The MRI

So as stated in Friday's post, my insurance approved the MRI. I headed over to the hospital at 2:00 Friday afternoon.

Just walking into the hospital was, weirdly, like coming home. I mean, I was there SO MUCH over the past year. Every single Saturday for three months, I went to that hospital for a blood draw to make sure my counts were high enough to receive chemo. After chemo, I was on the hospital campus for radiation daily for almost seven weeks.

I won't go so far as to say I miss treatment but there was a weird sense of comfort in going in there, knowing we were doing something to either find new cancer early or make sure there is no more cancer. for the past five plus months, I've had no doctors' appointments, no treatments, nothing to fight any cancer that has started growing again. Obviously, I have all the hope in the world that there is nothing to be found, but knowing we were looking for it made me feel...I hesitate to say good but, maybe, comforted?

I hope not to hear from my doctor any time soon. I have a follow up appointment with him in mid November. I know that the MRI will be read Monday or Tuesday. If there is anything found, I know they'll call me before my appointment. I really, REALLY hope I don't hear from them and just head to my regularly scheduled appointment and find out that the MRI found nothing. Prayers are appreciated, obviously.

I do have an appointment with my chemo oncologist on Tuesday. I don't think he gets my humor but that's okay. I will be me, probably wise-cracking and being stupid but I can't help it. I think maybe he doesn't think I take this whole thing seriously but I can't. I can't go in there all morose and sad. I have to be positive, happy, joking around about my stupid hair and hoping, praying, planning for the best.

I don't know if they'd send him the MRI results or now, but I guess we'll see.

So yeah, after over five months with only one appointment (the surgeon in August) I'll see several doctors/therapists/technicians over the span of the next few weeks. It's taking me back, but not necessarily in a bad way. It feels like everyone cares again.

Weird? Maybe. But maybe not so unusual. A dear friend who battled cancer back in the last 1990s warned me that after treatment, she felt bereft, like she was being left to flounder and figure out life after treatment. I appreciated her wise words of warning. It makes me feel less freakish.

I have often in the past couple of months felt regret in doing the lumpectomy. I have thought maybe I should have gone with the mastectomy just to get rid of the offending bosom. I mean, what I do need these stupid boobs for? They weren't even capable of feeding my children over ten years ago. They're obsolete and they (well, Leftie) tried to kill me. I think maybe I should have opted to have them lopped off.

Live and learn, right? I just hope and pray that for me, it's not die and learn.