Fine, thanks. And you?

It has always been kind of a dumb point of pride with me to have a scant medical history, for Tonsilectomy, 1974 and Labor & Delivery, 1997 to have long been the only major entries on my chart. I'm forever grateful that last year's visits to the cancer doctor proved, thus far, to be a benign and finite chapter in my life, but I still wish I didn't have to record Breast Biopsy, 2006 on every new patient form. At the moment, however, that entry seems as irrelevant as a tumor could be. It's the slew of tests and consultations and ambulance rides that I've endured in the last month that mean my days as a blank medical slate are now permanently behind me, a fact as uncomfortable as all that EEG paste in my hair. Having to repeatedly recite all that evidence to the contrary makes it harder to insist that everything's okay.

I do still cling to my "I'm fine" mantra, and mostly I mean it, even as I'm surrounded by well-meaning people who insist on using words like scary and frightening and alarming. I appreciate their concern, but the bare facts of my story are adventure enough for me; I have no need for Halloween adjectives to dress up each re-telling. For one thing, I'm not afraid. Maybe it's just easier to be the one carted out on a stretcher than to watch it go by. Maybe I just know how I'm feeling. Or maybe there's just no point in panic. I'm sure that's easier to say with a stack of negative and normal results in my ever expanding file, but even if I finally do get a diagnosis, what is there to do except, in the words of the aging Rocky Balboa, to keep moving forward?

I am tired of being the patient, and you better believe I'll celebrate when the day of the last paper dress, blood draw, and doctor's office scale finally arrives, but in the meantime, I'm fine. Really. I am.