M-m-m-my seroma

Since the pathology unfolded before me like a gift from the cancer gods last week, I've felt elated, normal and panicked, and I'll assume such is life from now on.

We had cupcakes before dinner on Thursday and on Friday, Pete and I went to a favourite haunt, the Superior, to get foodied and such. Eating out is definitely a different experience these days. If anyone, it's Pete who makes the extra effort to stay meat-free, but there's always the occasional chicken liver or slice of prosciutto thrown in there to show the animals who's boss.

And drinking isn't nearly as Irish as it used to be. Two glasses of whatever it is is generally the limit for both of us. Makes us sound like nofun-niks, but getting hosed and watching that "50% more likely to see a recurrence" headline floating above your martini makes the abandon of it all a little less desirable. In other words, it's a brave new world, people. I'll have to get my kicks elsewhere.

Two strange things immediately post-report? I found Pete's missing wedding ring and Frances started sleeping through the night again. Any old schlub could chalk these things up to coincidence, but I choose something more. What that is I have no idea.

And then there's Japan. Talk about that thing that makes you realize yet again that your little life is pretty insignificant. I feel privileged to be worrying about anything - to have my life for another day.

It brings me to the bigger thing that's been on my mind the last nine months and especially the last four days. And I ain't the first doofus to think this stuff, but that doesn't make it any less puzzling...

How do you live your life with both immediacy and rationality? Sometimes my instinct is to do everything. Plan the trip, learn the guitar, go skydiving, all that cliched shit that everyone who has had one foot in the grave thinks about. Then how do I plan for my retirement (which still seems ludicrous to me), pay off my mortgage, take care of my kids' needs? How do I live with purpose when I still don't know what that purpose is?

I'm trying to calm my mind about this stuff. It may be amusing for Pete to hear me expound about my blueprint for world domination and hedonistic escape, but it makes me feel pretty fucking scattered. And I'm a practical girl at heart. I have a subscription to Consumer Reports to prove it! But I can no longer be wrapped up in long-term planning. It feels wrong and it feels self-indulgent. It's like when I had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy. Before that it was all about "when I'm ready for a baby I'll have one." After that smack in the face at eight weeks along, it was all "oh, so I'm not totally in charge here."

I want to direct this show as much as possible, but finding a new balance is proving difficult. Something to work on, I guess.

In the meantime, I think I might have one of those dreaded seromas under my arm where the lymph nodes were removed. But I can't tell shit with all the numbness and electric shocks going on under there. So today I see my surgeon, who apparently still hasn't received a copy of my pathology, to get the boobmeisters checked out. The worst? I get ye olde fine needle aspiration and feel a little more pain. I can take it.