On waiting for trouble

  I am normally a very patient person. In fact, I fear that’s been one of my most frustrating characteristics, for Karen, and for other folks. I blame it on having a Pentecostal streak, but mostly it’s the willingness to let things ride until there is something absolutely ready to do.


Now that I’m less than two weeks away for the next procedure, and with delays built in before I can address cancer recurrence, I’m finding myself edgier than I expected. It’s harder waiting. 


Some things we do have a timetable on. I have the next procedure on the 15th. I will have another (hopefully simpler) procedure in about a month. Sometime after the surgery, we will start looking at the possible cancer recurrence. If my PSA is higher (which would probably mean I’m marginally sicker), insurance may pay for the scan. If they won’t, we still may look into how to pay for self pay. That would let us at least start talking to an oncologist.


Karen is concerned that it will be more painful for my mouth to recover from the surgery than for the surgery itself. They are going to take tissue from inside my cheek to create the bypass around the blockage.  I have been thinking back to the extensive surgery I had in 98. I described that as having the inside of my face rehab. Eating anything was very difficult. Yes, I did lose weight, but that’s really not the way to go about it.


A few of you may remember that I have sometimes talked about Tom Mix, the cowboy actor from the silent era. He always did his own stunts. He had this belief that if he went into it straight ahead, with his eyes open, he would never be too badly hurt. Over the years I have found that I wanted to do the same thing. I have some difficult time and difficult experiences coming, and I just want to go ahead and get on with it. So, that’s part of what makes the waiting so hard.


Family and friends and neighbors have been very supportive, and I am really grateful for you all. I haven’t asked for much because there’s not much concrete that folks can do. The will and the willingness to be supportive just means so much, even if I’m not having to ask for much.

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