A Quick Observation: March 2009

Something occurred to me during the first couple of weeks of dealing with this disease. The early days of a cancer diagnosis, which is the time period when you're hearing new theories about what might be wrong with you everyday and you're subjecting yourself to a million different diagnostic tests, is a lot like coping with the whacky March weather we experience here in D.C. How so you ask? Well, it's like this: The temperature in March can be as high as 75 with sunny skies but it can also be as cold and gray as the worst day in mid-January. All you (or at least all I wanted this March) is for the barometer to land somewhere in the middle - say maybe 55 or so - and just stay there with brief periods of sunshine each day. But that's not what you get. What you get is extreme highs and lows. And that's also exactly what you get, despite your best efforts to stay steady, when you're in the early days of a cancer diagnosis. One doctor says something hopeful and you're as high as you feel on a warm, sunny afternoon when you dare to take off your winter coat. The next day, another tells you something different, or maybe they just have a gloomier tone in sharing essentially the same opinion, and suddenly you're standing there shivering under a gray sky, totally depressed. Think about it. One day up, the next day down. True, right?