A Matter of Trust

In the last two years, I have had learn to trust.  Not something that comes easily to me, I have learned.

I have never been one to dive in, head first.  No, I’m more one for reading the signs, consulting, testing the waters with my toes, and then slowly lowering myself in, close to the sides so that I can grab on to something quickly if needed.

I’ve had to learn to let go and just swim, sometimes in dark, deep waters, with the sharks, trusting that it will all be okay.  I’ve had to learn to trust.  To have faith.

My ultrasound report came back all clear this week.  Great news!  What I had been waiting for.  And it is great news.  Except, my doctor said it wasn’t the most conclusive test.  To completely rule out a new cancer, which could be an underlying cause for a lab test result, I would have to undergo a more invasive procedure.  So, the question was, do I undergo that test.

My doctor wasn’t sure.  He said that if I were a 65 year old smoker, he would definitely make me do the test.  If I were a 25 year old, he would definitely say I don’t need it. So where do I fit?  I’m kind of in the middle.  I would have thought my history of cancer pushed me to the 65 year old, but he said that didn’t put me at a higher risk for this type of cancer.  Then he realized that I have actually had the other procedure two years ago (to investigate my surgical complications) and even though two years ago seems a long time ago to me, he said it is recent enough that I don’t have to redo that test.

So, he doesn’t know for sure, but he is doing a risk assessment.  I prefer no risk.  However, he reminded me that there are no “no risk” options.  There is always a risk in a procedure, though it may be small.  I guess it is reassuring that he feels that the risk of my actually having that other thing wrong with me is even smaller.

So I have to learn to trust his judgement, and it is hard for me, but I have to do just that.

My husband would say it is a matter of having faith.  He says that he believes certain things even though he may not have the supportive, scientific facts at his fingertips, which is what I would like to have.  “But how can you believe something without evidence?” I ask.  “It is simple, he tells me.  The alternative is intolerable.”

I’ve learned that he is right.  Not trusting, not believing, not having faith is an impossibly difficult and cold way to live.

My future sister-in-law recently told me that she is an atheist.  Twenty years ago, I would have found that to be a reasonable position.  And I don’t want to judge, but I wish I could tell her that life will be very difficult without something to believe in.  It doesn’t have to be God, but everyone needs something.

And where is the evidence that there is no God?

Me, I believe in Deius Ex Machina.  A concept that my high school English teacher explained to us.  God as Machine.  It occurs when you are backed into a corner, and it is not humanly possible to get out of the situation.  In books and movies, the plotline seems to magically get resolved.  Well, I don’t think this is possible only in fiction.   It has happened to me.  Just when I think there is no way out, a hand reaches in and gets me out.  I believe it is the Hand of God.

I still prefer to have scientific facts on hand.  But I believe there is something more.  Sometimes, I have a hard time remembering that.  It is sometimes a real struggle and may always be.  I may never have faith the way that Jaime does.  But I have come a long way, and I have learned to have faith and trust.  Even to trust my doctor.

I asked for a repeat lab test, though, just to have some more evidence.  

 

 

 

 

It's raining again

It’s Monday, and it’s raining today.  Not a warm, spring rain.  It’s cold again, and it’s windy.

The weather suits how I am feeling today.  Tired, and with a feeling of nervousness and dread in the pit of my stomach.  It’s because I have an ultrasound coming up this week.  My doctor ordered it as a result of some abnormal lab results as well as symptoms I mentioned. 

I have been through this before.  In the last two years, I have had 5 scans, 5 ultrasounds, one major surgery, and 4 other procedures.  Only a few of them were disastrous, but that has been enough to make me literally sick when anything to do with the medical system comes up.  When I am scheduled for a test, I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t concentrate, I can’t enjoy my family or friends or a sunny day, I can’t even watch T.V. or read a book.  My body clenches up and won’t relax until I know the result.

I try to breathe and meditate.  I try to concentrate on my singing bowl.  I try to reflect on the words of Sri Chinmoy.  This helps a little bit.

I am worried about Wednesday’s tests because of the abnormal lab results.  It is still possible that it could be nothing.  It is also possible that it could be cancer.  The same one or another one.  My specialist was not overly concerned that it was the same one, but she said that my family doctor should do a “work-up”.  At first I was reassured, but then I realized that all she was saying was that this is not her area of responsibility and referring me back to my family doctor.  The medical field is as big a bureaucracy as anything else.

It could be things in between.

I don’t what it is, and I am trying not to worry.  My family and friends don’t want me to worry.  My parents worry more when I worry.  But not worrying at moments like this is a skill that I have not yet mastered through this whole ordeal.  How does one not worry in theses situations?  Who doesn’t worry?   I want some names.

I try not to show my worry 90 percent of the time – at work, in front of my kids and parents, in social situations.  It comes out at night when I am briefly alone with Jaime or when I am in bed, unable to sleep.  I am letting it come out here, because this is one of the reasons for my blog.

