nineteen days...

in my PDA i keep cutting-and-pasting "dr. neff appt." from one day to the next. everytime i call to verify that they have gotten the pathology results from my biopsy, they either tell me that the pathologist needs a few more days or that he's out of the office or something else that sounds totally made up to me. it has been nineteen days since the biopsy. i've gone from contentedly waiting to increasingly paranoid. in my mind (i hate that all equivalent phrases--in my head, my thoughts, whatever--now carry this stupid irony) this thing has fingers like the tree in _poltergeist_ and is rapidly taking over all facets of neurological function. soon, i'll be a vegetable and i'm sure to be incontinent.

[the dog just plopped herself down on stean's dirty laundry--i'm glad he's not here to see this]

carrie, one of our MCAT teachers, stopped by the office yesterday and talked to me for a while. she said that there are many many different types of brain tumors, and if the pathology doesn't get it right, the treatment for some type of tumor that i don't have could kill me. this makes me feel only slightly better. did i mention it's been 19 days? another fun fact: it's been 22 days since my seizures. 19/22nds = way too long.

a brain tumor? i mean, a fucking brain tumor??? i read (i have to stop reading things about this) that only 16,000 people get diagnosed with a brain tumor per year! 16,000? that's not even enough people to get enraged about! it's like a minor human rights violation, the kind that gets overlooked for the bigger ones that impact more people, the somalian refugees, the apartheids, the breast cancers, the heart diseases. jesus. who the hell gets a brain tumor?

nothing feels normal anymore. nothing. not even sleeping. not even taking a shower or going to the bathroom or watching a movie. i always feel like i'm on medication and i constantly think about it. i might die from this. i'm 27, hardly an adult. there are things i want to do. like this stuff:

graduate from law school
love my career
marry stean
be a good mother
run a marathon
grow my own garden
play the piano

see? these aren't extravagant or unrealistic. i just want to be given the chance to get old. i've never wanted to get old more in my life.

i'm seriously so angry and afraid and confused over all this stuff and i know that having the answers that these tests will provide is not necessarily going to make anything better, but at least it would feel like progress. maybe i died in the biopsy and this is my hell--i'm damned to sit around and wait for results that will never come and just feel terrified and uncertain.

deep breath. okay, some positive things. even if i have to force myself to think of them.

i've been going to church. i don't know what it does or what i believe within its context, but as a friend said, when i ran into him after easter sunday mass, "it just makes you feel better." i cried so much during good friday services. i don't know what came over me--i just felt so overwhelmed. i didn't blubber or anything, but there was a pretty steady stream of tears.

i'm getting more comfortable with the idea of losing my hair. and i think i've decided that i'm not going to be one of those everyday wig-wearers. that's just silly. unless i have a giant scar, but i shouldn't get too ahead of myself.

i paid all of my bills a little ahead of where i thought i'd be this month. always positive.