Days When Stuff Happens: House Closing and the Cancer Call

Yesterday I was planning to go sign the papers closing on our new house. I was excited, except for the fact that I’d been a little under the weather for a couple of days from a bug I picked up at the otherwise really fun Poets in the Park festival in Redmond on Saturday.Then I got a phone call. The cancer tests I’d had done last week were back in. The tumor marker test for carcinoid syndrome – a type of hard-to-find, hard-to-catch, slow growing cancer that can cause, among other things, asthma, hives, stomach issues, weight and blood pressure fluctuations, and liver tumors – was off the charts high. My gastro is the one who ran these, but he’s never seen results like mine before – and he’s 70. Next step: endocrinologist and oncologist. How odd that the gastro – not any of my other specialists – thought to run these tests. How – I guess – lucky that he did?This is probably a treatable cancer, and though the tests indicate it’s already advanced (the higher the number, the more/larger tumors you have, and mine are “sky high”) I still have reason to hope. Still more doctors to go – hoping to find a really good endocrinologist and oncologist with some experience with this rare kind of tumor – and some more likely uncomfortable and expensive tests ahead, before scarier things like chemo, radiation therapy, and surgery. Of course I’m nervous, and not looking forward to the bad stuff. But…

I have several conditions – including being born with a single kidney, a rare heritable bleeding disorder, and my mystery neurological stuff – that could kill me before this cancer does. And really, who’s to say I won’t be hit by a truck or catch pneumonia again? I mean, that’s not cheery, but it is factual – none of us really knows what time is left. So I’m not despairing. I’m hoping for a few more years to hang out with my husband, family, and friends, to write and enjoy the beautiful Northwest.

All of this is to say: what weird timing. What is that joke? Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans? Well, I couldn’t be busier making other plans – with a house to renovate before we move in, a book to launch this fall, grant applications to turn in, thinking about my next writing projects. I’d actually been feeling hopeful after the all-clear from the last round of cancer tests, ready to maybe even look for work-work again, not just freelancing. But I guess I’ll be putting that, among other things, on hold. For now I’ll just be happy to wake up and plan things for the new house, snuggling Shakespeare the cat (who has a new habit of cuddling right up on my chest when I wake up in the morning) and trying to figure out how to make life as good as it can possibly be, as long as possible. And hoping to find some great doctors as partners in fighting this.