MEDICAL MONKEYSHINES

*I actually wrote this blog a week ago when this happened but lost the nerve to post it. I decided that since this blog is about my life and my truth that I should finally go for it. So, here it is...

11/9/12

In the past three months, I have moved again (for the second time in six months), my TV broke and was replaced, my email was hacked and I had to create all new accounts, including Twitter…and my beloved computer Casanova unexpectedly died and I had to get a new laptop. Last night I dropped my phone at the gym and killed it. So, another new phone was added to the list of things I’ve had to change, adapt and purchase with my hard earned cash.

This morning, on my way to get the phone I had to stop in to get some test results from the eye doctor at Francis Nelson, a local clinic. I popped in, no line (yeah, me!) and the nurse came right out to see me.

She stood in the doorway tentatively. “Do you mind if we speak right here?” That’s random, I thought. Must not be serious. I mean, who gives test results right out in the public standing by a door. “You can have a private room if you prefer but we would have to go and get it ready and really, this is just easier.” Easier for you or for me I thought “Um, ok, I said glancing around the near empty waiting room, “But can we at least sit down?”. “Sure, fine” We sat. 

“So what’s the damage?” I smiled. She glanced at her carefully worded reply. Struggling to only say what was exactly on her approved language notes. “So, you have a tumor” “What?” “You have a tumor and it’s about 1.5 cm in size, it’s behind your right eye and Dr. Ewald wants you to see a specialist in Springfield…” ”Wait, what…what specialist?” I was the one struggling now. Trying to wrap my head around the moment, around her words. This was actually happening and I needed to focus. “He is an occu-plastic…” “An ocular plastic surgeon?” I croaked. “No, just occu-plastic” “Wait, I gotta find a pen”. I dug in my purse and miraculously found one right away. What is his name? How do you spell it? “Don’t bother”, she said. He won’t be back in the office until next week and to be honest we don’t even know if he will work with you. “ “Uh, ok, well what are my other options?” “That’s it.” “That’s it? No other options?” She just stared at me with a blank face of indifference. “Well, can I at least have a copy of my test results?” “No, they have my notes on them on what I’m allowed to tell you and I really wouldn’t feel comfortable letting you see them.” “But it’s my test results” I moaned. “No, I just wouldn’t feel comfortable. “ she replied.

Annnnd, that’s when I lost my shit. “You just told me I have a tumor and you won’t let me have a copy of a piece of paper? Why are you so hostile? You’re a nurse for God’s sake, show some compassion!” I was sobbing now, my words had left me. “I’m sorry you feel that way” She stated coldly as she stared me down. Not once ounce of humanity showed on her features. Oh, fuck, she was one of those people. You know those people who never take responsibility for their actions who ALWAYS put the blame right back on you. My sister was one of those people. It was never her fault. She was always the victim. Things just happened to her out of the blue and she had no idea why…people just attacked her! Blah-Blah. Anyway, back to my tumor.

Appalled, I wanted get away from this wench as quickly as possible. “Anything else?” No. Hilda can help you make an appointment with Dr. Ewald next week. “Great. Thank you” I wandered over to the other nurse who kindly had already made the appointment for me. I thanked her and was on my way out the door when I heard my bearer of bad news say to her supervisor, “ I don’t know why she acted like that…I didn’t do anything wrong, I just told her the results” Priceless. I left the building and drove off towards Wal-Mart and a new phone.

I have a tumor. But here’s the thing. I’m not scared. Hard to believe, but I’m really not. I didn’t have that stomach drop situation. You know, that feeling you get when you know, you just know that something really, truly bad is happening. And I’ve had that feeling enough times and enough really bad things happen to me to know that if something major was going down then I would have been told. If this had been an actual emergency then I would have been told where to go and what to do. Yes, I do have a tumor behind my eye. Technically, that would be in my head so yes, I guess that would be called a brain tumor. Which, as far as tumors go, is really a less than ideal place to have one located being that there are lots of important wires and electrical outlets and stuff up there. And, it seems really wrong of the universe to have me go through hell, come out the other side, be given a chance to start re-building my life and then less than a year in, give me this. I was actually hoping for a really great boyfriend, not a brain tumor.

Oh, and because I was financially in the hole and have dug myself out but still live paycheck to paycheck, I don’t have health insurance.

Oh, yeah, there’s that.

It’s not like in the movies where when people get sick their biggest battle is to overcome their disease. People without the funds for health insurance biggest battle becomes just trying to medical attention, let alone find the way to pay for it when you are sick and out of commission. And I don’t know if I have the energy or the strength to Shirley McClaine-Terms of Endearment- the medical profession on behalf of myself.

