Not as terrible? I’ll take it!

I had two appointments at the hospital back to back today, one with my surgeon and the other with my oncologist. The difference in my blood pressure readings are significant depending on which office I am at, I will let you guess which one is higher where. I have been feeling significantly better lately, my energy pretty stable. When I got my second Covid shot on Tuesday, though I was tired and excessively cranky, I bounced back by 4pm the second day, I even took one of my dogs on a really long walk 😳. Still, though I do feel better, the anxiety of my surgeons office never fails to get under my skin, it’s definitely PTSD, a year and a half of multiple surgeries along with the sometimes spoken, sometimes unspoken message “You will never get better.”

My current surgeon is very good, advocates for me and has empathy even though we have had our growing pains, he really tries to figure out how to communicate in the way I need him to and I appreciate the effort, seriously, I don’t think every physician would do this. That being said, like diagnostic testing, I get nervous when I go in to have my butt assessed. There is judgment, I am reminded of the original Superman Movie with Christopher Reeve when the criminals from Krypton are being charged with a crime “Guilty, guilty, guilty...” Really the judgement is in my head, my doctor actually takes any responsibility for my disease away from me. It’s a nice thought but I don’t believe that cancer nor any other autoimmune disease just happens for no reason and I think I am just as responsible in achieving the best possible outcome for myself as is my cancer team. My surgeon closed my gown and rolled back “Your butt doesn’t look as terrible as it usually does.” I was elated!

My next stop was the 11th floor, I was zinging with happiness and like I said before, I have been feeling really good. My blood was drawn and I was escorted into a room to wait for my oncologist. She burst in, “Your labs are REALLY good! Come see!” She turned the monitor towards me and started listing my numbers, emphasizing what was really exciting down the list. Her enthusiasm lit up my heart. I told her my energy has been almost normal and this made her excited “Keep doing what you are doing! Let’s prove the surgeons wrong!” She also told me I was a tough lady, I believe this is high praise from her and as I type this I feel a lump in my throat, it means so much to me to have a team that really cares about my outcome and that’s what we are, a team...Now I am trying to think about what sport our team would be most like, when things are going well I would say football, she is the coach and I am the quarterback, when life is a piece of shit pie I would say Dodgeball where I get beamed in the face and knocked on my ass over and over again, she would be the kid blocking some of those balls, yelling at me to get up, encouraging me to not give up. As she left me in the exam room to wait for a scheduler I said “Go team!” She said enthusiastically “That’s right!”

A friend bought a shirt for me, it was designed for his friend who just got a similar diagnosis to mine. It’s pretty hilarious and I wore it to my appointments today. I will post a pic and a link in the event you want to support this person and rock a ridiculously fun look, I cut mine to fit better but you don’t have to 😘

That is all for now!

Until next time❤️

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