Miguel…….Scared the Hell…….Outta Me……..Again……..

About six months ago, I came home one night after working in school all day and teaching a university class at night; and I found a message from Miguel at the Cancer Institute. His message was that I should call to make an appointment. It was way past the time the Institute would have closed, so I had to wait until the next day. I had never heard of a Miguel there before, and the thought that I was supposed to make an appointment for I didn’t know what scared the Hell out of me. I conjured up all kinds of thoughts, trying not to reach the hysterical plateau. I called first thing in the morning. He said I needed to schedule a mammogram. I told him how scary it is for a cancer patient to get a phone message like that. He replied that due to whatever privacy laws (I always get the acronym wrong, so I’m not going to attempt it here), he couldn’t say any more than that when leaving a message. The other day I came home again after a long day, after the Cancer Institute would be closed; and there was a message from Miguel to call and schedule an appointment. I had the slightest memory of going through this with him before, but I got all riled up anyway. Here comes Hell again. First of all, Dr. Manno said I didn’t need a mammogram until February so why would Miguel call me for one now. So, I pondered why he must have called. I had a Herceptin treatment the previous week and they took blood for labs. Since that was late in the day on Wednesday, I figured no one did anything with the results until at least Monday or Friday. One of those days Dr. Manno sets aside for research and writing so he probably didn’t see my results on one of those days. Someone probably pointed out something to him yesterday, causing Miguel to call me. Something probably showed up in my blood work. I don’t know what they check my blood for; I thought it was for white blood count, and whatever else. I decided my blood work probably indicated, well, the only thing that made sense was Leukemia. After all, that’s related to blood. I tried not to get too worked up, thinking I was going to need to sleep that night to face another day at Harmon during the first week of students returning for the new year. I dredged up the former memory of Miguel and calmed down, thinking his call was related to a mammogram. I called him as early as possible the next morning. That’s what it was. I told him what the doctor had said and that I remembered the doctor turning to the computer at that time, supposedly entering that information on my electronic chart. I asked Miguel to please call back and let me know either way what the result of his checking was. He didn’t bother. Since he has to be so careful with what he says in a phone message, couldn’t he have said, “Excuse the last message. You were right.” ?? I guess once you’ve had cancer, the thought of it is never out of your consciousness, not that it really could be, given the aftermath of surgery; wearing a prosthetic every day; intermittent pain and discomfort; and on-going preventative treatments, drugs, and lab work. It’s not all that surprising then that a phone call from the Cancer Institute can send you into a swirl of thoughts about what they want, what might be happening to you, and where the cancer may have decided to attack your body. You can try all you want to keep those thoughts away, but they come upon you regardless. This time, I got off easy