do a cystoscopy to make sure there was no diverticulum, but she felt confident there wasn't--it was obviously a cyst that had drained or reabsorbed. No worries! I made the appointment for the cystoscopy (for a month down the road), and felt a weight off my shoulders.

I got an inkling that weight was just hovering rather than gone when I had a menstrual cycle that lasted only 13 days. Yes, at 46, I am almost certainly perimenopausal, but that mantra has always stuck in my head--late periods aren't a problem, but earlier periods? See a doctor. So I wound up cancelling my cystoscopy appointment in favor of an appointment with my new GP to discuss my early period and possible fibroids. She did a pelvic (yes, that was something new and oogy), and concurred with my urogynecologist's proclamation that there was no mass in the anterior vaginal wall. Again, whew, right? She recommended I get a transvaginal ultrasound to take a look at the possible fibroids, and told me to get myself to a gynecologist.

Which I did. Today. And boy, was I right about the hovering weight. It's come crashing down in a big, big way, and I fear its many, crushing friends aren't far behind.

You see, there is a mass. Not only is there a mass, but my new gyno describes it as larger (1 cm) and very hard. If you've spent any time with gynecologists (or oncologists), you know those are bad things. You know that the moment she said (and she said it repeatedly) "VERY hard," she swept almost all of the more benign possibilities right off the table.

I don't blame my GP--she's not a gyno, and that made no difference, time-wise. But my urogynecologist? It's been a month-and-a-half since she told me there was no mass. I'd already know what's going on and be taking care of it (or coming to terms with it), had she been on the ball. But she wasn't. And maybe she would have done a better job of finding it if my Utah gyno's office had actually included NOTES about it in my FILE. But, according to the urogynocologist, there are NO notes in my file concerning a 7 mm mass in the anterior vaginal wall. Which is now, of course, a 1 centimeter mass, accompanied by uterine bleeding.

We won't even talk about the bastard who refused to see me because I couldn't cough up a bundle of money. That was almost four months ago. Four months this thing has had time to thrive.

Sunday, I have a pelvic CT scan plus an ultrasound scheduled. From there? Possible D and C for endometrial biopsy, visit to a urologist to make sure that any vaginal biopsy isn't going to screw up my urethra. And then who the hell knows, really? The treatments for vaginal cancer tend to be extreme, horrifying, life-altering, and often not particularly effective in the long term. So let's cross our fingers and clench our knees and hope it's not that, huh?

I love it here, you know. I was born here. I don't want to die here.

A Buffalo Springfield Kind of Day, For What it's Worth . . .

Tommy and I were talking the other day, and he mentioned a meeting where his then-boss said something about positions opening in D.C., and how he remembered thinking, “This is important. This is where it starts.” I knew exactly what he meant because, back on August 28th of 2011, I experienced the very same sensation. But not in a good way.

You see, I was flat on my back on an examining table, legs up in the stirrups, with someone’s hand inside me when it happened. It went from a happy “let’s get all these routine exams out of the way so we’re going into our insurance-less stretch with a clean bill of health” to “oh, shit, I’m in trouble and I won’t have insurance!” That quick—from all-clear to formerly-comforting voice saying “Hello—hang on. What’s this? Has this always been here?”

“This” is a 7 mm “mass” in the anterior vaginal wall. 7 mm. The size of a pencil eraser, give or take. But that was four months ago, almost to the day. Four months with no follow-up, no further care because we were caught in the limbo of “between insurance” and the new insurance, which took almost three months to kick in, only has one urogynecology office (the other plans had NONE), and that office couldn’t see me until tomorrow. Four months, and I can only hope that it’s still “only” a 7 mm lump. Yes, yes, I did try to see a run-of-the-mill gyno at the mid-way point. You saw how that turned out. Money talks. Broke gets shuffled out of the office sans care in a haze of shame and sadness.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm a step closer to finding out if this is a urethral diverticulum, cancer, or both. Yes, it can be both—a malignancy could be found within a diverticulum, it’s not uncommon. And up there, where the vaginal wall and the urethra are in such close quarters? Even a small cancer can be a disaster. A life-altering, piss-into-a-bag-for-whatever-time-you-have-left kind of disaster. Could it be something totally benign in the truest sense of the word? It could, but I have urinary symptoms. A feeling of pressure, a sensation of something impinging. And that, my friends, takes “oh, it’s nothing” right off the table. It’s absolutely something.

In addition to the terror of what they might find (and it is terror, no matter how cool I might play it), there’s the competing horror of what they’re going to do to me to find out what this is. This is going to be beyond humiliating. Devastating is a more accurate term.

And then there’s the money. Copays, deductibles, the mad scrambling, trying to figure out what labs are covered and what procedures require prior approval in order to protect us from a massive, "we won't cover that" hit from the insurance. Stuff I never had to worry about with the old insurance. And we are so broke, this is not what we need right now. We need for this to be nothing. As stupid as this sounds, I find myself wishing that my old doc’s office had missed this “mass.” Because then I would have written the symptoms off to a touch of cystitis. Then I wouldn’t be worried until my next exam, which wouldn’t have been until next fall. Next fall, when the money starts flowing a little easier and we can better afford for me to be a disaster.

I’m 46 years old. I’ve pretty much lost hope that some Secret Santa-type is going to drop ten grand on our heads and save us. Even the 500 dollar pet deposit isn’t happening, and that breaks my heart. I want Sean to have a puppy. And more, I want to see Sean with a puppy. And I am very afraid of what’s going on with me, afraid that maybe I’m not going to get to see that. I’m fat, diabetic, and on heart meds for an arrhythmia—the almost certain surgery I’m facing is a terrifying prospect with potential to go very wrong for me.

That sensation that something small actually signifies the beginning of something very big, that a certain moment will prove to be the start of something life-altering? Yeah, I know that sensation. Too well.