My New Reality

As I gazed into the tropical aquarium on that snowy February morning, I wondered if I would ever feel well again. I had been sitting in the cold room for twenty minutes,  Impatiently waiting to see the doctor. I was in a foul mood. Everything annoyed me. The snow, the cold, the ringing telephones and the piped-in elevator music, playing overhead. Even the colorful little angelfish, swimming in the pristine tank, pissed me off. I had no idea what was bugging me.

Three years on a "medical marathon" and I'm still sick, I thought. Would I ever be me again? Where in hell did I go? My mind was racing. Physically and mentally, I was exhausted. I couldn't figure out why I felt so bad and wondered what my NEXT diagnosis would be.  Maybe a touch of the Ebola Virus! I sarcastically pondered. My "anxiety neurosis" was taking a toll on my life. I was a Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde and I couldn't help it. Despondently, I sat, analyzing myself when I heard the receptionist call out my name.

"Carol, come on in".  I followed her down the hall and into a sterile room. "The doctor will be in shortly, to take your  blood pressure and to discuss your test results" she said, and closed the door behind her. "Check My Blood-pressure" I thought,  I feel like I need a lobotomy!

The doctor knew me personally and believed that there was a physical reason for my symptoms, even though I insisted that I was having a nervous breakdown. Unlike the twelve other physicians that I had consulted, he was determined to find the cause of my "distress". For nine months, he monitored my hypertension and moods (which were different every month) and ordered a CAT scan of my brain and an Echocardiogram when I experienced a "visual disturbance".

When he walked into the room that day, I was sitting on the leather padded examining table, inhaling the scent of alcohol preps, reading Woman's World Magazine and freezing my ass off! He was a HUNK, but I was in no mood to "check him out".  "Hey, what's up, how do you feel" ?he asked. "Not much".  "fine". I replied. (I wanted to beg him to commit me). I was depressed and angry and believed  that I was ready for the "Nut Hut". Sounds funny, doesn't it? Well, it wasn't. I was terrified.

"How do you feel"? he asked, as he wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm. (Like a psycho) I thought, but answered "Exhausted and depressed". He took my blood pressure and suggested that I join him in his office to discuss the results of my scans. As I followed him down the hall, I silently prayed for Prozac. I was suicidal.

My reports were on his desk. Silently, he sat across from me, highlighting the impression at the end of each report in bright yellow marker. By the expression on his face, I knew that there was something wrong. Quietly, I began to panic.

"Well, your lab work is perfect" he said. "Great" I said. Next, he reviewed the Echo results. "You have valve regurgitation and need to consult a cardiologist". "Well that's not good", I replied. Then, as if it were an after thought he added, "You also have a Meningioma Brain Tumor, but try not to worry they are ALMOST always benign". Stupidly, I replied "Well, that's not good either"! Intellectually, I understood everything that he said to me, but emotionally I felt NOTHING. I was shocked!

He signed off on the reports, jotted down the names and phone numbers of three specialist that I needed to consult and I wondered how I was going to break this news to my family. In addition to being the Matriarch,  I had just become the family "HEADCASE"!

Calmly, I thanked him, paid the receptionist,put on my jacket and gloves and walked out into a blizzard, as if I had just been diagnosed with a hangnail! Numbly, I walked through the icy parking lot to my car, trying to grasp the magnitude of my diagnosis. I couldn't!

Normally, I would  have been afraid to drive in the sleet and snow, but this was not a "normal" day. I started the car, turned on the wipers, blasted the heat and sat there, stunned, passively watching the wipers struggle to clean off the heavy, wet snow that was piling up on the windshield. I felt detached, alone and EMPTY. I couldn't think, talk or cry. I had entered the "twilight zone".  I put the car in gear and drove slowly down the highway and over the ice-slicked draw bridge, realizing that I was driving home to "My New Reality"!

Finally home, I walked from room to room, wondering how everything could look the same, yet feel so different. Life, as I knew it, had just changed forever, yet the bed was still unmade and the half full coffee cups and stained spoons from breakfast were still in the sink. I felt like I was looking into my old life! It was surreal.

For hours, I roamed through the house, gazing at family photos on the fridge, the end tables and hanging "My walls of fame" in the TV room. I remembered birthday parties, picnics and holidays that we had enjoyed, as a family, in this house. I recalled the winter that we caught twenty-one-field mice under the kitchen sink (don't ask me why) and how angry I got when King, our miniature collie, came in from the pouring rain to dry his soggy body off on the front of my sea-foam green couch!

Visions of my three little boys, now in their thirties, riding their bikes, swimming in the pool and eating cheerios in their PJ's ran through my mind like a rewind of an old movie. Flashbacks of my grandchildren, sitting on my kitchen floor eating cookies and playing with my pots and pans came into my minds eye in technicolor. (little red and white T-shirts, blue overalls, white baby shoes, brown oreo cookies, shiny pots and pans). 

As I enjoyed the "slideshow" of my life, I realized that the things that I had always taken for granted or bitched about were now "My Kodak Moments".


I spent most of the day reliving my past, trying to process my new diagnosis and hoping for a future? I prayed to accept the things that I could not change and for the strength to fight this battle. Now, I realized what the quote  "People make plans and God laughs" meant!

This was the longest day of my life. My husband came home from work, we exchanged small talk over dinner, I cleaned up the kitchen, went into the cozy TV room and tried to read the newspaper. I was acting "normal" but felt like I was on speed. I couldn't concentrate or sit still long enough to read anything. I threw the paper away and decided to take a long, hot shower, hoping to have a good cry, privately, and to calm my anxiety. No Such Luck. I couldn't cry. I knew that I had to say five, awful  words out loud before I could move on. "I HAVE A BRAIN TUMOR"! I rehearsed for a few minutes , put on my favorite robe and slippers, poured two  glasses of sparkling wine and sat beside my husband of twenty-four years. I knew that it was time to DEAL with my situation.

I couldn't believe what I was about to say, but knew that "I had to feel the fear and do it anyway". (Advice from a stupid self help book). Sadly, I looked over at my husband and said the words the EVERY husband dreads. "Honey, can we talk"? He looked at me with his "now what did I do look" and braced himself for another one of my emotional meltdowns. (It was a tough three years for him, too).

Slowly, I said: "Hon, did you remember that I had an appointment with the doctor this morning"? "Uh, no, why, what for"? he answered. I couldn't blame him for not remembering since I had been going from doctor to doctor for for three years!  Once I refreshed his memory, he asked me how I made out and if I had received the results. "Yes" I said and slowly began to explain the "findings" exactly as the doctor had presented them to me. First came the Perfect lab work, then the heart valve regurgitation and the "grand finale" was my probably benign BRAIN TUMOR! He was Flabbergasted!

Finally, I said those five horrible words out-loud. I didn't crack up or die, but my emotional "safety-valve" did turn on. My lonliness and despair lifted. I could feel again. I was crying!

Together, we cried, expressed disbelief and anger at my having A  DAMN BRAIN TUMOR, discussed my medical options and planned my strategy, together. We hoped for a second chance and planned our FUTURE!

Now, I was ready to accept "My New Reality".

The end.

No way!

"I've only just begun"!