The good news – aside from the fact that my pathology report was finally available and my tumour hadn’t gotten lost in the shuffle – was that the tumour was smaller than expected. It was 1.1cm instead of 1.9cm.

The second piece of good news was that the tumour was very low grade. This three-point scale measures how aggressive the tumour is. Mine was a ‘1′ – a nice, mellow, laid-back tumour.

The third piece of good news was that pathology confirmed that the lymph nodes were clear (there was a 5% chance that they would be cancerous even though the initial exam during surgery said they were clear. But they’re 100% clear.).

The fourth piece of good news was that the “highways” to the lymph nodes were also clear, which I think means that the cancer wasn’t even on its way to the lymph nodes yet.

Then she got to the bad news, which is that there’s a chance she didn’t get all the cancer the first time round, and I need more surgery. She got clear margins around the tumour on almost all sides, but there’s an area of microscopic growth in one area that extends beyond the edges of the tissue that was removed. In order to ensure that the tumour doesn’t regrow, she needs to go back in and take out more tissue.

Which leads us to the other bad news, which is that it’s going to be difficult to schedule this surgery in a timely manner, because the operating rooms are booked solid from now until the end of time. It looks like we’re waiting for a cancellation or other stroke of luck.

“So,” I said, “I guess this is going to delay everything else – chemo, radiation, the referral to the oncologist?”

That’s when she gave me the final piece of good news. I may not need chemo after all. Normally they do chemo if the lump is over a centimeter, and mine is just over. But since it’s a very low-grade tumour, they might decide chemo isn’t necessary. It’s the oncologist’s call (and mine too, of course, but I’ll attach a lot of weight to the oncologist’s recommendation).

So, in the end, this feels like a healthy balance of good and bad news. Even though it sucks that I have to do everything twice (ultrasound, biopsy, and now surgery), it’ll be well worth it if it means I get out of chemotherapy.

Chemo works on the premise of poisoning you for your own good. It takes four or five months and it’s hard and unpleasant. You lose all your hair and it has other more hidden and more disturbing side effects that most people are reluctant to talk about.

Of course, if she finds more cancer when she goes back in (there’s a 10% chance), then I’ll likely have to go through chemo after all. It’s a chance I have to take, because I have no choice.

But right now I’m feeling lucky.

I called the breast cancer clinic to find out if my pathology report for my tumour was in, because it’s now been over three weeks since the operation and it was supposed to be ready in two weeks.

Much to my happy surprise, they said yes it WAS in. However my surgeon wasn’t in – she was at the hospital all day and she wouldn’t be back in the clinic until Monday. I didn’t want to wait until Monday, so they were kind enough to offer to fax it over to the hospital.

A little while later I got a call from someone who said my doctor wouldn’t have a chance to call me until much later, but since I was anxious for the results, she’d be happy, in the meantime, to tell me what the bottom line was.

And then she read the bottom line. It said something about no evidence of dysplasia, and no evidence of any malignancy.

I gasped.

“No evidence of any malignancy?” I asked, incredulous.

“Right. That’s a good thing,” she replied.

“Doesn’t that mean there’s no cancer?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said happily.

Then there was a long silence while I absorbed this incredible news. It was during this long pause that my head did that weird spinning thing and snapped off my neck and bounced on the floor.

She read a little bit more out loud. She got to the word bilateral, and then something clicked and I interrupted her.

“Are you sure you’re not looking at the pathology report for the biopsy on my left breast?” I asked.

She paused.

“Yes,” she said, “That’s what it is.”

“I’ve already gotten those results,” I said, “I’m waiting for the pathology report from the lumpectomy on my right breast.”

“Oh!” she cried. And then she was very very apologetic, and said this was what had just been faxed to her so she just assumed it was the correct report. She was so sorry. And she said she’d call the clinic right back to see if they had the other report.

She didn’t call back, so I assume my pathology report is still MIA.

Anyway, it was so weird, for a minute there, thinking I didn’t have cancer after all. I’ve heard of this happening to other people – finding out they didn’t have cancer after all – and they sued the pants off everybody in sight. I always wondered why they were so litigious about the whole thing – after all, it was a happy ending, a second chance, a reprieve. Why wouldn’t they just fall to their knees, weeping with joy?

Well, now I know. I didn’t feel even an iota of joy or relief during that moment when I thought I didn’t have cancer after all. All I felt was absolutely incredulous that the health care system could have put me through so much for so long for nothing. By mistake.

So anyway, I still have cancer. And my head was okay after I dusted it off and screwed it back on. Life goes on.

• Affront to Old People #2
• What the Hell are Young People Thinking?

JUMBO

This one’s for Arden, who was surprised that the wheelchair in yesterday’s picture wasn’t occupied. (Duncan likes to live with a chair for a few hours before he claims it as his own.)

