Diagnosis

Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma
Staging: B-cell neoplasms: follicular lymphoma, Type: nodular lymphoma, Nodal or lymphatic site, paraaortic adenopathy 2.5 cm 
(1 in.), mesenteric adenopathy, Extranodal or extralymphatic site: none, Symptoms: none, Transformation: no.

A diagnosis. What a difference a diagnosis (day--Dinah Washington song, "24 little hours") makes! One day you are healthy with an ominous feeling in the back of your mind and the next day you are sick, or in my case, potentially sick.

But what if I didn't know? Would it be better? easier? Yes, now I can be proactive which conventional medicine tells us doesn't help but maybe doesn't hurt.

So it's amazing how different my friends and family react. "So what does that mean?" asked a coworker. Now that's honest and to the point. The friend who wrote a short poem about rainbows and tears streaming down her face was a bit too much. I don't need histrionics but yes, she means well and probably doesn't know much about NHL before she reacted. I'm not going to die in 4 months like my mother (pancreatic cancer), I feel like saying, but don't. Or at least I don't think I am...

So now I have this label and what do I do with it? Feel sorry for myself? blame every ache and pain on it? Join this and that virtual community to get "support"?

From Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sontag: Cancer has now become the predominant disease metaphor in our culture. Cancer is considered a disease of repression, or inhibited passion. The cancer sufferer characteristically suppresses emotion, which after many years emerges from the unconscious self as malignant growth.

I want to read that and also Bright-Sided: How the relentless promotion of positive thinking has undermined America by Barbara Ehrenreich.

And then there are the close friends who admire me. For real? What is the alternative, weeping and moaning? Poor me! Yes, I do feel some of that but maybe it all seems too unreal right now for any weeping violins. Or at least not until I'm sick, IF I ever get sick. It's not inevitable with NHL! Oh, more acronyms, glorious!

Though there is something about the attention that part of me likes, as cavalier as I can be about the diagnosis. What's that about? I guess it's obvious enough, we all need attention, even if it's suspect.