Every week, when there is occasion for it, we have a person whose role in the Rotary meetings is to announce news personal to individual members: births, deaths, illnesses, accomplishments. I missed last week's meeting for having the biopsy, so I had to make the decision today whether to tell this person about my diagnosis. I waffled a while, both before the meeting and during the lunch before the announcements began. I finally settled on yes, I should tell her my news. I asked her whether I ought to let her announce it, and she offered the advice that I have a ready-made support group if we speak up. So I told her yes, let the group know. It was the correct call.
I had a handful of hugs and hand-holding, especially at the end of the meeting. And then the real reward came: several people came to me and let me know their personal experiences with the cancer center here at our local hospital. I had not yet done my research about the practice, and I have had a little fear about how small my hometown is. What if it was just too small a population center to have much medical talent? I mean, so far my experiences with doctors have been primarily excellent, but I still worried. My Rotary friends, whose opinions and expertise I respect, assured me that there are world class doctors here, at an integrated practice. The surgeon I meet tomorrow works very closely with the oncologists who I meet in two weeks, and with the imaging center where I had my biopsy. They have a tumor board who meets every Friday to brainstorm and consult the best course of care for each patient. I will be in very good hands.
I also met with a good friend on a one-on-one basis about her experience going through this process, six months ahead of me. She saw the same surgeon, went to the same imaging center, and the same cancer center (different oncologist). I learned so much from her. The main thing I got from our talk was the speed with which they approached her care. She said from the surgical consult to the operation was about 9 days. The main delay was to get her off of her medications before she went in. I was allowed to see her pathology, and the proliferation index of her tumor was significantly lower than mine (hers qualified as low, mine as high). Once I saw that, my gut said this is going to move remarkably quickly.
I had a very painful weekend. I was pretty sure I was bruising heavier than I was supposed to from the biopsy. I had gone off of my NSAIDs on time, and waited two days to go back on them. I felt that was a mistake, and stopped them again on Sunday. My pain is a little less today, so I think that was the right call. But then today something occurred to me. Since December, I've been absolutely obsessed with drinking golden milk. This is made with a paste of turmeric, ginger, and other spices. I have had it almost every day for months. I've probably had three or four cups of it since the biopsy. It wasn't until just now that I googled whether turmeric is a blood thinner. Turns out it is, as well as ginger. Well, damn. Now I just feel dumb.
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