The News

I've been sitting here looking at this blank screen for what seems hours. I just can't wrap my head around things. Since Marion was diagnosed, this cancer is all I can really think about. I've been reading up on it, looking at some ghastly pictures of it, trying to find out how to get medical coverage for it. I'm just trying to cope with it the best way I know how and that is to put my every effort into actively learning about it.

Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should just trust what I hear from the doctors, oncologists, and social workers that have all paraded in front of me in what seems like a psychedelic blur. Perhaps I should have blind optimism in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Maybe I should just admit I'm scared and horribly petrified. I can wear this mask well, and act a clown, but all I want to do is cry nearly all day. I mean, I was getting better before today, but the hopes of a New Year dawning have been replaced with the overshadowing doubts of tomorrow.

We had an appointment today to meet Marion's primary oncologist. He was blunt (which I appreciated) and courteous. It's no longer a question of surgery to take care of the tumor, but a radiation and chemotherapy plan which I dreaded hearing (because upon hearing that I knew we were talking at least Stage IIB or IIIA or B cancer). I asked him how large the tumor was...and with the help of a vaginal model he indicated it incorporated the entire cervix. It's pressing onward, and he wasn't sure if it has metastasized to any other areas. He set us up with further testing to be completed soon.

I'm not sure how well I can hold up. I'm trying to stay positive, and Marion is so positive when faced with this it makes me wonder how I would be holding up with this type of diagnosis. She has that rare quality of hearing horrible things and just taking the punches as they come. She has a unique quality (perhaps naively) that everything will work out for the best. I just don't know. If the cancer has metastasized...I can't even finish that sentence. I don't even want to think about it. But, it's all I can think about whether consciously or unconsciously it is all that I DO think about. And, I can't stop. Whether it's thinking about Medicade or thinking about filing for disability or thinking about the side effects from her treatments or whatever...it consumes my every thought process. I try to relax and play a video game or watch TV, but it's all in a haze or some type of perpetual blur. People talk to me and I can't really concentrate on what they're telling me. I'm preoccupied with this horrible disease and I hate it and wish I could just go back to being a jaded son of a gun without any real worries. Now, I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, but I do fear the future.

I hope for the best, but absolutely am fearful of the worst.
And, that makes me sad. So sad.