But honestly, I can’t even think that far down the road, I mean. That’s insane and all kinds of nasty fears are poking their mean little heads into my mind right now and I can’t deal with that, so I’m not going to.

If I had to choose on what to do right now. I would not get surgery. I would not get radiation or chemo or anything else involving knives close to my face. My eyes. My brain. Because really, that’s all I got. That is me. That is my life.

I am lucky. I am deeply loved by lots of amazing people but I don’t have a husband. I don’t have kids. I don’t have a house. Hell, I don’t even have a dog (It’s because I don’t have a house. I love dogs too much to stick them in my charming but shoebox sized downtown apartment).

So, my ability to function, to tell a joke, to get the joke and to make my way independently though this world is all I have really. And I don’t want anyone to mess with that. So, if I had to choose on what to do, I would sell everything and go to Europe. Or Tahiti. Go on a trip. Travel. Have fun and live some life before I kick. Just, I don’t know…change the entire directory of my life because obviously this whole, keep your head down, work hard and you will be rewarded for being a good little girl clearly isn’t working for me anymore. Right?

And the alternative is far too frightening to ponder. After all, to recap.

I have a diagnosis of a tumor in my head but I don’t even have a doctor. I have an opthamologist I saw one time. That is my “crack medical team”

If it weren’t so completely ridiculous it would be tragic.

Anyway, I don’t even think it’s gonna come to anything dire...I don’t. I’m not in denial. I just really don’t believe that it’s that bad. It’s just medical monkeyshines, that’s all.

The thing is I’ve had a rough few years…about six to be exact. (I know you might have had some bad stuff happen to you too with the recession and all but this blog is about me so try to focus please. Thanks!)  Six really twisted, torturous, angst ridden years and I freaked out hard. I cried over and over, in long, rage filled nights. Like a little baby, I threw tantrums. I said the words why me? A lot. I got pissed at God. I threw things (in the privacy of my own home of course. I was a hot mess but I wasn’t a savage) I fought hard to have a steady income, a place to live and some semblance of a life. In those six years I moved 7 times in three different states. I kept trying. I kept moving. Maybe it was all a geographic. Maybe it was just bad timing. Who the hell knows? I had over 40 jobs in those years, so many overlapping part time jobs and side gigs that it was hard to remember who I was when I woke up in the morning. No matter what jobs I had or what I was booked for, I kept trying, interviewing, networking, performing and redoing another version of one of my many resumes in order to get something better. Anything better. There had to be something better, something more than this, right?

My point is that I truly believe that I somehow created this little cluster in my head. A little clusterfuck of negativity that has been riding shotgun in my brain for about six years.  I’ve decided to call her Coco. Coco, the cluster, she’s French and she’s a total bitch.

I think I created her. I caused it. And if I did that with my bad attitude and frankly super non-pretty girl discount lifestyle then it stands to reason that I can reverse it. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

So, yeah, I’m gonna have to see what the doctors say. And yes, this blog just got a whole hell of a lot more real. But it all goes back to the same thing. The same concept in my original post that I need to learn how to attract better things in life, treat myself better, demand the world treat myself better and get that ever elusive pretty girl discount on a daily basis.

After all, everyone has their “thing” they have to deal with in this life. Their little injustices. And when get thrown up against something this huge, something that threatens to literally kill you I think you can do one of three things. 1) Totally freak out and worry and stress yourself into an early death. 2) Give up your power and do everything everyone, all the physicians and nurses and voodoo witch doctors tell you to do and hope for the best. 3) Go balls out. Live your life to the fullest. Go hell bent for leather until they turn the lights out. I’m choosing for option #3. I’ll pay attention. Some stuff I’ll do like a good soldier. Some stuff I’ll ignore. I’ll pray. I’ll see physicians and psychics. I’ll figure it out. I’ll finally learn my lesson. I’ll be fine. I’ll be better than fine, I’ll be healthy, because I’m healthy now.

So, don’t worry. This blog is not going to turn into “The Epic Adventures of Cancergirl” or “The Joys of Praying” or even “How I Lost My Sight But Became A Modern Day Pirate”.

It’s still going to be focused on getting my PGD on, but with a little bit of tumor added in. That’s the recipe and I’m sticking to it.

Because everything has changed. But nothing has changed. What I need to learn in this lifetime is still there, it’s just a lot closer to my face (well, it’s actually in my face now. Literally.) forcing me to deal with it.

I love this quote “Humans can live about forty days without food. About three days without water and about eight minutes without air. But humans can only live for one second without hope.”

I have hope. I plan to live. For a long, long time.