I would rather talk about potatoes, please

I went to see my doctor about lower abdominal pain and after I winced when she pressed on my upper torso she rushed me in for a CT scan and blood tests. When she called me back I was walking downtown and when she asked me where I was and whether I could talk (i.e., listen), I knew it was not good news. I found a place to sit and she told me I have an abdominal mass the size of a medium sized baked potato. Why baked, I wondered? Does that make a difference in the size or do doctors think a person can only imagine a potato she is about to eat? 

 But, seriously, she apologised four times so I knew she thought it was bad news. She thinks it might be a recurrence of lymphoma. I still don't know what the lower abdominal pain was but she guesses it's from diverticulitis so I am taking antibiotics on her recommendation. That pain has lessened, at least. I was having so much pain I couldn't sleep so now I am once again taking Trazodone to help me sleep. 

 I have to wait a week and a half to see my oncologist because she wants a PET scan to see if it is a benign mass or if it is actively growing (I think). A biopsy might follow that. The night after getting the news I felt resigned. I lay in bed and thought of all the many things around me that I own that someone would have to deal with, dispose of, etc. Now a feeling similar to the first discovery (really, that was the second) of lymphoma is setting in. It seems unreal. How sick could I be if I mostly feel pretty good? Not good enough to clean my kitchen floor (ha ha) but good enough to start a daily weight loss program through a YouTube channel. No, I don't have night sweats, one of the things they always ask me about at my annual checkup. I am eating--although I do get full more easily and don't feel much hunger. My general practioner assured me that it is very treatable, not like pancreatic cancer. She probably knows that is where my mind goes after my mother died five months after diagnosis. My cousin's husband died at 67 only six weeks after diagnosis. So short a time! 

 It is odd how I measured a potato and it gave me a hankering for potato hash browns which I made this morning. Yummy.

The actual size of the mass was: 10.9 x 8.9 x 9.1 cm