Duncan gives his benediction

And this is the first knitting project I’ve completed in about a year and a half. It’s a Berry Hat for Bella. I’m working on a wee shrug for her too, in sugar cane yarn.

Bella's Berry Hat

I’m looking for a pattern for the perfect hat for BruceZRX, who is one and a half and has striking blue eyes. Nothing too cutesy, because he’s got that wise old soul quality to him. Suggestions?

In the good news department, the neurosurgeon’s office called to schedule an intake appointment! I’m seeing him on July 30th. This is a great big step in the right direction. I have no idea how long his surgical wait times are, but I feel much better now that I’m no longer sitting in limbo, gathering dust.

Meanwhile, my breast tumour appears to be sitting in limbo, gathering dust. After they remove a breast tumour they send it to the pathology lab where it’s carefully examined and subjected to numerous tests. This is because every tumour is different, and each individual’s treatment plan must be tailored to each individual’s unique tumour.

At the conclusion of all these tests, a pathology report is prepared for the surgeon. The surgeon then conveys the results to the patient, and refers her to an oncologist who uses the pathology report to prepare a treatment plan.

Anyway, this whole process normally takes two weeks. My tumour went into the system three weeks ago, and hasn’t been heard from since. No pathology report. No referral to an oncologist. No treatment plan. Just more waiting, and once again, more worrying. (What if they lost my tumour? What if they found something really freaky about my tumour so they had to do extra tests?)

The nice thing about having two big health issues at the same time is that you can use one to distract yourself from the other. I probably worry far less about my breast cancer than most people because my back problem is more demanding. Breast cancer can be deadly but at least it’s painless and quiet. Back pain, on the other hand, is like a two-year-old locked in a perpetual temper tantrum.

zoom zoom zoom

I don’t need the wheelchair all the time. I don’t need it around the house, fortunately, since my house is a veritable wheelchair obstacle course. And I don’t need it for things that consist mostly of sitting down. But I do need it for anything that requires me to walk or stand more than three consecutive minutes. Like the Farmers Market, or Canadian Tire, or the art gallery, or the corner store, or going out for a ‘walk.’

I have mixed feelings about the wheelchair. I’m still not used to having it in my house, so this morning when I came downstairs and saw it there, I felt a bit of an emotional jolt.

My self image is incompatible with a wheelchair. I’ve always been a walker, and not just in the sense that I have legs and I’m human. I loved walking. I walked way more than anybody I knew. It was my primary mode of transportation. I walked everywhere. I was a natural born walker.

You see what’s happening? I’m talking about walking in the past tense. Because now I can only walk for three minutes, and there’s a wheelchair in my vestibule.

On the other hand, I’m kind of excited about the wheelchair, because it represents a little freedom. I can start doing things again. I can get out there. Besides, it’s only temporary, right? Until I get my legs back.

Out loud! With a microphone! While the audience LOOKS at them!

I’m starting to shake and sweat just thinking about it, which is why I’ve weaseled my way out of full-fledged participation. The unflappable XUP has kindly offered to read one of my posts out loud for me at the event.

I’ll be there, of course, because I think Blog Out Loud is a brilliant idea and Lynn has done an impressive job of pulling it – and us – all together.

So now I have to pick a post from my blog archives for XUP to read. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Quick question for you Mac users. How do you save an image from a web page? On a PC you right-click it and choose save as, but I can’t figure out how to do it in Safari.

Harvest

Last night we ate a green pepper and some tomatoes and swiss chard from our very own garden patch. And a strawberry too. (Yes, just one. But it was the best strawberry either one of us had ever tasted.)

And look at this. Zucchini bread! I made it this afternoon from a homemade zucchini!

Homemade Zucchini Bread made with Homemade Zucchini

I had no idea it was so easy to make a vegetable. You just give it a little bit of a helping hand to get started – like, you push a seed into the soil – and then it practically makes itself.

Zoom & GC's Garden Patch

It’s magic.

And he’s right, it has. We’ve had a lot of good things happen to us too, especially falling in love. If I had to choose between changing everything that has happened over the past year and changing nothing, I’d cheerfully change nothing.

Speaking of good things, some kind friends lent us their cottage for the weekend, and we spent a lovely lazy weekend without any interruptions, including self-imposed ones. As much as we both love the internet, it was a refreshing change not having it at our fingertips.

We spent hours on Sunday sitting in a porch swing, me knitting a baby sweater and GC reading a book out loud. The birds sang and the breeze played in the trees, and we swung gently in the dappled sunlight, and life felt perfectly uncomplicated.

My legs only hurt when I walked, so I mostly just triangulated between the futon, the porch swing and the outhouse.

