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Health & Fitness

The Magic Word

A whole lot of nothing can be the best news of all for cancer survivors.

I spent an afternoon recently learning to breathe again.  This was after a week of scary medical tests, inconclusive findings, and….more tests.

Then came down from the medical heavens the magic word: Negative.

After never crying about having gotten cancer or even losing my hair, I decided that the doctor’s office was going to be my home base, like that magical place little kids tag and say ‘free’ where they are safe and can’t be tagged out.  In my doctor’s office, I can cry, get upset, and basically do not have to act brave for one single second.  This is, now, where I get it all out. 

This safety net mindset did not, however, keep the doctor’s assistant’s eyes from rolling in the back of her head when she initially took my blood pressure. 

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“Ummm, let’s try this again after you talk to the doctor,” she said, clearly astonished that I had not stroked out yet. 

The doctor was kind, positive and encouraging. 

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“This is a whole lot of…nothing,” she announced cheerfully after reading the MIR results. 

MY blood pressure promptly plunged out of the stratosphere and back into normal range. 

Not only did the MRI not reveal anything to worry about, but it also showed perfectly normal ovaries, lymph nodes and various assorted, perfectly cancer-free body parts of the female pelvic region.  At least in the south forty, my parts were workin’ fine.  I teared up for only a few seconds, the deeply sick feeling in the pit of my stomach finally starting to wane for the first time in days. 

The doctor told me they wanted a comparative MRI three months from now, just to keep an eye on things, which was I had already prayed to The Lord for. 

That had been my ‘best case’ scenario - and I got it. Having already mentally prepared myself for the worst, I was a little more than astonished to get much more hopeful news. It wasn’t even ‘inconclusive’.  It was negative. Nothing. Nada.  Zip. Zero. Zilch.   

Nothing could have made me happier.  I was even able to call my daughter as I tottered − none too steady on my feet − into the parking lot.  I’m OK, I managed to say, my voice as wobbly as my gait, but it was enough.  I left a couple of text messages for people I love and then I sat in my car, willing the sick feeling in my gut to fade even faster.

Food, I realized, might be a good thing, since I could not recall the last time I ate.  And then, perhaps a strollered walk with Baby Claudia would be really fun. 

The doctor talked to me about my slightly porous bones, assuring me that the guilty party had been the chemo, and how weight-bearing exercise and a calcium-rich diet were the key. This I already knew. The good news was, the damage was far less than usual in these cases, and somewhat reversible.  I checked the sticky note she had given me for calcium and Vitamin D and realized I was still going to be able to watch my granddaughter grow up.   

My "fear du jour" had been that Baby Claudia would grow up with sad, scary, dim memories of her Nana - me - dying; bald, sickly, painfully thin, and wasting away in front of her youthful baby eyes.  I could not bear it.  I had to be, and to stay, healthy.  I wanted her to think back on her Nana with pretty hair, great shoes, incredibly chic and absolutely, above all else, cool.  The cool, above everything else.  I didn’t want her seeing me cry or in constant pain, or her mother sobbing at the thought of losing Nana so young to cancer.  I wanted what we all want - time, but time with quality. 

And this latest journey in the Zone of Fear brought it all back into sharp relief: I was still here, I was still cancer-free, and I had many years ahead of me.

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