Diagnosis: Afterparty

Waking up this morning at 8am to call the Oncologist the second they opened, I was a little bummed when they took my information and said the oncologist would call me back. I began to reply to a text from a friend when my phone rang no more than 5 minutes later. And then another call. And another call. And another. Everything began moving at such an extremely accelerated pace, I felt like the most important person in the entire hospital system. By 9am I was already getting bloodwork done. By 10am I had 2 more appointments scheduled this week. By 2pm I had a total of 5 appointments over the span of 2 weeks, including a liver biopsy first thing tomorrow morning (!!!)  I spent the entire day smiling from ear to ear, obsessed and truly captivated at the speed of which this was all going.

I have never felt as optimistic, confident, and cheerful as I have these past two days. Logically, it should be reversed having just gotten a cancer diagnosis but I have been deleriously jubilant since waking up Sunday morning. Finding silver linings everywhere (and not just the ones I’ve morbidly joked about like “Finally, I’ll lose this weight!”) Silver linings like finally having time to dive into the pile of books accumulating on my bookshelf, during inevitable recovery. As someone who tends to over-text, the increased quantity and rapidness of texts I’m getting back feels like what I’ve always dreamed of. Like a bunch of tiny digital hugs, I haven’t had a chance to feel lonely yet. I’m excited for the immediate bowel relief in the very near future once they get the big obstruction out. I’m excited how much time I’m going to get to spend with friends and family. And as I’ve done in every other bad situation in my past, I’m excited for all the things I’m going to learn, and the person I’m already becoming because of it. The Katrina of last week already feels like a distant stranger to me.

Perhaps it took cancer to change a lot about who I am, or my perspective on life; but if you don’t find at least one takeaway in the awful moments in your life, you’re sending yourself a direct invitation to the pity party. And while bouts of spontaneously crying haven’t yet stopped; they’re becoming fewer and shorter.

Until a doctor tells me otherwise, this cancer is just a chain of medical appointments, surgeries, and treatements to get through until this is all in the rearview mirror. What’s the point in worrying or being scared? How is that going to change anything except make me miserable in this current moment? (A perfect musical backdrop to this feeling is Jamiroquai’s “Canned Heat,” both in music and lyric.)

Something I realized today is that my optimism isn’t unhinged in the least, it’s my superpower, and I’ve been cultivating it my entire life so it was ready for this moment.