Speaking of outhouses, this was the nicest one I’ve ever been in. It smelled good, and it had a big window looking into the forest, so it wasn’t dark and creepy like most outhouses.

I’m a bit of an expert on outhouses, by the way. My expertise predates – by a long shot – my 2007 Bluesfest porta-potty series.

I was introduced to outhouses when I was about six years old and we were visiting somebody’s cottage. The hostess showed us our bedroom, and pulled a metal basin from under the bed.

“This,” she announced, ” is the chamberpot!”

I looked to my big sister for an explanation and she looked to Mom.

Our hostess, seeing our puzzled faces, explained.

“If you have to go to the bathroom after bedtime, you go in here.”

If I thought that was bizarre, it was nothing compared to the outhouse. She led us down a path to a wooden hut. It was so small I thought it must be a playhouse, until she opened the door and the most revolting odor came billowing out. The only thing in there was a toilet seat on a bench, millions of flies, and dozens of giant hairy spiders with thick muscular legs. It was beyond disgusting.

“During the day,” she said pleasantly, “you go to the bathroom in here.”

What?? She couldn’t be serious! I was appalled.

I put off using the outhouse as long as humanly possible but eventually I had no choice. (I don’t know why it never occurred to me to just go in the bushes, but it didn’t.) I ran down the path, held my breath, stepped inside, and made the fatal mistake of peering down the hole. It was worse than I had imagined. But I desperately had to pee. I latched the door shut, and the outhouse became pitch black, save for a sliver of light coming in from the crescent moon cutout high up on the door. The buzz of the flies was awful and I imagined snakes biting my bum while I peed. A spiderweb brushed against my arm and petrified me.

It was with enormous relief that I finally burst out of the outhouse, and gulped some uncontaminated air. (Remember, I had been holding my breath the whole time so I wouldn’t have to inhale the stench of the festering pit of poo.)

That evening at suppertime, I was picking at my meal in my usual picky-eater way when someone mentioned that the meat was delicious, what kind was it?

“Rabbit,” replied our hostess. My fork froze and I lifted my eyes to look at her. She had to be joking, right? People don’t eat rabbits. People don’t eat animals. I wondered if she was one of those grown-ups who think it’s funny to see how gullible kids are. But she hadn’t been kidding about the outhouse, and she didn’t look like she was kidding now.

I put my fork down.

“Don’t you like it?” she asked.

“I don’t eat animals,” I said.

“Sure you do,” she replied, “You eat hamburgers, don’t you?”

“Hamburgers aren’t animals,” I said.

Everybody laughed.

“Hamburgers are cows!” she said.

I didn’t believe it until my mother confirmed it.

“And you eat bacon, don’t you?” asked the woman.

I loved bacon.

“Pigs!” laughed the woman.

My mother nodded.

I had been eating pigs and cows all my life and nobody had told me? I lost my appetite. I felt sick.

By now I thoroughly disliked our hostess, seeing her as some kind of barbaric freak who peed in a pot under the bed, ate bunny rabbits, and had a filthy house full of rotting poo instead of a regular bathroom.

Speaking of poo, the next day I had to go, but couldn’t bear the thought of spending that long in the outhouse. I couldn’t hold my breath that long.

All day long I worried about the impending poo.

Late in the afternoon I whispered to my mom that I was sick and was going to bed.

I climbed into bed, waited a few minutes, then got up and pooped in the chamberpot. It felt weird and wrong, but it was so much better than the alternative. Then I slid the chamberpot under the bed and climbed back into bed. Of course it stunk, but nowhere near as bad as the million festering poos in the outhouse.

My mom came in to check on me a little later and it took her about three seconds to figure out what had happened and why. Nobody was very impressed with me for pooping in the chamberpot, but that was a small price to pay for the privilege of not pooping in the outhouse.

So…what to do when you’re pretty much confined to your couch and the internet is down and you don’t have a TV? Read, write, sleep and…

Knit! I’ve cast on a little hat for Bella, the first member of our family’s next generation, who is scheduled to make her debut in November. I bought some luscious Araucania yarn to make a wee shrug for her. I want to make some socks for her tiny little feet too.

(Every time the Internet comes back up, I interrupt my knitting to rush over to ravelry.com for a fix of knitting fantasies and fiber lust.)

I couldn’t sleep last night because of the pain. Usually it’s in my left leg, but last night it was in my right leg too. It hurts worse when you’re just lying there with nothing to do but feel pain, so I got up and checked on my knitting. I’d accidentally started the hat on 4mm needles instead of 3.75mm needles, so I searched my stash for 3.75mm needles. You know what’s worse than not finding any 3.75mm needles? Finding one 3.75mm needle.

