So, a day of action-packed adventure, and finally some news about what look likely to be the next steps. I mean, I've only got a two and a half centimetre fast-growing tumour in my bosom- what's the delay of a month between friends??

I admit to a certain impatience.
Stop snorting; it's rude.
I've admitted it, there is no jibe to be made. 

I have found the round of tests and consultations and news-news-more-news to be rather tiring and perplexing. I don't think I'd have managed at all with my faculties intact if it hadn't been for Shelley and Connie along at these appointments, in some cases keeping me company through grim news and in others, acting as conduit for information. It has seemed like every visit has resulted in another detail to unravel or a different angle to consider. I do not know how people manage without another set of ears alongside them. I'm baffled most of the time, and that is WITH someone. Even Connie has said that there are pieces of very important information that seems to be covered only sketchily. I'm not much good, because I have no idea even what questions to ask, and often have just been hit by yet another grand pronouncement that has left me reeling- you might have cancer/you really do have cancer/you might have cancer somewhere else/you need a hysterectomy/Luke, I am your father...

Might have over-played that last one, but I really wanted to remind you of the light saber.

Point is, you NEED someone with you, preferably someone who knows you and knows the questions that ought to be asked. Because with news like all this, you are in no position to ask, let alone process the responses to, anything. The doctor may see a hundred people every day- he certainly did today. He may be totally clinical, or a man who thinks STUPID things like 'It's only a uterus, and you only need it for making babies', and he may just charge through the information like a bull, totally and unhelpfully inured to the sentence he has pronounced. He may not even know that to some, it is a sentence.

So, I was grateful for the extra ears. It made the mulling afterwards better.

I tend to take things away and process and think and listen to too many opinions about what I should do and worry about my mother and Annie and work and reports, and then spend several moments later at night looking at the empty space next to me thinking dark thoughts about why it is empty- then I try to come to decisions. Having previously decided to have surgery first, I then decided to have chemo first. Then yesterday, I decided to have surgery first. And today, after another consultation with the doctor, I decided to have chemo first.

So you see, it's all perfectly clear.

It may have been the doctor's insinuation that perhaps HE knew best (which is probably fair enough) that turned my mind. It is more likely to have been the threat that if they operate now, I will lose my nipple. Most likely, though, it was his smug assertion that, if getting back to work is my main concern, (and it's a pretty big one) then I should know that many Korean women would be back at work in just a few weeks, AND carry on through most of chemotherapy.

Well THAT did the trick. Competition?? On an international scale??

Let me just get this straight: I am going to recover from cancer and surgery- for my COUNTRY??

Oh, I am IN that race!!! Am Canadian. I can skin a bear with my teeth in minus 20 degrees with windchill factor thrown in for fun. I can bloody well be back at work within a month if I have to.
(Am also possibly rather optimistic. At home, we'd call it 'happy-go-lucky, eh?')

After much fiffing and faffing about, I eventually found myself in front of the oncologist. I needed to speak to her, because she will be managing my chemotherapy. (Yes, yes, I hear you- why am I only seeing this woman NOW?? As Ann used to say in college, 'You've got me dangling.')
I needed her to tell me what chemo meds they would be using, so that I could pass the information on to the insurers. Once again, I am struck by the barbarity of the industry. It's been a week since my last test, I am ill, tired and confused, and I am the one running around to find out what treatment I need and the meds required in order to persuade an insurance company that my treatment ought to be covered. There is no one coordinating it all, or making the appointments or just making it smooth and civilised. The National Health Service may not be perfect, but Lord, Lord- it is humane.

Tell you what, though- I liked the oncologist. She apologised first:

O: I have little English.
P: Well, I have no Korean, so we'll get along fine.

And then proceeded to tell me the answer to every question I didn't know I had.  Here is the plan, and how it should play out:

- I will have a cardiofunction test on Tuesday. If all is well, I will speak to her again on Wednesday. If the pre-authorisation has come through, then I will start chemo immediately.

- The chemo will be administered via iv. I will be there for six hours, and then go home. I will be sick. I will have muscle pain. I will, after two weeks, begin to lose my hair.

- I will come back and do it again one week after that.

- After two cycles of this, they will do another MRI and see how it's going; they will probably decide then whether/when to schedule the surgery.

- After the operation, I will have three more rounds of chemo, depending, and then radiation. 

Now THAT is what I've wanted someone to tell me. I really liked her!

The thing I most especially and particularly liked, though, was her demeanour. She looked me in the eye, concentrating on understanding every word I said. She did not rush me. She did not act like I was being silly or hysterical or foreign-and-therefore-a-bit-dumb.
What she ALSO did, when she wanted to get her receptionist to come in, was shriek like a flipping HARPY through the door at her. Do you remember Frau Farbissina from Austin Powers? Dr Evil's henchwoman and mother of Scott Evil? Those times when she throws her head back and shrieks 'SCOTT!!' or 'BRING IN THE FEMBOTS!!"?

Well that was my oncologist, yelling for her receptionist. Made me grin out loud.

And now, there is at last a plan. Assuming the insurers think it's all worth paying for, that is.

I will save for another day a post about my further interactions with the cranky lady from the international clinic. That will require some preparation. And some calming down.