Currently This

Things I did today:

Took the kids to school.
I paid the light bill, cell phone bill, credit card bill and the ticket I got for parking in front of my home on the wrong day/time.
I filled the gas tank and cleaned out my car.
I got it's oil changed.
I had it's windows cleaned and all it's fluids checked and topped off.
Vacuumed it.
Went to the pharmacy and got refills of all the kids various prescriptions.
Got money out of the ATM.
Did the grocery shopping.
Did a little coding here on the site.

All that before noon, too.

What I intend to do today:

Water all the plants.
Clean the living room.
Clean both bathrooms.
Clean my bedroom and desk.
Pick kids up from various schools.
Deal with kids homework.
Make dinner.
Surf net looking for various and sundry.
Try not to be terrified.

I managed to go to sleep much easier than I thought I would last night. I thought, wow, this changes everything, but it doesn't as much as you might think, or as much as I thought. I don't think I even remembered it when I woke up this morning and was dealing with kids, not until I felt a cramp, then it was 'Oh yeah, shit".

I had been feeling really wiped out. Not sick, really, just bone tired all the time. It turned out I was pretty anemic, but iron would take care of that, no sweat. I really have been feeling better the last few days. More energetic.

But the doctor wanted to know where the blood was coming from, right? Where are Liz's red blood cells vacationing at or to or from? So she sends me to a gyno, who does a pap smear and tells me in the office I likely have fibroids, given the swelling in my uterus and the pain and the heavy bleeding.

Not so terrible. LOTS of women get those and nothing bad happens. They want to do an ultrasound of my uterus and take a biopsy of the lining. No big deal, most action my uterus has seen in years.

He calls me last night to tell me the pap smear came back abnormal. I have a 'pre cancerous' condition. Now he's got me, and I admit, this is a bigger deal. Not quite a big one, yet, but in the neighborhood of not completely small. Now he wants to do a somethingoscopy and take a biopsy of my actual cervix itself. Not a cervix impersonator, but the real deal, headlining tonight, Liz's Cervix! He'll stick a microscope up my vagina and look very closely at my cervix before he takes a little piece of it off, and then he will pass some manner of medical thing through the cervix and into my uterus, where he will take a little piece of that. Then he pulls everything out, and we smoke a cigarette. All this is pending approval from the HMO for the procedures.

So I wait. Then we do all the tests and I wait some more. I'll read about it all, terrify myself with the possibilities. I've asked my doctor to look at the test results and tell me if she agrees with the other doctor's conclusions, find out if I can scream at the HMO and get this stuff expedited given that I have KIDS, people, and wouldn't it be nice if, assuming Liz does have cancer, we get to work on it as soon as possible so she has the best shot of getting them to adulthood????

When I let myself think about it too much I start to shake, so I spent the morning and will spend the afternoon doing stuff that needs to be done. The psychological impetus is, of course, to gain control over that which I can thereby allowing myself the luxury of believing I can somehow control all this other stuff, too. This often works well for me. We cling to what we can, right?

I suppose this is what I get for all the stress, ice cream, fried shit with cheese and the five years of smoking a pack a day, huh? But I lost eighty pounds. I stopped smoking nineteen years ago. I don't drink to excess.

I'll eat leafy, dark green veggies. I'll eat orange veggies and fruits with lots of vitamin C. I'll exercise more and eat less. I'll even.. *gulp*... stop having coffee at Starbucks.

And we'll see. I'm not that worried, though. I really don't think I have come from where I did, survived what I have with my life and my kids, only to get nailed by cancer. I have spoken to my cervix and explained that there is a no sub lease clause in the rental agreement and warned my body that if it did not force out the invaders I would cut things out of it and douse it with so many chemicals it won't know which end is up. Cancer will be the least of it's worries when I'm done with it, by golly.

If I have it, I'll kill it. I'm not someone who will be beat by this, whatever this turns out to be.

Things I am NOT going to do:

Watch 'Terms Of Endearment'.
Laugh more or smile at old people.
Look at 'The Big Picture'.
Let more people change lanes in front of me.
Sit in stunned silence over birds in trees and water shimmering on lakes.
Change my outlook.
Get a makeover.
Get tears in my eyes while watching my innocent children at play.
Stop being such a bitch all the time

Update

I got my doctor to forward to me copies of the pap results, and they read 'suspicious of endocervical adenocarcinoma in situ', and she has since told me that I definitely have cancer, nothing suspicious about it. The only question is how far it has spread.

So I call the HMO to get them to hurry up and authorize the referrals for the biopsies, now of my uterus and cervix. The guy tells me they never got the referrals. Ahem. So I call the doctor and tell them I need them to get on this, and they send the referrals. I call back the HMO, who now has them in their computer, and am told they have 24- 48 hours in which to decide. I say I need this now, I want these tests done next week. He says you want faster than 48 hours? Yes, I think, wishing I had his dick in a vice. He says to call back tomorrow, they will likely have been approved by then. I say great, thanks, and call back the doc.

Look, I say, since we know the tests will be approved, let's go ahead and schedule now. She says they are very booked and it may be a few days. I say, anything. I'll take anything at all, and she says, we're really booked tightly. Ok, no problem I say, just get the doctor to fax me something which says I can safely wait a couple weeks.

She comes back a minute later and says maybe she can get me in Tuesday. GREAT, thanks...but wait, the nurse will be so mad at me if I do this. I'll bring her flowers, I say. Candy, a new car! Tell me how and I'll do the test myself. You don't have to do that, says she, Tuesday at three is confirmed.

So there you are. You now know all there is to know until the tests are done and I come back.