Saturday AM Lori is getting ready for work and I am trying to sort out how to let her know, when to let her know and before I can say anything to her she is at work and I am having coffee with Tom and Catherine???
What just happened? I dropped Lori off drove for coffee and still did not let her know what the tests were all about?
During coffee a friend (Kate) who is also a psychiatrist calls me, she is replying to a rather vague email I sent her Last night asking her to call me as I wanted to talk to her about something. She has no idea what her morning has just turned into...
I wrap up coffee with Tom and Catherine then drive over to Kates' I get half way there and start crying. OK get it together, perhaps drop the car off at home and walk over to clear my head. A good idea not to drive when you are this upset anyway!
Kate answers the door and welcomes me in, "hey, how are you? What's up? Do you want a coffee? or something like that. I sit down and let her know I am about to ruin her day, she says OK that's what I am here for. After a few minutes of tears and fumbling with words I finally spit it out. "I have cancer"
Wow, that is the first time I have actually said it out loud. Kate asks me a few questions around symptoms and such, I really can't remember all that well because my head was spinning.
We talk about how Lori is doing with this news and I tell her she does not know yet. "so you are missing your best friend?" and "she is missing hers'". Kate, Thank you for this! It really put things into perspective for me, of course Lori already knows something major is going on she does not know which thing it is. Her mind must be playing some pretty good head games right now. The conversation with Kate took a couple of hours and left me feeling really positive and focused on what I needed to do.
That afternoon I had arranged for Tom to drop by the house as I wanted to talk to him, practise makes perfect. Tom is one of the most possitive and strong people one could ever hope to meet. He is just finishing up his own encounter with cancer (Multiple Myeloma) and was an inspirationto many through-out that. I managed to tell Tom wiht only a few tears, he was great and the conversation ended with "well, you are in for a hell of a summer man, don't forget to ask for scotch. and don't take any of those blended ones either". When Tom was undergoing treatments he told everyone that when they visited they need to bring him some pity and since he could not deal with the traditional type that a bottle of single malt scotch could be a symbol of their pity for his predicament, he now has a pretty good collection of scotch!
So I have now told two close friends about this but still not the one person who should know, she is at work and we are supposed to go to a birthday party tonight. I pick Lori up from work and get home, she can tell something is up and I just say it. "Dr Shafonsky thinks that I might have Lymphoma", we have a good talk about it and I tell her about my day and why the doctor thinks it is Lymphoma.
We have a bit of a cry, put our heads straight again and call our friends to let them know we are not able to make the party, sorry Rory hated to miss your birthday!
The rest of the weekend is a bit of a blur with friends coming by, not knowing why we weren't really there. We both did our long Sunday run, very therapeutic. I think we watched a couple of chick flicks and waited to hear from the doctor with the imaging results.
No comments:
Post a Comment