I prepare for impending disaster.  I abandon my multi-grain bread and almond butter in favour of soft white bread and butter that will go down easier.  I make a strategic plan for taking Ativan.  Do I need it most now or after the test, when I am waiting for a phone call, that could come at any time, with the result?  Do I take an Ativan before the test or do I try to keep my head clear and alert to read the possible signs that the technician may give me?  I don’t think I can do that.  An ultrasound was one of my most traumatic moments.  The one which was looking more closely at what was thought to be a fibroid and then wasn’t.  The technician kept looking and looking and pushing down.  She changed me to another machine.  Then she called a doctor in to have a look.  The doctor looked, nodded at her, but did not say anything to me or even meet my eyes.  He left wordlessly.  I blurted out to the technician, “Is it cancer?  Please tell me what you are seeing.  I am getting so scared.”  She didn’t know how to respond, mumbling something about how we can’t know for sure through imaging.  But I knew that they thought it might be cancer.  I was shaking when I came out of the room.

I’ve had good tests too since then, but it hasn’t all been clear and smooth sailing since either.  So I don’t know what to expect.  My emergency preparedness instincts kick in.  I prepare for the worst. 

I try to let myself hope for the best.

Easter. Road trip. Family. Friends. Secrets

On Easter weekend, I packed up my family and took them on a road trip to Toronto.  Normally, I wouldn’t have thought about going away at Easter since it is a weekend with expectations to eat dinner with parents and design Easter egg hunts and other activities for children.  However, friends invited us to go along with them, and I try to live my life now seizing opportunities when they appear.  It was an opportunity to go on a road trip and spend time with our good friends.

Since we were going in the Toronto-direction, I decided to add on to the trip to give it a special family significance.  Of course, we would visit Jaime’s brother in Toronto who had just gotten engaged.  Congratulate him in person.  But I also thought it would be an opportunity to introduce my kids to the only relatives they have in the country – one of the only few in the whole continent – a distant great aunt and uncle and a third cousin to my children.

We had discovered these relatives in Toronto when I was about twelve years old living in Sydney.  My parents’ friends were all doctors and they mentioned one day that a young locum with the same surname as ours had come to work in the hospital for a few weeks.  My parents figured out that this young locum happened to be the son of my father’s first cousin in Toronto.  We invited T to dinner several times while he was doing his locum in Sydney and got to know him.  That summer, my family did a road trip from Sydney to Toronto to visit T’s parents, my aunt and uncle.  They took us to their cottage (perhaps that is where my love of cottages began) and to Niagara Falls.  It is one of my happiest memories.

About 15 years ago, my parents moved to the Toronto area, where they lived for a few years.  I would visit them from Ottawa and we would get together with my aunt and uncle and my cousin T and his family.  When my parents moved to Ottawa, they kept in touch with my aunt and uncle, and there were a couple of visits, but I hadn’t seen them in about ten years.

So, when my friends asked if we would like to go to Ottawa, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to go and see my relatives.  I deferred to my parents to make the initial calls, but there seemed to be a lot of reluctance on the part of my relatives to see us. I was finally given T’s wife (K)’s phone number and called her.  She was warm and friendly and confessed that she and T had been separated since last September.  The problem was that my aunt and uncle were terribly upset and wanting to keep it a secret from everyone, including my parents.   

I felt bad about unravelling this family secret – though I later learned that this was just the tip of the iceberg – but I understood.  Indian parents keep secrets.  My parents keep secrets too.  I am sure they hadn’t mentioned to my aunt and uncle about my cancer.  And, there wasn’t any way out of it at that point.  I said we would visit K and her daughter and their new puppies at the very least.  If she could persuade T to come by, so much the better.  We would also go visit my aunt and uncle separately.

On Good Friday, we set off, stopping at Port Hope where K and her daughter I live, en route to Toronto.  T came too, and we all had a lovely visit.  They served up tea and banana bread.  T impressed Aveen with his soccer knowledge, and Aveen and Amrita were both enraptured with the two golden retriever puppies.  The visit flew by and Aveen asked why we had never come to see them before.  “I don’t know,” I honestly said. 

The next stop was the big city.  We met up with our friends, and had a wonderful weekend in Toronto – eating two fabulous dinners together, visiting the amazing new Ripley’s Aquarium, climbing up the CN Tower, and then having Jaime’s brother give us a personalized tour of the ROM (where he is a tour guide).  Before leaving Toronto, we had lunch with Jaime’s brother and his fiancée and found out all about their wedding plans. 

On our way back, we visited my aunt and uncle.  My aunt cried when she saw us.  She had prepared a huge meal though we had agreed on only tea.  We managed only a few bites since we had already had lunch and had eaten so much throughout the weekend.  Aveen and Amrita thought it was hilarious that my aunt is exactly like my mother and my uncle is exactly like my father (even though it is my aunt and father who are the ones who are related).  My aunt cried again as we left.

Back in Ottawa, I e-mailed K to thank her for arranging the visit.  In reply, she sent me a long e-mail, explaining in detail the cause of her separation from T.  It wasn’t what I would have expected – a couple growing apart from each other over the years.  No, it was much more dramatic and sad, involving their daughter and terrible things that can happen how those things tear apart a family.

There was something pulling me to visit my relatives in Toronto.  I wanted something.  I wanted to give my kids a bigger family.  In the back of my head, I feel that if anything should happen to me, I want Aveen and Amrita to have as big a support network of family and friends possible.  However, I learned that there may have been another reason that I needed to visit.  It is I who may be able to give some help and support to this family.  It is they who need a big support network right now.

Or maybe it is that we both need each other.  We all have our secrets.  We all have our sadness.  We can support and lean on each other, if only we will talk to each other.