The In Between Time (or, Paw Paw for Jesus!)

"Paw Paw for Jesus!" is something of a battle cry and shared joke with a core group of friends.  It's from an especially bawdy monologue in a This American Life episode about road trips a few years back.  The heroine in the monologue is a single woman, presumably of a certain age, prone to foul language who goes off the rails in a small town, in Paw Paw, Michigan (just a few years ago, my aunt Cathy informed me that my Grandma was raised in Paw Paw, yet another sign that there is order in the universe).  

Yesterday, when I was still groggy and slowly coming-to in the recovery room, the first thing I remember saying to Michael and Josh was "Paw Paw for Jesus!"  It was one of two things that I'd planned on for the recovery period.  Having had my appendix out some years back, and also having spent time in recovery rooms with others post-surgery, I knew how foggy that space can be.  It's sort of an in-between-time when you're drifting between being awake, and occasionally slipping back into the long shadows of the anesthesia.

Even in that space, I wanted to have a signal that would be a sign to both the boys and to me that I was still in there swinging, and that even with the holy-fucking-shitness of the day, we ought not get too lost in the seriousness of it all. 

The other thing that I'd planned ahead for was an agreement with Michael that after the doctor gave him the post surgery update, all he had to do was call my parents and report that I had come through the surgery ok.  Dr. Shin had said ahead of time that there is a quick test that they can do in the room to see whether or not a tumor is malignant.  If there was news coming out of surgery, it didn't seem fair to ask Michael to be the one to tell my parents that the tumor was cancerous.

Because of the aforementioned post-surgery shadows, I can't remember now if it was Michael or Dr. Shin who first told me yesterday that the tumor was malignant.  

It shouldn't have been a surprise really, the ultrasounds hadn't looked good from the start, and it's not like surgeons remove testicles without good, strong suspicion that something's gone awry.  But somehow, the past few days, I'd just sort of been assuming that it wouldn't really be cancer.  Maybe a benign tumor. Maybe a weird infection that had gone out of control.  In hindsight, this may have been a bit of denial.  Or an attempt to bargain a bit with the universe (I'll give you Leftee and will even be willing to look like a bit of a boob for having a ball removed when it wasn't actually cancerous, if you just don't actually give me cancer - any takers?).  

But now, it seems, the news is what it is.  Dr. Shin did say he thought they'd gotten it all in surgery; but he'd also said last week that post surgery treatments (chemo and/or radiation) might be necessary to make sure that there's no cellular spread.  Apparently, there was some indication yesterday that the tumor's size and growth beyond the testicle into some of the epididymis make this a little more likely now.

We won't know much more about specific next steps until the full biopsy results come in toward the end of next week.  So, once again, here we are in an in-between-time for a bit, waiting for news on next steps.

Paw Paw for Jesus!