Funny Like a Root Canal

So, a few funny stories about cancer from yesterday:

1. First, how funny that I didn’t fool a single one of you with my claims of papaya juice and string cheese. Nah, you’ve known me too long! Plus, really, is there *anybody* that drinks papaya juice? I don’t know, that just sounds nasty.

2. How funny when my girlfriend Jadine called me a kiss-ass for commenting back to the comments in my guestbook. Ha, ha, yeah, funny like a root canal. Can I help it if I’m totally co-dependent? (PS I did it again today.) (PSS Jadine, you know that I *heart* you, pet rats and all!)

3. Ok, this really *is* funny. My dermatologist’s office called me to schedule my “surgery” to have the skin cancer removed. Why they insist on calling it a {finger quotes} surgery {/finger quotes} I have no idea, but they do. So the receptionist was transferring me to the surgery scheduler and I was on hold. This office also does a lot of cosmetic work, and I was listening to a recorded message that discussed procedures available for patients such as Botox, chemical peels, and even liposuction. This is where it gets funny. I was literally on hold, balancing the phone between my ear and my shoulder, LISTENING TO A PITCH FOR LIPOSUCTION, when I shifted in my chair, and disconnected the phone with my big fat chin!!! Ha! I hung up on myself!! I need liposuction for my chin!

4. REALLY funny story about the conversation Blaine and I had yesterday, about how we’re going to have to do some searching and find a place that has a cancer care clinic, and a stroke rehab clinic, right next door to one-another, so it will be easier for the kids to visit us on Sundays. And Blaine said, “Well, they just damn well better bring flowers and yogurt when they come!” Ha! How funny is that??!?!? It’s knee-slapping funny, that’s how funny it is! Don’t you think so?

Wait … What? You don’t know what I’m talking about? Oh, well, sorry. Let me fill you in. It’s a funny story, actually.

Immediately following Blaine’s surgery in Seattle in November, he noticed he couldn’t raise his left arm more than 90 degrees. Although they didn’t operate anywhere near that part of his body, but actually on his left-lower arm, he assumed it was some kind of muscle pain or weakness or trauma following surgery and it would go away on its own. When it didn’t, we started joking that maybe the nurses dropped him on his shoulder while they were transferring him to the operating table and he just didn’t remember thanks to the anesthesia. Which actually *would* be pretty funny, if you think about it. Of course, we thought it was funny to call Blaine “The Tuminator” when he was originally diagnosed, so maybe our sense of humor is a wee bit warped.

Tuesday night I came home from Kellen’s basketball practice, and Blaine said to me, “Come look at my shoulder …. Does it look right to you?” and I suddenly realized, taking a good look at it, and then touching it and feeling it and poking and prodding it, that no, it doesn’t look right. In fact, it looks deformed. Like a deformed chicken wing. And we realized, holy cow, his shoulder is dislocated … how did we not know that? Shouldn’t it hurt? But there’s a long sort of protrusion running along the back of his shoulder, that we assumed was his clavicle, just not where it was supposed to be.

For the record, it totally cracks me up because Blaine is like, “Is that my collarbone? Or is it a shoulder blade? Where is it supposed to be? Why is it sticking out like that? Is it sticking out on the other side? It should be symmetrical, right? Is it symmetrical? You took biology in college, and worked in a doctor’s office; you should know the answer.” He asks me these questions every time something is wrong … and given what he’s gone through the past four years, that means he asks me these types of questions, a lot. And I always want to remind him that yes, I took biology in college …. SIXTEEN YEARS AGO! I dissected a CAT, not a person! I was an INSURANCE SECRETARY, not a pathologist!!!!” Why does he always ask me these kinds of questions???? Do I look like Quincy??? But instead, I continued to peer and poke at his shoulder as if I actually had a single clue about what I was looking at. Then I simply said, “Hmmm. That looks funny.”

I’m not a doctor. Nor do I play one on the internet.

So, yesterday, he went to see his general practitioner. Who clearly indicated his overall level of interest in Blaine and his situation by greeting him with, “So, what’s wrong with you today?” when he walked in the exam room.

Because, you know, so many hypochondriacs and drug addicts have huge portions of the inside of their HEAD surgically removed, and then voluntarily undergo five weeks of radiation, for the fun of it. Whatever, with a big ole’ capital “W” with my thumbs and forefingers.

So the doctor examined him and immediately agreed that, “Yeah, uh, that doesn’t look right.” Good to know my observation skills are right on target.

Instead of a bone sticking out like we thought it was, though, he called it a mass. And asked Blaine to remind him what kind of cancer he had again????

And sent him for an x-ray and an ultrasound, both of which yes, did show a mass, but gave no further information. “Too fuzzy” “Not clear” “Fades out” ….. ugh.

A mass of what? Blood? Tissue? Bone? An accidentally left-behind gauze strip from surgery that has somehow traveled the entire length of his arm and lodged itself into his shoulder?

What the hell is it????

It is NOT cancer. I know that. Logically, I know that. The kind of cancer Blaine has rarely metastasizes, and if it did, it would go to his tongue, or throat, or somewhere up in the head-like-general-head area. Not down the back of his neck to his shoulder.

Plus, the timing is too fluky …. Immediately after surgery? Immediately, immediately following surgery? Blaine’s type of cancer takes years to grow large enough for manual detection, and this mass just shows up in one day? Wouldn’t that be a little Toooo coincidental?

Oh, wait. This IS our family we’re talking about.

So now, his doctor wants him to have a CAT scan. And naturally, the base hospital doesn’t do them. So we’re waiting, once again, for an insurance authorization so he can go to the imaging center here in town. So he can have a cat scan. So they can identify “the mass” and tell us they’ve finally located the missing Heart of the Ocean jewel from the Titanic, and it’s in Blaine’s shoulder. Stuck to a gauze strip and perhaps the surgeon’s watch and maybe even a speculum.

But in the meantime, we’re scouring the country, looking for side-by-side cancer care clinics and stroke rehab facilities. Because I swear on all that is holy if he gets diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his shoulder …………….

MY. HEAD. WILL. FUCKING. EXPLODE.

Isn’t that funny?