Pragmatic Uncertainty

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“It isn’t the things that happen to us in our lives that cause us to suffer, it’s how we relate to the things that happen to us that cause us to suffer.” – Pema Chodron

The doctor phoned last night during dinner. Several of us were in town having dinner with mom (who's leaving for Mexico tomorrow) having thai food, Hannah included (yay!).

The doctor told me he *thinks* this thing on the x-ray is nothing. They compared the current x-ray to the x-ray taken in June -- the x-ray looks the same or it's a the same skull and crossbones figure tattooed on my lung that has been there all along.

As I write, I know I'm at risk of getting other opinions though I'm *thinking* I should check with another doctor. Or make an appointment with the same doctor, take the x-rays in to his office, and have him show me that they are the same. I'm so used to taking a doctor's word for everything. You know you pay that money and assume they are doing everything they can for you? Plus they're doctors. Who questions those guys?

But that word *think* is just so uncertain.

I did okay through this episode. I cried a couple of times though they were short cries, not my typical prolonged, dragged-out, woe-is-me crying that I have done in the past. I cried with my sister who tends to cry about cancer, death, grief, and when she can't find a pair of jeans that fit. And cried again when my phone would not get a signal (dammit!) and I was expecting the doctor to phone. But what I mean by saying "I did okay" is I was trying to ride this particular incident of uncertainty like a wave, not a tsunami. Or like that little man in the book store said to me that one day, "a magic carpet ride" instead of feeling as if the rug had been pulled out from underneath once again.

I thought of the worst case scenario and how I might react? Surgery, chemo, bald, thin. Lord knows I've been on worse diets! I remember my reaction the first time I was diagnosed with cancer. I was hysterical, phoning everyone I knew, and then I started at the beginning of the phone book with people I didn't know. It was all about me! I panicked. I cried. I planned my funeral and thought of songs I wanted them to play. You know that song from the movie Platoon - Adagio for Strings, opus 11? Gah..that's such a moving song, perfect for my rainy afternoon funeral in March, a few days after my birthday where I turned 51 years old and so cute still!! The songs I chose would make me cry and then I'd get depressed. I was gnashing my teeth (what few I have left), back of my hand to my forehead. I picked out a lovely coffin, even wrote my guest list on a post-it note. Had chemo, went bald and survived (so far).

Now I sometimes feel guilty that people who grieved with me initially are annoyed that I dragged them into an emotional frenzy yet I didn't die. I mean, all that drama for nothing (or for, what now feels like, nothing in the scheme).

Pema Chodron refers to the art of adding drama as 'throwing kerosene on the fire." She says we are experts at escalation. During this "fire" I wanted try to be as conscious as I could be so that if the news was crappy, I would be sad though not hysterical. I didn't want to work myself into some sort of emotional tailspin. I knew I'd be upset though I wanted to try something different -- a pragmatic sort of upset-ness, hoping to take things in stride, one foot in front of the other, anything other than what I had done in the past. Let's see, consciousness - check, surgery - check, chemo - check, back to living - check.

When it comes to a cancer diagnosis, a broken heart or most things -- the only way out is through. I'm at the point in my life where taking the direct route through in order to consume the least amount of emotional energy, whether I have 25 years or 25 minutes left on the planet, makes the most sense. I'm not completely there yet though I'm going to point my big nose in the direction of pragmatism when it comes to uncertainty and disappointment. I'm done stoking this kind of fire.