I’m on a countdown, it seems. Every minute that passes puts me closer to Wednesday, which in turn puts me closer to Capital K Knowing. I’m finding it’s one thing to know you have cancer in this vague sort of way. Seems we caught it early, but possibly not. Seems not to have invaded too much surrounding tissue, but we’ll find out. Don’t know which hormones it’s recpetive to, so don’t know which of the many treatments are indicated. Just know I have the big C. And while I usually hate more than anything not knowing as many details as possible, there’s also a way in which it is comforting. There’s hope in the not knowing, or in the Only Vague Knowing. It’s still within the realm of possibility that I could wake up on Wednesday after surgery and find out the cancer was much smaller than expected, and was taken care of by surgery. I could still find out that no lymph nodes were involved, or no further surgery or chemotherapy will be required. There’s still plenty of reason to be optimistic. So like I said, it’s one thing to know you have cancer in a vague sort of way, and another to know all of the details.

After I Wednesday, and certainly after I get the pathology results back, though, I’m locked in. The optimism could be replaced by sheer happiness at fantastic news. Or. And it’s the Or that has me temporarily enjoy the Only Vague Knowing and fear the Knowing.

So a run-down of Wednesday. First, I check in super early to get an injection of radioactive blue dye. This will travel to my lymph nodes to make it easier for my surgeon to find them for a biopsy. I will then be taken to the imaging facility, where a series of wires will by placed via ultrasound, guided by clips (or as the radiologist called them, internal bling) that were placed during my second biopsy, to make the cancer easier to find during surgery. Then surgery, in which they will hopefully remove all of the cancer, plus a margin of clean tissue all the way around, just to be sure, and take a biopsy of my lymph nodes. Then I wake up and hopefully don’t become dependent on pain pills.

Then I wait. So I can Know. I’ll tell you how it goes.