A rough day

I missed an eye doctor's appointment yesterday; I forgot about it entirely, but I wouldn't have gone even if I'd known about it.

It was that kind of day.

It wasn't the snow. Not that we didn't have a problem here with the weather yesterday: Younger Daughter had a Snow Day and traffic looked unusually miserable from the window of my overcrowded train.

No, I got a phone call from my internist shortly after lunch. I'd just cancelled an appointment with him too, but he wasn't calling to protest.

I'd had a colonoscopy on Groundhog's Day -- and there'd been a problem. The doctor performing the scope had encountered a virtual field of gently swaying polyps. He took a few of the more ominous looking ones -- he couldn't get them all, he said, so he had to make a selection -- and I'd been waiting for the pathology report. I was supposed to get that on Friday... but the report wasn't ready.

No problem, I thought, since I'd scheduled a follow up appointment with the colon doc, Dr. P., for Monday. He'd surely have the results by then... and, if not, he'd probably be able to get them in the course of our appointment. Sunday, however, I got a call at home: Dr. P. had an emergency and would be unable to keep our appointment. I had since rescheduled it to this Friday. But when I asked, Monday, for the pathology results, I was told that I'd have to speak to the doctor directly.

So that's why I'd skipped out on yesterday's appointment with the internist: We were to discuss the outcome of the colonoscopy, and I didn't know all of the outcome yet.

The internist had set me on the road for this latest colonoscopy. Yes, my age suggests that it was pretty near time to get this done in any event. And colon cancer doesn't just run in my family, it fairly gallops: I lost both my parents to the disease.

And I'd had my own bout with polyps 21 years ago, the problems recurring for a few years thereafter before we got everything all straightened out. Or so we'd thought. It took me changing doctors -- to Dr. P. -- to get the condition under control. And my last scope, six years back, was clean as a whistle. Clean as these things get, anyway. It was because of my history that my mother claimed she got her cancer from me: We're not scientists in our family.

The polyps I'd had two decades ago were big -- but they were benign. And I had experienced no recurrence of the symptoms that had prompted me to seek help 21 years ago. Thus, the colonoscopy was on the list of Things to Be Done -- but that's a long and varied list. But late last Fall, just before the Holidays, my internist told me I had blood in my stool -- no anemia, he said, but I'd better move the colonoscopy up on the priority scale. I did. I got it scheduled for mid-January, but Dr. P. was called away... and now you're caught up with me as I took the call yesterday afternoon from my internist.

I hadn't seen the pathology results; my internist assumed that I had. He was calling to discuss the options... because one of the polyps turned out to be cancerous.

Cancer. That's a hard word to write in the first person, as in "I have cancer." But, apparently, I do. Or at least I did.

There's no indication at present that the cancer has spread from the one polyp on which it was discovered. The scope results suggest nothing, at this point, embedded in the walls of my internal tubing. But there's still that gently swaying field of polyps that needs harvesting. Soon.

Long Suffering Spouse was not happy with me. We had a chance to talk privately as she drove me home from the train. "You thought you were so clever," she told me, fighting to keep the emotions tamped down, "twenty-three years ago when you gave me a daughter for Valentine's Day. You said you'd never have to give me another Valentine's Day present again. And now... you've given me this."

If I could figure out how to return this "gift," I would.

I was so optimistic coming into this year. There was a large class of Associate Judges to be selected... I had even begun to entertain hopes that I might be among the finalists. I was not chosen (the announcement having also been made on Groundhog's Day). I answered an ad for a legal management position with a large insurer and received an interview in January. It would have meant leaving courtroom work behind, but I know that must happen sometime unless I became a judge. And the interview went well... but I was not offered the position. I found that out last week.

And now this. I have a really bad attitude at present which is probably not entirely helpful. And if I am a tad introspective in the next few weeks, I hope you'll forgive me.