Living with not-knowing

Back in 2010, a brilliant and gifted ENT surgeon opened up the right side of my neck and removed a fist-sized mass that was trying to kill me. If you look closely at Bald Yorick  and his buddy over there, you can see the incision. The cancer had spread quite a bit, and a lot of things had to be sacrificed. Muscles. Nerves. Lymph nodes. And weirdly enough, they had to remove my right jugular vein because the tumor had grown around it. It's OK. The blood my brain uses can still flow back to my heart and lungs down the left side, no worries. I remember Dr. Colin saying, "We were lucky the carotid artery was not involved. You can't live without that."

Well, I am now testing that hypothesis. A vascular surgeon whom I have not yet met, one I hope is as brilliant and gifted as Dr Colin was, will be returning to the scene of the crime shortly. Not for cancer. That old bastard isn't up for another ass whooping. This time, it's something with the blandly generic name of Carotid Artery Disease. What it means is that I have blockages in two of the arteries that carry blood to the right side of my brain. A couple of pretty bad blockages, as a matter of fact. 

Monday's ultrasound imaging showed a complete blockage of the external branch and at 50% blockage of the internal one on the right side of my neck/brain. That's bad, but Dr. Google - whose practice I do not reccomend, by the way - Dr. Google assures me that it is very common and very fixable. 

I have had lots of friends assure me that the disorder is very common, and the repair techniques have had many years to be perfected. My surgeon is a good one. The prognosis is excellent. The situation is serious, but not catastrophic. It's gonna be OK. Oh, and that worrying about it won't make it an iota better.

So, worry is off the table.

In the meantime, what's to be done?

Traveling down Not-Knowing Road can be a hazardous trip. Lots of blank spots on the map. My habit has been to try to fill them in - we are a problem-solving species, after all - and my inclination is to anticipate the worst. One of the symptoms of depression is "catastrophizing," a sloppy word that means the act of imagining a difficulty into a disaster. 

Recognizing that kind of unhealthy thinking, and managing it is an important part of learning to live with depression. I try to recognize what is true, and what is a story I'm telling myself in the shadows of my imagination. I try to stay mindful of what is real, what is now, what I know, and what I don't know.

I practice sitting patiently with the things I don't know.

My shrink told me something wonderful. I don't talk about him much, but I don't think he would mind if I tell you he is a wise old man who has come to know me well and counsels me with candor and compassion. He reminded me that cancer made me an expert, and over the years, I have used my expertise to serve hundreds of people who have followed me down that road. Now, I have a new teacher. "Who knows, in two years, you may be leading groups of people with cardio-vascular disease."

See? He's a smart guy.

Now that I'm past the fear of not knowing - the "scanziety" of waiting for a diagnosis - I am assembling a team. On offence are the medical people. Doctors and techs and surgeons and counselors: all the players who will be working to help me to heal and cope and recover. On defense, I have the ones who love me. The ones who will drive me around, listen to my fears, lift me with words of love and encouragement. We will laugh together, work together, run together, and wrap our arms around one another from time to time. They will feed my courage, renew my strength, and remind me that my life is worth fighting for. And they will fight beside me.

And me? I'm still learning how I fit into this picture. Not sure if I'm the coach, a coordinator, or the football. Or maybe I've just written myself into a corner and the metaphor has broken down. Steeler fans don't always have a rational relationship with the game.

Today is Thanksgiving. I am alive. I am needed. I'm stronger than I ever thought I could be and more beloved than I have any right to expect. Sophie, for one, never leaves my side. As a matter of fact, she keeps trying to put her feline two-cents worth in every time my fingers leave the keyboard. I am a rich man with a life-threatening condition, and a team of champions who are helping me to kick its ass.

Yeah, there is still plenty of stuff I don't know. I am practicing the art of living with not-knowing. You are in the same boat, after all. We all are. We can stop, put up our dukes, and fight against the ghosts of what what may happen, we can put our heads down and trudge on while pretending the spooks aren't there, or we can sit for a moment, reach out our arms, wrap them around all the things that we still can't see, and carry them along with us as we continue with the business of walking, loving, and living. That's my game-plan for now. 

Thanks for walking along with me. No telling what we'll learn together before all this is over.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pennsy