It's amazing how three simple words change your life forever.
In movies and television shows, it's usually depicted with a lot of silence. Usually the patient seated in the room alone. A doctor walks in silently, takes his seat, opens the file and then gravely says, "there is no easy way to tell you this." The patient then gasps, eyes wide and doesn't say anything. Just sits there in stunned silence.
My big real reveal was much less anticlimatic. At 5:13, my urologist called and said, "I have your results back. It is cancer. It's a seminoma." He explained a little bit about what that was, what treatments were available and he hung up.
The second I hung up, Moe called. After a brief conversation, I called my parents. After I hung up with them, I cried.
I expected it. The oncologist softened the blow two weeks ago when he said he was "95% sure it was cancer." But until you hear the words, "it is cancer," it doesn't sink in.
Earlier this morning, I had called my urologist, Dr. John (he also did the surgery) to make sure it was okay that I had taken the dressing off. I had thought I remembered him saying it was okay. When he returned my call several hours later, he said that he didn't have any results and that it could take another day. I told him that IF it was cancer, I wanted to do the CT scan the same day the staples came out. I also explained that I was leaving for Atlanta on the 19th. And for the first time he said, "well, we'll need to see about that. I need to check you out on Tuesday."
He said that he would rather wait a few days to the CT scan, because of the prep that I have to do. When he called this afternoon with the results, he said he would schedule the CT scan for the same day.
The CT scan will show if and how far the cancer has spread. The three options are chemo, radiation, and observation.
No matter what happens on Tuesday, this isn't over. It's going to require years of visits and blood tests. Even if the scan shows that it hasn't spread, I will continually have to go back every few months for blood tests to confirm that. So I won't ever have peace of mind without wondering if there is something inside of me.
He also said that chemo and radiation introduce high levels of toxicity to the body that he would rather avoid. So he is hoping for observation. But he wants to wait and see what happens Tuesday. He's concerned about my lymph nodes.
So there it is. It is what it is. My life is changed with three words.