I also came across a number of almost-finished projects that I ought to finish before I start anything new. The Central Park Hoodie. The Nashua basketweave vest. The yoga mat bag. GC’s scarf. Not only that, but I’ve got yarn for several projects I haven’t even started yet, including a gorgeous Mission Falls sweater that I’ll probably never make because I’ve sworn off fair isle knitting. It’s the one on the cover of the Mission Falls Decade pattern book.

What else is new? I cooked and ate some seaweed mixed with onions and cabbage and grated carrots and sunflower seeds. It wasn’t that bad. (It wasn’t that good, either.) I’m trying to bolster my immune system and top up my nutritional reserves before the next phase of treatment, which will probably be chemo.

I had my final appointment with the cancer surgeon yesterday, but there wasn’t much to it since the pathology report hadn’t come in yet. There was nothing for her to do except look at my breast and admire her handiwork.

I tried to get her to use her considerable influence to urge the neurosurgeon to make me a priority, but she said she couldn’t because my back problem was unrelated to the cancer. She did say, however, that it’ll likely be resolved in months, not years, so that was encouraging.

Basically, here’s where things are at on the back front:

1. The neurosurgeon accepted my doctor’s referral, and his office will call me someday to schedule an initial appointment. (”Please be patient,” the letter said, “as wait times vary.”)

2. Eight days ago I emailed my MP, Paul Dewar, and my MPP, Yasir Naqvi, and asked them if they could do anything to help me. No response from Dewar yet. Naqvi’s office asked me for my phone number so he could phone, but he hasn’t yet.

3. A few days ago I contacted the woman who laid me off, who is very well connected in the health field, and asked her if she could help. She said she knows the neurosurgeon and would call his office.

In the meantime, I’m just sitting here eating seaweed and knitting and waiting for the phone to ring. Ho hum.

The thing I was getting at, right before I sabotaged myself with that meaning of life thing, was that knowing you’re going to die someday is very different from knowing you’re going to die someday soon.

In those dark days and weeks, I felt things I’d never felt before, and I felt them in ways I’d never imagined. They weren’t even big profound things, they were small, simple, heartfelt things.

In retrospect, I think I was grieving. It’s a strange thing, grieving your own death.

GC and I love to poke around in bookstores. One evening during the dark days, we stopped into Chapters and it was an entirely different experience for me.

I found about a dozen books I wanted to read. There’s nothing unusual about that; it happens every time I go into a bookstore. I talked myself out of buying them, which is also normal. What was different was that normally I would remind myself that I have all kinds of unread books at home, and I should check the library or wait until I see them at a garage sale, and if I need to buy them now, well, they’re almost certainly cheapter at Amazon.ca. But this time it was simply that there was no point buying books to read ’someday.’ I should just buy the one book I most want to read today. I had reached a place where it only made sense to buy things one at a time. There was no need to stock up or save for a rainy day. Today was the rainy day. It was time to start living.

It’s not such a bad thing, living for today. But it was a startling thing to have my relationship to the future revealed to me in Chapters.

You might remember that I was busy implementing the Getting Things Done system when I got diagnosed. The irony of that is delicious. I stopped Getting Things Done immediately; it was enough to simply get through the days. The only thing that mattered anymore was knowing what really mattered.

There’s something liberating about thinking you’re going to die soon. I mean, it’s kind of a kick in the head, and you’d rather live, but if you’re anything like me, you immediately start looking for the silver lining.

For a brief moment there, during the vast unknown phase of cancer, during the information-gathering process, between the ultrasound and the bone scan, between the biopsy and the MRI, between the diagnosis and the prognosis, between life and death – for a brief moment, I faced my own death with a philosophical shrug.

It’s not so bad, I said, to be dying young. To be getting on with the business of dying rather than the business of living. To be retired, rather than laid off. To be deciding what’s important enough to bother with, and what can be left undone, forever. To write the book or the story or the poem or the blog post that will be the last. To have it all be now, instead of later. To finally live like there’s no tomorrow. It’s not so bad.

And then the test results started trickling in, and it became apparent that life will go on for awhile yet. I’m laid off, not retired. I must get on with the business of living. Of putting things off and Getting Things Done. There’s still the luxury of an endless succession of tomorrows.

If you’ve made it this far, I’ll let you in on what I’ve discovered so far about the meaning of life: The meaning of life is about finding pleasure or joy or meaning in the ordinary. It’s about loving your morning shower. It’s about appreciating who you are and what you have. It’s about not craving more all the time. It’s about putting more emphasis on the present than on the future or the past. It’s about surrounding yourself with the people and things that make you feel good. It’s about helping other people feel good. It’s about having a few things that you love, not a lot of things that you don’t. It’s about quality, not quantity, in all things, including life itself.

But you probably already knew that, right?