I’m sorry, but you’re fucked.
That’s what I thought would be the next words to come out of his mouth.
I was sitting in an exam room in one of those Urgent Care clinics. I was beginning to pass a kidney stone and The Pain was beginning. I needed pain killers, not a diagnosis. I was getting neither.
I was out of pain killers and couldn’t get in to see my own doctor for a ‘scrip. My doctor would have looked at a urine sample and being familiar with my history would have probably written a prescription and sent me home. That’s all they ever do. This clinic didn’t know any of that so they sent me off to the imaging lab for a CT scan. I figured I’d be on my way home with a bottle of Vicodin in my hand and a couple caps in my system inside of 2 hours, The Pain defeated again.
But this doctor was taking one of those nervous, deep breaths that tells you that what he was about to say was anything but good news.
The radiologist at the imaging lab was reviewing your CT scan and found something very suspicious in your mesentery tissues. It may be a Lymphoma. You should see your own doctor and get in to see and Oncologist right away.
Put more simply, I’m sorry but you’re fucked.
This was the beginning of a journey - a journey that would begin with an extra Vicodin that night and in the years that followed led me though the medical establishment and the Stuff I Am Made Of to learn a single important lesson.
I am not fucked.
