A Challenging Few Weeks

Its been a stressful few weeks. About 2 months ago I started having some troubling GI issues that got worse over time (wont bore you with the details here, might put you off your dinner!). Eventually I took myself off to a specialist who listened to my story, examined me and then looked at me very seriously and said "we need to rule out colon cancer" Now dont think this had not already gone thru my mind, I know just enough to be annoyingly dangerous, and anyways I had already googled all my symptoms and decided I would be dead within the year of cancer (those of you who know me well know I have a tendancy to catastrophize) So off we went on a whirlwind of tests, buckets of blood tests, drank enough contrast to light up the night sky all on my own, preparing for a colonoscopy is no fun, nope no fun at all but the proceedure itself is not bad ( I love twilght amnesic drugs!)End result was "dont think" it is sinister, not thrilled about the lack of certainty on my physicians part but I will live with that right now. Just this week got my biopsy results which were negative. Kicker is still having horrible GI symptoms and still do not know what is wrong with me. I get totally annoyed with being sick, I have no time for it, way too much to do, so for now I am going to ignore it before I move onto the next round of specialists. Certain to say that I am not going to drop dead anytime soon and no bits are going to drop off. Thank goodness.

Anyways, during this whole trauma of "do I vs do not have a life limiting disease" I did a lot of deep thinking in preparation for bad news. What would I change if I only had a year to live? And you know what I came to the conclusion that I would not change a great deal. I would not quit my job, work is the great distracter for me and even though I have some tough days in pediatric oncology I would not quit my job, I find tremendous purpose in what I do. I would love to cut my days from 4 to 3 but with all 3 kids needing help with tuition for education that is not going to happen anytime soon. I would still want to run my household myself, have no great need for any grand trips, it is enough for me to see all the kids together, sit around the kitchen table and share a gourmet meal and a fine bottle of wine, maybe followed by a game of canasta. But what I did realize is I need to think more about what makes me happy and what would I want my legacy to be? These are maybe topics for future posts.

So, in the spirit of authentic living, a state I have been aspiring to for the last few years I share my struggle, it is not always plain sailing in the life of Angie. This whole process has not been without many tears, nothing could bring me to tears quicker than thinking about leaving Colin and the kids alone and never ever seeing my kids graduate, marry, have children of their own (please let it be noted I intend to be a damn good grandmother!), so Colin and I contemplated all possible outcomes (really sucks having too medical peeps in the family we tend to go to worst case scenario very quickly) but we are glad we do not have to face that for right now.

I soldier on, with a small amount of concern and a whole lot of joy!