The ultrasound showed interesting masses that are not clearly cancer, nor are they clearly benign. The blood test showed that if it’s cancer, it’s not metastatic, which is good news. The woman who did the second ultrasound was the same woman who did the ultrasound on my daughter the day she was born. The cysts are complex and over 10 cm. Referral to cancer doctor. A man. A triathlete with three children and large biceps.

In the waiting room at the cancer center, I saw a man who, when he’s not battling cancer, teaches across the hall from me. His cancer is very public. He makes youtube videos about having cancer and loving Jesus all at the same time. When he took a long term leave last year while he was losing his hair and his youth, a new teacher in my department made him a quilt. One side has a cross on it. The other side features some get well notes and pictures that kids drew. She added inspirational messages about, like, carpe-ing one’s diem and lemons and lemonade and the making of it– how does one make metaphorical lemonade out of cancer? In the darkest of my thoughts, I consider– as someone who has struggled with suicidal ideation (and who ironically is heading up a suicide prevention effort at work), the only way to look at cancer as a blessing is as a super religious Jesus loving person who just wants to die to go home, or someone who has actively hoped to be crushed by a meteor or struck by lightning or whatever. Maybe you get what you ask for.

I don’t want a fucking quilt.

And look, if I’m honest, my main motivation for being alive is not abandoning my kid before she’s ready to take on the challenges of adulthood by herself. I feel like if I can make it to 80, she’ll be 40, and while 40 is still awfully young, she’ll probably have some kind of steady income by then and my death would mean.. it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I don’t want to die of cancer, and I don’t want to die right now, and the plan to avoid all that is for me to have a hysterectomy on November 9. That’s a little more than one more month of two extra strength acetaminophen and three ibuprofens every six hours on the dot every day until surgery, at which point I will take additional narcotics until I can get around enough to not need anything but artificial hormones until I die when I’m old. Older. Elderly, at least. And if they take it out and it’s cancerous, well then that’s a whole different post.