Answer Day. Or so, We hope

Today is information day! I’ve been in a ton of pain for about ten days and I’m seeing my local oncologist to hope and get some answers about this pain in my hip and lower back.

I hate the phrase local oncologist, by the way. It’s demeaning. He’s only local because he chooses to practice where I live and I live where he practices. He’s not my gardener. He doesn’t do house calls. It’s like when people call me a local actor. I’m only local because I came back home. I came back home because I needed to! And since I’ve been here, I’ve worked all over the place. But “Good Writer and Actor Who Works All Over the Place and Just Happens to Live Here” doesn’t make god copy. And you sound like an asshole for asking for it.

My non-local oncologist, the one in Atlanta called me this morning. They wants to do an MRI of my pelvis. I want to get it done here in Greenville so I don’t have to drive all the way and put more pressure on my back. They don’t care where they do it, I’ve just got to tell them where to put my order in. But to be in pain and now have to worry about who is doing my MRI is just one more annoying thing to deal with. And then all the logistics: Will they ever get the reports? Will this be an MRI lost in the wind? Should I just suck it up and drive down there so they can have everything in one place?

These are the things I think about now. Not, gee, where should I go hiking today.

I almost went to the hospital so many times between now and getting back from Atlanta last week, but each time something new happened that kept me from not going — I dosed off at the just the right time of the night. Or I slept for two hours during the day and felt just better enough to not to go in. Because I knew this day, seeing him in the office, was coming and if I could just get here, maybe I could skip the Emergency Room.

Because ERs and Hospitals are always last place resorts. That’s where people would go who had no other options. That’s what I was told as a kid. The polite thing was to go and see the doctor and let them figure out what to do. I don’t know if that has any slice of truth to it, but that’s how I’ve felt since I was a kid.

I’ve been to the hospital two times over the past three and a half years. The first time was for my surgery and I left a new man.The second time was 3 a half months ago, I felt like a new man. I could handle feeling like a new man now.

But each time there’s been a cost. The first time I had to start chemo. The second time I did radiation and lost the use of the right side of my face.

Will there be a cost this time? Maybe they can just fix things and get me on my way quickly.

The thing that scares me most is that what if there is no answer? What if I go to the hospital, where all the medical answers are and they’re like, ‘Hey, we can’t stop this pain for you,”

That’s my fear. That it will be this way forever. Which is a thought almost too much to bear.