Monday, July 14, 2014

On to Oncology

I think it's fair to say that no one wants to be the person who has to tell the patient that they're going to die. Soon. It's certainly not a job I'd want to have. 

Looking back at my conversation with the oncologist, I think it's fair to say that she came into the exam room thinking I'd been told things I hadn't been told. Once we got past the introductions, she was immediately off the the races on chemotherapy, outlining the procedures involved and what I should expect. I eventually had to stop her and have her go back a few steps.

Me: Wait. Can you tell me what I've got?
Oncologist: Oh. You have non-curable stage IV metastatic colon cancer.
Me: What does that mean?
Oncologist: Well, if you do nothing you can expect to live six more months. With chemotherapy, the median live expectancy extends to two years.*

The oncologist keeps talking, but my brain has gone walkabout...

Damn George R.R. Martin. I'm not going to live long enough to find out who wins the iron throne... 

Now how am I supposed to get a date? "Divorced white male, dying of cancer, seeks single female for long-term (well, longish-term, maybe, if I'm lucky) relationship..."

I drive a crappy Chevy pick-up for 13 years, finally buy a car worth driving, and I get cancer...

I guess I was more right than I thought that it was too late to start having kids...

Forty-six plus two equals forty-eight. Really? I'm not going to live to see fifty? What sort of loser doesn't live to be fifty?...

"I can see the future, I prefer to close my eyes..."

This continues pretty much through the remainder of the conversation, both with the oncologist and with her nurse. Occasionally my brain will wake up enough to process what's being communicated, but by and large it's wandering around in its own little thought bubble trying to process the fact that I've now moved from the universal awareness (i.e., denial) that we're all gonna die someday to a far more specific -- and apparently short -- timeline. 

So while the nurse is telling me about ports and chemo schedules and handing over stacks of paper that I'm supposed to read and bring back to my first chemo appointment, my brain has finally resolved on three simple thoughts: 

I'm fucked, this sucks, and I want a second opinion. 


* For those who don't speak statistics, this means two years is the point where half the people who had what I have are dead and half are still alive. Charming. 

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