Almost April No More

In a very short time, April will be over. In some parts of the world, it's already gone. What a relief. Tomorrow is May day and April, the cruelest month, will have ended.

After my meltdown yesterday friends advised that I go home and watch a funny movie. So I watched "Crazy Heart", an upbeat flick about an aging C&W singer whose hard living and drinking has destroyed his career, relationships, and health. Maybe not the lightest fare, but seeing Colin Farrell in a tank top singing country tunes was well worth the price.

As the movie played in the background, I searched the internet for cancer information so that I can determine what exactly is wrong with me, what treatment I'll receive, and how long before all this is over. Upon closer examination I have determined that those doctors are going to be so embarrassed when the discover what a big mistake they made. But I will forgive them, however, a written apology would be nice.

The Straw

Everyone knows of the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel's back. Today was that day. I went over the edge when my boss told me I might have to share an office. I haven't been able to get it out of my mind. As some of you know, I just spent 10 years getting a Ph.D. and other than the nifty diploma on my wall and the really cool hat, it hasn't benefited me a great deal.

I never actually expected it to. The only reason I started a Ph.D. was because I needed a diversion from my job. Now that I finished though, I suppose I want some acknowledgment for all my hard work. A 50 cent raise, a new title, my own mail slot, but that's all a dream I know. So I would settle for just keeping my office. It took me a lot of years to get one, and quitting it is not something I would cherish.

When I came home, I tried to print some papers and my aging computer malfunctioned, and I thought of the loss of my office and then I thought of the cancer and the fact that I have to wait an entire week to find out results and the anger and frustration and fear all converged and the emotions I have kept in check seemed to take control. Tomorrow I will return to my normal life and tuck away the emotions that surfaced today, for a while.

Living Stress Free

Scruffy, the affectionate nickname for my former significant other, told me that he wanted his life to be totally stress free. I told him that if he really wanted to be involved with me, with any woman, there would be stress. It is part of the human condition.

Of course, I do tend to create stress where there should be none. Lately I have been obsessing over vegetables. I become stressed over whether I will be able to cook them before they rot. I could just get frozen vegetables, but they never seem to have ones that I like.

Tonight as I was realizing that I didn't feel like cooking I tried to come up with a plan for preparing everything before it went bad. As I did this, I realized I don't get half as obsessive over the cancer. In fact, most of the time I rarely think about it. This may change when I find out more information, but for right now I am enjoying stressing over tomatoes and asparagus, and two dollars worth of snow peas and broccoli.

Get Smart

I used to love that show. When Maxwell Smart wanted to say something private, he would demand that they lower the cone of silence. Each speaker would then be encapsulated in plexiglass rendering communication between the individuals impossible.

Today I had an MRI and my "cone of silence" involved a set of headphones that didn't quite fit and did little to prevent the pounding and other noises than rang in my head as the machine took thousands of photographs of my breasts that dangled in little baskets, while I faced a mirror that was supposed to show the wall and give me a sense of comfort.

Maybe it's just me. I don't like loud noises unless there is a tune associated and I can sing along. And instead of mirrors showing blank walls, how about photographs. Pictures of Sean Connery come to mind, but then they often do.

The 5 Stages of Grief

When I was 17 I went to nursing school and about half way through determined that my talents lay elsewhere. I'm 55 and not sure where those talents lie yet. Anyway, one of the many, many reasons I left was because of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. An expert on the process of dying, they drove us in a bus to hear her talk about death and the five stages of grief. I was so inspired that I bought and devoured her book and could hardly wait to deal with my first dying patient.

Unfortunately, my first-and last-experience with death as a student nurse was preparing a body for the morgue. The inspiration of Kübler-Ross went flying out the window when confronted with the reality of a dead body. But I always remembered the five stages. Especially since Bob Fosse used it so cleverly several years later in All That Jazz. But I digress.

I have cancer, and I'm handling it quite well aside from brief moments of utter panic where I worry about the fact that I no longer have any good jewelry to leave my niece, or my insurance company will refuse to pay for my treatment because, let's face it, I'm just not worth the bother, or even worse my parents will be stuck dealing with the upside down mortgage on my condo. Today it dawned on me why I am such a rock. This isn't really happening.

Tomorrow I am having an MRI and they will discover this is all a mistake. For those of you not familiar with the 5 stages, the first stage is denial.

April is the cruelest month

Or so says T.S. Eliot and this April, I heartily concur. So far this month the following has occurred: I got pneumonia, my college with through a grueling accreditation, I broke up with the first man I had been seriously involved with in 15 years, I got diagnosed with cancer, and I shopped for weeks to find the perfect evening dress and when it arrived, it didn't fit. And there's still 5 more days to go.