Now What?

October 9, 2012:

It's the next morning, and I have to go to work so that I can tell someone in person that I won't be in to work today. All I really want to do is throw up, so how can I go to work and be nice to kids? Especially middle school kids.

I spend an hour in the Vice Principal's office, a lovely young woman who now has the sole responsibility for keeping it together for the rest of the day by not telling anyone else, while I go home and be a vegetable.

We don't know anything yet as far as types, treatment options, course of action, next steps, so we can't tell the kids. I'm having an MRI on Thursday evening, then meet with the oncologist in a week, then back with the surgeon next Thursday. It's not until all three of these are done that I will "know" what is going to happen. 

The funny thing here is that long ago I committed to presenting a 3 hour seminar on YA literature at a state conference this week. I'm still going to do it, because it is a welcome distraction and keeps me from surfing the Internet for answers. I know better than to start typing things into Google at this point!

The throw up feeling in the pit of my stomach never does go away, and this is the first of many days to come where I really don't eat much. And I'm definitely not sleeping. And damn if one of the shows we watch isn't having a storyline with the main character getting breast cancer.

I am a concrete, sequential, process type of person. Just give me details, answers, and a schedule and let's go! This waiting thing SUCKS!