In Which I Employ a Tortured Metaphor

I've been feeling a bit automotive of late.

This might be because our own car has been through the wringer, what with the back window blowing out and the ragtop getting slashed and the engine slowly giving out.

But I think it's because—and bear with me through this terribly inapt analogy—I'm in the process of switching to a new oncologist, and in some ways it feels like I'm a car with a new mechanic. Actually, it feels like I'm a car that's been rebuilt after a serious collision, and the new mechanic wants to be sure that everything is working as it should be.

Now, I already do the equivalent of preventive maintenance and annual inspections on my own. In a typical year, I generally go for a physical, a mammogram and breast sonogram, an eye exam, and a skin-cancer screening, plus semi-annual trips to see my breast surgeon, my gynecologist, and my dentist. I see my rheumatologist (for the estrogen-withrawal-induced joint pain), my endocrinologist (for hypothyroidism), and my oncologist about every 3-4 months apiece. If I'm really on my game, I have my cholesterol checked a few times. And this year I'm due for a colonoscopy to boot.

All that stuff is pretty routine for me at this point. I don't get stressed about it beforehand, and I'm fortunate that I don't have "white-coat syndrome"—walking into a doctor's office doesn't automatically jack up my blood pressure. In general, I deal with these things pretty serenely.

But my serenity was challenged but good last week. My new doctor told me that she wanted me to have a follow-up PET/CT scan now that I was completely finished with my treatment. My brand of breast cancer has been particularly sneaky, she said, and she just wanted to be sure that it wasn't lurking somewhere, planning another assault.

I was a tiny bit unsettled when she said this. To this day, whenever anyone asks if I'm "okay now," I'm always circumspect. There's no definitive way to answer that question in the affirmative—unless by "now" the person means "right this very instant." But "now" typically means "as opposed to then"—it's a continuous state from "right this very instant" through the foreseeable future.

So I always say, "As far as we know" and try to leave it at that.

When the doctor told me she wanted to go for this test, it was a tacit acknowledgment of the fact that "as far as we know" really means "we don't know."

Because we don't.

And I have to live with that uncertainty every day, for the rest of my life.

And so do Zach and my parents and my sister, and everyone else in my family, and all of my friends.

The PET/CT is scary because a good result isn't all that comforting—things can always change—but a bad result can be devastating. So it's pretty hard to walk in with a carefree attitude.

And although I'm not typically a superstitious person, two things were nagging at the back of my mind. The first was that I was having the test the day before Zach's birthday, which meant that I'd be wondering about the results throughout the next day's festivities.

The second was that I'd completely forgotten my talisman that morning—I walked out of the house wearing something other than orange panties. Zach tried to convince me that this was a good thing, that I'd gotten to the point where I no longer needed a talisman, but it unnerved me just the same.

And then things did not go smoothly at the radiology place. We arrived on time but started a bit late because it took so long to fill out all of the paperwork. The tests are done on a very precise schedule, so the delay did not endear us to anyone. After a few preliminaries, Zach was sent back to the waiting room, and I was prepped for the test, which mainly involved getting injected with a radioactive dye. The only problem was that the technician could not find a working vein.

And by "could not find" I don't mean "was unable to locate." (That would have been far preferable.) Instead, I mean the guy jabbed me with a needle, did some painful excavation, succeeded in causing my vein to collapse, and then repeated the whole process again—and again—before giving up and calling in reinforcements.

It took three people a total of six tries—including one in my foot—to get a viable vein, which means that I've been walking around ever since with enough bruises and needle marks to pass for a longtime drug addict.

The exceptionally good news, which I got two days later, is that the test results were perfectly normal.

So can I deal with a few temporary dents and dings?

You bet.

Because the rest of my chassis is in pretty good shape.