"Monday, Monday, can't trust that day" (the sequel)

(The Mamas and the Papas reference)

I highly recommend not answering the phone on Monday.

I answered the phone on Monday. (I seldom take my own advice.)

It was GastroPod! Wow!

Within an hour of arriving home from CATScanDu, here was GastroPod on the phone.

That is a rather worrisome development to me. Perhaps I have been around too long, perhaps I have lost that impatience gene associated with cancer survivors. Okay, okay, I have not lost the gene; I just exercise it judiciously, as in when I want to.

Me, I like it when they do not immediately get back in touch with me. The faster they get back in touch with me, the worse things are.

I have never had one call me back on short notice to say, "Hey! Just wanted to say everything is fine!" They do not get paid large sums of cash to make those calls, and, to their credit, they are not in their line of work to waste their time on such frivolity.

So, to my way of thinking, you gents and ladies take all the time you need. DO NOT call me back on the same day as my visit to CATScanDu. I repeat: DO NOT!

I probably should have advised GastroPod of this thinking. But I did not, and he called, and he said:

"From the scans, it appears that you have a pancreatic pseudocyst."

Damn.

Sounded to me like one of those mythical sea creatures from back when the earth was flat.

I have not yet seen GastroPod (whose name sounds like that of a mythical sea creature from back when the earth was flat, too, now that I think about it...or, perhaps, of a snail), but he suggested his people would call mine (meaning his peoople would call me, these days, alas, and arrange some blood work).

I have since looked up the nature of this nefarious mythical sea monster and am most happy to report that is not cancerous. That is, of course, great news, and the best news I have to offer.

If you are compelled to know more about it, you will have to look it up yourself, as I have not yet talked to GastroPod in person, and will await his professional opinion for speaking further about what exactly it is.

Frankly, the good news is that it is not cancer, and as many or most of you know, that is top most on our minds. Beyond that, this is pretty much some pretty bad news for one such as me.

Oh, and there is this with respect to good news: I really did have something wrong . We so often feel that everyone thinks we are just being paranoid (talked to a lady this morning about that very thing) that it is almost a relief to discover that our perceived maladies are of the real variety. Me, I would just as soon they weren't, but, if they ARE, at least I can say, "uh, uh, oh yeah!" Or something like that.

It's sick, I know.

Having said I will not speak of it, I will now belie that by telling you that it is a sort of sac between the stomach and the pancreas (or something like that; I tried to pay attention, honest, I did). Mine, he said, was about 11cm large, thus the immediacy of the situation. And when I went online to read the chart on this thing, I saw immediately how he could have predicted it, even without a medical degree (not to tick him off, because he is good, or so I am told).

And there we are. He called, he told me this, he asked if I drank alcohol frequently (I said, "Yes" because I am honest, more or less), and he said something to the effect that we might be able to wait this thing out but only if I quit drinking.

It sounded as though he was asking me to flip a coin (that is probably just me).

If I keep drinking, I AM going in, and they ARE going to put a stent in to bleed the thing (and maybe I can keep drinking?). If I QUIT drinking, maybe we can avoid the surgery, always a good thing. However, what if I quit drinking and they STILL have to do surgery? What if I quit drinking and life sucks?

These are things to consider.

I have, of course, already decided to quit drinking, but not today.

Today, I went to my local grocery store and, lo and behold, they had a sale on cases of beer. Cases of MY beer! I am not kidding. All of you who look for signs from the clouds or pieces of pizza shaped like the Virgin Mary's halo: my beer was on sale!

So, I bought two cases instead of the one I intended to buy, took them both to the nearest church to get them blessed, and, along with a fern I bought on impulse (along with some snoring aids I probably already mentioned, not for me OR the dogs), came home determined that these would be the end days for beer.

Rather than the end days for me.

Yes, I am kinda bummed out.

I should not have answered that phone.