Cathy Coley

I received the call from the doctor yesterday and heard what I needed in his voice. The mass is cancerous but it’s low grade, and the lymph node biopsy was negative, so far it seems. There is another wonky lymph node, he’ll get a better look when he removes the mass. Next Tuesday is the pathology report appointment and we will figure out how to proceed from there. I’m in a much better place than I was before and through the wait until the call. I was doing quality of life planning, from how the doctor and the prior screenings’ doctor and tech were acting. Everyone was very nice, but there’s a tonal change in voice, a quickening of pace of a mammo spot check technician, a quieting of a chatty sonogram tech, a level of vocal concern and eyes from the attending radiologist who immediately swooped into the room. I’m an extremely empathetic person, and as much as they were professional and tried to conceal, I read the rooms easily.

I’ve been through so much in my life already, and this is just another detour, through a pandemic. Any plans I ever made have had the wooden rickety detour sign thrown up in its path. As my friends Jeannine and Rose said, “yeah, but this is the crapola detour.” That was before yesterday’s call, that what we are looking at will likely be highly effectively treatable.

I’m grateful for a support cohort of close friends from throughout my life in four different states who have my back, who will make me laugh, and allow me to laugh at the ridiculousness of my tumble down a staircase - screw mixed metaphors - that has always been. I have another in another country who has come out the other side of another female cancer. I have dubbed her my Cancer Rollercoaster Buddy Tour Guide. I can’t tell you how much it means that I have all of their support and her extremely no bullshit responses to my questions.

I have many other friends and relatives who are being notified by this post. I’m a little concerned about a coming flood of sympathy responses. I know it’s coming from a loving place, but I’m not sure I can handle all of that, I need to keep a lot of this close to home among the main cohort.

So for now, on top of my usual chronic pain issues, special needs spawn management, pandemic distance learning for one of them, we add the Cthulhu Boob, because it looks like I’m growing a baby Cthulhu in there. And if I can’t laugh my way through cancer, why the hell am I even here?

I made a T-shirt last week that grew out of another conversation Jeannine and I had that sums up how we react in the pandemic, to my own extraordinary circumstances, and our political landscape at this time: Cheerful Nihilist. I’ll laugh like a hyena if I have to, I kind of do anyway, and this is how I always get by.

Thanks for stopping by, hope all is well in your covid nightmare.

Love and monkeys,

Cath