Sunday, April 19, 2009

March madness in April

Yeah well it's been a whole year so it was time for me to go see the oncologist for the annual weigh-in and chit chat. The last few years I was seen by the fabulous and funny right hand woman. I'm embarrassed to say I never knew her official title. Is she a nurse? Is she a nurse practitioner? If I ever knew it's been lost to the mists of time and chemo brain. Anyway, she's moved on to one of the other branches of the wonderful outfit that took care of me and so this year I saw the doc herself.
It was great seeing her again, and after all this time I no longer associate seeing the doc in charge as meaning I've got something that only the doc in charge can talk to me about. You know, the kind of visit where you the patient ends up sitting in your car in the parking lot sniffling and wondering if you can see through the tears to drive home and collapse in the privacy of your own bathroom.
So we're chatting, and she goes over my history, and then she asks me if we've ever talked about genetic testing. This would be to see if I'm at risk for one or two other cancers. I told her that my memory was that we touched on it once a long time ago but we all (me, the spousal unit and the doc) decided that doing the testing might screw my chances for getting health insurance in the future. She seems to think differently now.
But the thing is, I don't wanna think about any of this. I don't want to find out what my genes might indicate for the future, and I don't want to have to think about the possibility of maybe having all my girl organs yanked to be on the safe side. I'm manly enough, thank you.
I don't wanna think that THIS SHIT WILL NEVER EVER EVER END UNTIL THE DAY I FUCKING UP AND DIE.
Really, who would want that? I know, there are lots of people who have to think about much more serious, life threatening things all the time; regularly facing the choice of some fucked up medical procedure or death, and they happily choose the procedure. I know if push came to shove I would too, but not now. Not this week or month or year.
No pithy ending this time. Just a pissy one.

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