I'm not in a brave mood tonight

Your intrepid patient lost her cool today. I've been sailing along in high gear, telling anyone who asks that I'm ready to get into whatever it is that's coming. Well, today that didn't seem like such a good idea.

I had a phone consult today with a member of the Winchester Hospital pre-admission team, a very nice woman named Harriet. (Because I had surgery there last month, I was able to do a phone pre-admit for Monday's surgery. Yesterday I had blood work done at the lab in Reading).

So I'm on the phone with Harriet, feel confident and a bit cocky, and she started to talk about how I'll spend some time in the nuclear medicine department in prep for the sentinel node biopsy (injections of radioactive material and blue dye, which I'm told stains the skin and take a few days to pass through my system--leaving in a colorful stream). Before I'm taken into surgery we have to wait for that radioactive material to slide through my body, through the breast and off into the lymph node system under my arm. During surgery my doc will use a Geiger counter to determine which nodes to harvest, all to be sure none of those nasty little cancer cells took a trip of their own.

(Radioactive matter. . . would I set off alarms at the airport? In Seabrook? Glow in low light situations?)

Harriet interrupted my racing thoughts, asking for the name of the person who will drive me home (Dave), a phone number where he may be reached, ran through the "do" and "don't" list, and offered to have someone call on Tuesday to see how I'd be doing. "How does that sound?" she asked cheerily.

By the time she was through explaining exactly what to expect I was ready to cash in my plane ticket and take a bus someplace else. She made it sound so officially real. I couldn't get off the phone fast enough.

Poor Harriet. It's really not her fault that she completely freaked me out. I had myself a good cry.

I guess no one has an easy job through all of this. Most of all not Dave and PJ, who get a pair of front row seats to my misery (assuming it's miserable). Not family, who get to fret and worry. Not friends, not coworkers, not the healthcare teams. And certainly not me.

There. I said it. I'm a little skittery about this. Dave looks at me and smiles with kindness and love (just like I know someone else would do if he were here today). He reminds me that I've already done this one, just weeks ago, and I came through it just fine. He reminds me that he leads the support team, with PJ as his VP, and that everything is going to be fine.

He's right. I can't avoid this. I can handle it. Compared to what some others go through, this is easy. I'm lucky.

I just needed to give myself permission to be a little selfish today.

Special "Thank You" shout-outs today to Angela, Bill, Jenn, Kerri, Diana, and Gina.