Light Hearted

Two days ago my doctor called me to say that the cat scan I had last week showed that I have a mass in my colon. It could be cancer, he intoned. I should get a colonoscopy right away and see a GI doctor. He told me I would have an appointment in two weeks with this specialist.
Is it anything serious?
Circuitous obfuscation.

Yesterday, I sat cold and exposed on the specialist's table--two weeks earlier than my appointment and very shaky. This doctor had a kind face and I remember thinking that if anyone had to tell me that I have a life-threatening illness, none could deliver such news with greater warmth or understanding.
His first words were, "I'm unimpressed by your CT scan. I don't see anything to be alarmed about on it."
But what about the other doctor's comments to me?
"I don't think you have anything like cancer, so don't even consider that."
Why would the other doctor even say such a thing then?
"Let's focus on getting this irritating twinge in your guts taken care of and don't go down that road."

At this Christmas season, I'm imminently grateful that I don't have a cancer diagnosis to deal with. Perhaps I'm even more grateful that for a day or two I had the opportunity to look at death in the face. As sobering as it was to linger over issues of how Sam would manage to lose me, what I should do with myself before I die, I experienced something very helpful: Waking up at 3:30 and listening to Sam's breathing and wondering how he would sleep if I were dying--wondering what would become of my students, friends, and family. Thinking about how I should move ahead with this illness--whether or not I would have an operation and even be able to teach this next quarter, etc.

Catastrophizing? Maybe. But it was frightening to think of Sam going through my death after he had lost his mother to colon cancer; wondering what it would feel like to be "full of cancer" and dying; living with questions of whether or not, or when it would come back.

In all of this, I feel that I learned something about what is important in life and how to see life differently.
What is important is how I love my family, friends and neighbors. What is important is that I live every single day saying, thinking, and doing all that I would do if it were my last day alive. And to live with the understanding that life on this planet is only a tiny jot on the radar screen. The rest takes place for eternity in heaven.
These are not original ideas, nor have I put them down in any particularly creative or gripping manner. But this is where I've been in my head for the last week. I have much to be thankful for this Christmas season.