What if you die?

"Yeah.  I've thought that, too."  (internal me)

Not the right answer to a question asked by a nine year old. 

Having anticipated this question -  not solely because I am a parenting genius but also because I have, as mentioned previously, thought it myself - I have speculated as how to answer it.  I had come up with several possibilities and scenarios.  In the end I went with explaining what the upcoming procedure is and what will happen.

Here it is, the explanation for a nine year old (and the seven year old eavesdropping from her room, invited to hear the answer but too scared to admit she wanted it):

The doctors are putting me to sleep because they can't just put that part of my body to sleep.  The dentist can put your mouth to sleep using a needle, so you don't feel all that rooting around that she does and get all upset and sore because of it.  The doctor can't put just part of my body to sleep, so she will make all of me take a nap instead, because then I won't get all upset and sore and talk too much and distract everybody.

Dr. Deeb will put a little camera on a wire up inside my vagina.  (Here I make my pointer finger snake around).  The doctors are going to peek around and have a look inside me in the special room for babies that we talked about before.  My uterus or womb, remember?   It's not working properly, the doctor wants to have a look at it and clean it off with some special tools.  Kind of like how the dentist cleans your teeth.  I would rather be asleep for that, it's less uncomfortable that way.

.......

"What if it looks bad?  Your womb?  What if it is still bleeding?  Remember all the blood you had down your legs, can they stop that from happening again?"

"If it is really bad the doctor will tell me, and then we will have it fixed.  It may get taken out, then I won't have to worry any more.  That won't happen right away though.  We will have a lot of time to figure it out.  The medecine I am taking now will stop any more bleeding.  That won't ever happen again."

"Okay.  Can I still worry?"

"Just a little.  I am a little worried, too.  But I do like taking naps."

(Laughter)

Please, please... let that have been the right thing to say. 

Then came..."So, no more babies can grow in you then?  How do they get there anyhow?  Sparks and electricity or is this the part where you need a daddy like with chickens?

Tomorrow child, tomorrow I will get to that part.

I need some time to think of scenarios and possible ways to answer this one.  I think this is the part where I need the Daddy, too.

"Waiting on the world to change"

What a useless thing to do.  Truly, since when did waiting for other people to make things happen become the best choice?


I am waiting, waiting for June the 8th, then I will be waiting again for the biopsy results that won't come fast enough unless they give them to me right after I come from under the anaesthetic.  


While I am waiting I move on, I get stuff done.  It may not be earth shattering, news making, award winning stuff, but I am trying to make "it" better in the ways that I am able to.


If you don't think you can make a difference, that is pathetic.  Every choice you make, every decision and purchase has the power to make a change.  Small things add up, it's the details that make life worth living so it stands to reason that these details have value and power.


Waiting is part of living, it is what you do in the inbetween that can matter.


...You don't have to do extraordinary things, just do ordinary things extraordinarily well."  John Rohn

The Elephant in the Womb

There really is no good way to share scary news, no good way to blunt the edge it all. 


I have a mass, well two actually, in my uterus.  They are most likely fibroids, benign, annoying and too large to remove the conventional way.  "Most likely" scares me.  Probably the two scariest words when it comes to tumors.  The scariest being only one word and too frightening for me right now.


I am "most likely" fine.  "Most likely" I will need a hysterectomy.  With the "at best" involving removing a significant part of my anatomy and the "at worst" involving a discussion of survival percentages the real meaning of fear has crept up my spine and settled firmly into the back of my brain.


There are too many qualifying quotations in this post.  Bad literary form.  Good form be damned, I am not trying to impress you with my fabulous wordsmithing, not this time. 


My wonderful husband is beside himself with worry, and strives desperately not to project it.  His sleepless nights and sad eyes are a mirror of my own.  We know we can't let this drag us down, we know that the odds are in our favour, we know I am "most likely" going to be fine.  It is so easy to think that that should be enough, and so hard to make it so.


In early June I will be schedule for a scope and a biopsy.  Sooner if I can get a cancellation. 


May is going to be about keeping myself together and planning for the worst, because I can do that.  I can hope for the best and plan for the worst, it is not just a cheesy proverb for us this month.  This month it is the thread tying us to our lives, keeping us from drifting off into a useless world of worry and speculation.   I am going to be fine, but if I am not, I refuse to make it harder for myself than it has to be.