
Is the glass half full? Or is it half empty?
“Indolent,” he said, “…it is indolent.”
Indolent is the opposite of me. I cannot sit still, I have never been considered lazy. Yet, indolent was used to describe the lymphoma that I was diagnosed with on Thursday, the 3rd of November, 2022. It was used to describe the Mantle Cell Lymphoma, a cancer of the blood, a Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma that is now a part of me and my medical history.
Indolent, is a good thing.
When I look up the disease, I don’t see anything good. I was told, by my GP, that more than likely nothing was wrong, but she wanted me to see a hematologist. She had a particular one in mind. I saw him. He ended up by saying that I probably had one of two diseases: MCL (Monoclonal B Cell Lymphocyctosis), a precursor to CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and the other option dealt with by a pill, but oh no, I had to opt for a rare case of Mantle Cell Lymphoma, which has a survival rate…oh, let’s not go there.
My version of Mantle Cell Lymphoma is indolent. It has shown up for three years and has scarcely changed, just a little bit more in the 3rd test this year. It may well require nothing more than monitoring and may never get worse, but it is cancer.
Cancer is a disease that I feel has been stalking me. My dad died at 40 and I had the odd feeling that my date with the maker would be same. I am going to be 71 this December, so clearly I have lucked out. My mom and sister had cancer and so did my paternal grandfather.
My aunt saved me and thus my mom said I was living on borrowed time. As a baby, I turned blue in my crib and my aunt, the aunt who was an alcoholic and had an untimely young death, saved my life.
I cannot help but think that trauma to me and my family since the Pandemic has caused my cancer to appear, but at the same time I wonder what caused it to be currently non-aggressive and indolent.
We shall not know, we need to take one day at a time and not make assumptions.
On Friday, after the diagnosis, we came to Santa Fe, where I am now writing this blog post. I need catharsis and blogging does that for me. Santa Fe is like a shot in the arm that makes me realize that going on and making the best of everything is the choice I need to make and accept.
So be it!…out out, damn cancer!
Meanwhile, I involve myself in the emotional dance of the recognition that I have the disease and that I have to deal with it.