gement | So about emotional reactions to cancer...

A quick emotional summary of my reactions, which are only mine and not a judgment on anyone else's:

I didn't have any particularly existential reaction. I found myself entirely unworried about probability curves that haven't collapsed into data yet. This is, again, not a judgment on people whose fear jumps to the deadly end of the curve. I was as surprised as anyone. Fear about that just... wasn't a thing. Not because I couldn't die, but because that was a non-calculable probability yet.

Instead, I had mostly blunt, short-term reactions like "I haven't opened my mail in six months or figured out how to use my HSA debit card, this is about to become a serious problem," and eventually, "Shit, I didn't actually want top surgery, what can I design that will leave me relatively happy with my chest shape?"

A guided tour of specific reactions:
I went in to get this lump checked, which I noticed when I had a cold, and said, "Eh, I figured it was just a lymph node freaking out at my immune system, but it hasn't gone away in a week..."

They said definitely ultrasound. I said, "Cool! Science!"

While prepping for the ultrasound, I cheerfully said out loud to the tech, "Hey, even if it turns out to be something real, free top surgery with no gatekeepers!" The tech blanched pretty badly.

After looking at the ultrasound as they did it, they said that due to x, y, and z, they wanted to biopsy this. I agreed, and let's go ahead and do that right now. Didn't even get up off the table.

They explained about putting a "clip" (a tiny titanium bb) in the mass where they biopsied it to mark the spot for later. I restrained the urge to cheer at becoming a cyborg. Barely.

Then I realized I was getting nervous. Why was I nervous? It was not because my mass was suspicious, no. It was because I hadn't gone in that morning expecting a procedure involving a needle, and I wasn't sure whether there would be local anaesthetic or they would just jab me. That was as far as the concern went. It was only later, talking with people, that I realized this was unusual.

When I got the "guess what, it's cancer," call, my actual first reaction, which I did not say out loud but thought in full sentences:

"Thank GOD, I'll finally manage to clean my room and open my mail!"

Some people treat cancer as a wake-up call that life is short, so maybe it's time to learn to play ukulele, dabble in foreign languages, shave your head for fun, go caving, or book an international trip. It turns out I have actually been doing well at that sort of list! (I did resolve to get laid more often, however.)

I've cried really violently three or four times in the last few weeks. One of those times was worrying about acquiring chest dysphoria. The rest were about coping with managing email communication, trying to make lists of people to actually talk to and talk to them.

Could be displacement. Really doesn't feel like it. This is not a metaphor. This is my deep, deep difficulties with mail logistics, social management, housecleaning, and paperwork. It's been the intractable bugbear of my therapy work for well over a decade, and if it takes cancer to kick its ass and let me get a new set of problems, hell yes, I'll take it.