And so, we wait.

There is good news; the blood test for growth hormone indicates that neither tumor is currently growing. Yet the question of why two tumors, in different locations, remains.  There is bad news; one is on the pituitary gland, indicating, perhaps, probably, Cushing’s Disease.  The prognosis for that is not wonderful; treatable, but the side effects of that treatment worse than the disease.  Untreated, it is mostly fatal within four years of diagnosis.  Your tissues, exposed to massive amounts of cortisol caused by a pituitary tumor, deteriorate.

I am tired.  The meds make me sleep fifteen, twenty, twenty-two hours a day.  I register for summer classes anyway, starting Tuesday.  I go back to work, anyway, unwilling to let my life be destroyed by the presence of abnormally growing cells.  Not destroyed. Halted.  I am not waiting around for bad news.  But the exhaustion wears on me, draining energy from the very marrow of my bones.

When awake, I step outside.  The grass, after two weeks of hospitalization, is welcoming beneath my bare feet.  My child turned eight yesterday; I buy her shorts and t-shirts, we dance in the magic of midsummer.   She knows, but accepts as only the faith of a child can.  I go to movies with friends between doctor’s appointments and sleep.  I ignore the strands of hair that fall out, the weight slipping off my body,  the stuttering voices of people who don’t know what to say.

I don’t tell them I don’t know what to say either; in these spaces of waiting, in these moments, there are no words.  There is only faith, and hope, and love.  And the greatest of these is love.