2025 is the Year of the Scalpel in our household. My husband has been trying for over a year to queue up the necessary protocols and referrals and scheduling to get his much-needed neck surgery done through the VA. (Don’t get me wrong—we’re immensely grateful that he can get this surgery through the VA! But it’s a fact of life that things don’t move fast through the VA.) We’re finally in the home stretch, with surgery not scheduled in, but at least vaguely-set-for October.
As for me, I realized last fall that I was in imminent need of foot surgery, so I took advantage of the open enrollment period to sign up for health insurance for this year, for the first time in over five years. (The last year that I had it, I did the math and realized we spent MORE by having health insurance than we would have spent just by paying out-of-pocket for all my usual meds and mental-health-care. So—with prayers that nothing catastrophic would hit—I’ve taken the risk of going without.)
I got the foot surgery taken care of in May—and I had already decided that while I had the insurance, I was going to do ALL the things. Physical exam, blood work, mammogram, mole check, colonoscopy, dental work, anything and everything I could think of.
The admissions-desk at our local hospital knows me by name, by now. Though I guess in my mind, it was a matter of “getting my money’s worth” out of the insurance, rather than any actual concern that we would find something wrong.
Then I got called back for a second mammogram. And then an ultrasound. And then a biopsy. With too-long gaps between each of those things (and between those things and their results)—gaps wide enough for fears to ooze through.
My M.O., when faced with anything threatening, has always been to go straight to a “worst-case” scenario, and then think of a way to deal with it, or a thing I could do about it—and to ask myself if I could live with that. In this case, my worst-case-check was straightforward: “I don’t need breasts.” If we had to go all the way to removing them… I could live with that.
It sounds strange, I know, to go straight to the catastrophic to calm myself. But the important part isn’t the “solution” I propose to myself. It’s the conclusion that (even IF the bad thing happens) “I could live with that.” It’s a way to take power away from the fear. (It also makes medium-bad outcomes look good by comparison, which doesn’t hurt anything.)
So, after all the rounds of tests-and-results, we got the word: NOT cancer. (Thank you, God!) Still, the baddie was a “precancerous” mass that needed to be removed. And so, our Year of the Scalpel continues, and I went back under the knife a couple days ago. All good.
I took off the sterile dressing this morning, and I confess I was taken aback. No, I was actually a little shocked. There’s at least a two-inch gash there! Evidently my foot surgery skewed my expectations on this score: if they could saw my metatarsal in half and insert five screws with just four tiny incisions in my foot, I’d have thought they could remove one very small mass without—well—this.
“I guess I’ll think of it as a battle scar,” I texted my mother and sister. And then I stopped to examine my own dismay. Wasn’t I willing, just months ago, to cut the whole thing off, if need be? Wasn’t I overjoyed, just weeks ago, that I wouldn’t have to engage in a new battle for my life? Yes! In fact, HELL yes! So what’s with this pout, and over a scar that only my husband and I will ever see?
I suppose it goes to illustrate a couple things. One, how quickly we can lose perspective, if we don’t pay attention. And two, that “I could live with it” does not necessarily equate to “I’d be fine with it“. Which is a shame. Kinda takes the wind out of the sails of my comfort, those times when I flash-forward with catastrophic thinking, to “solve” it in my head and calm myself.
Still, I doubt I’ll give up the habit. After fast-forwarding to worst and accepting it as “live-with-able” this summer, I wasn’t losing my shit nearly as much as I would have been otherwise, in those weeks of waiting on tests and results. I still prayed for a good outcome (of course!), but I had already determined I could deal with the drastic, if it got dealt me.
The same sort of process played out last night. The RV park that we manage (and live in) is perched atop a hill overlooking fields of wheat and cheat-grass, which, at this time of year, are straight-up tinder waiting to happen. We get high winds here too, so I’ve always had a bit of nervousness about what a fire down the hill would look like.
Last night we found out.
The brush fire that broke out downhill from us burned its way menacingly toward our fence. It required five fire trucks and a farmer plowing fire-breaks to contain it, saving our park and the middle school down the hill—a couple tense hours in which my husband and our residents (and even some overnight guests) stood in a long row with hoses trained on the swath we mow along our fenceline.
As per my usual, when the fire first started, I went straight to worst-case (our house could catch fire), and what I could do (shovel cats into the car and grab my childhood teddy bear), and whether I could live with the loss of everything else (yes). I had the cat-carrier, shoes, car keys, and bear ready to go. Hoses aside, that’s what I could do.
I know damn good and well that I would have found it devastating if our home had burned. I’m not so delusional that I think I wouldn’t mind it. (We were immensely grateful, at the end of a suspenseful evening, to snuggle into our own comfortable bed with our stuff and our cats around us!)
But I had already made the decision, in a manner of speaking, not to believe or behave like the sky was falling, or the world ending, if the house were to catch fire. I could live with it. And thus, I was much calmer of spirit than logic would seem to dictate.
No, I don’t think I’ll give up this self-protective response to threatening events in life. But I recognize this morning that I would do well to remember… That I can wear my scars proudly, the metaphorical ones as well as the physical. That it’s not a failing to find them upsetting, as long as I keep my perspective and remember what they are not. They are not “worst”. Even the worst event of my life—in the face of something I would NOT have calmly said I could live with… turned out to be something I could live with. Grieve over, yes. Be scarred by, yes. But live with—and go on, again, to joy.
Those scars are the reason I can ask myself—and answer with authority—“Could I live with that?” Yes. Yes, I could.
Kana's Chronicles 
I can relate to this, Kana! I had a bunionectomy in 2007. I didn’t realize how bad it was until I saw the X-rays of my foot. My podiatrist initially said it looked like one of the worst bunions he’d ever seen; afterward, he said it was THE worst he’d ever seen! I have an elderly uncle living with me now, and he gets some of his care through the Dallas VA. It’s very frustrating, which is why I’m trying to get him to see doctors closer to my home in north suburban Dallas.
Either way, best wishes to you and your husband!
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My mother always says that “the last thing she wants to be is INTERESTING to her doctors”–sounds like your foot was a prime example of why not! ;)
Well, I’m just glad they CAN fix the things nowadays, and I’ll bet you are too. I hate wearing shoes, but we live in a climate where you can’t go without them for some months of the year–and last winter I couldn’t stand to have one on my foot. Now my (bare) feet are happy again! :D
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So thankful that neither the lumpectomy nor the fire were as bad as they could have been. I admire you for your resilience in the many challenges you’ve faced—and for your gift of writing to share with others. Hugs!
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