CATSTIR

CATSTIR[kat-stur]noun: Code word for the other "C" word that rhymes with Dancer

The doctor called yesterday, January 11, 2012 at 12:15 pm.  

"You're not getting that extra twenty bucks I baited you with," I told her. "You missed your deadline by fifteen minutes."

After my biopsy, I promised her $20.00 if she gave me my results before noon on Wednesday.  

"Well..." she said (long pause). 

"And I warned you about the pause," I reminded her. "Just give it to me straight."

"The tests came back positive for catstir," she told me.  

Immediately my palms began to sweat, then my feet. And then I got an intense rush of heat across my back.

"I was high on valium during the biopsy," I confessed. 

"I thought so," she said.  

"I took more than the prescribed amount," I added.

"You're a naughty girl," she said.  

Yesterday was my day to get drunk and cry. Today is not that day. Today I picked my catstir doctor and made my appointment. I have to wait two weeks to get the doctor of my choice but I'm okay with that, it gives me plenty of time to process the diagnosis - a high grade of Intraductal Carcinoma. By then I will have a list of questions that will blow her mind. 

Today my phone rang at 6:56 am. It was my supervisor notifying me that a security guard called out sick. Without turning on a light, I called the guard and asked him if he had catstir.

"No" he said, "I have a stomach virus."

Then go to work," I told him.

Today my daughter called from Florida. She has been vacationing with a friend for the past 10 days and was due back today. 

"I cancelled my flight," she told me, "I need you to watch Mylo."

Mylo, her dog, has been staying at her Dad's house while she was away. He's a great dog but he has issues.

"I can't," I told her, "I have catstir."

I had planned on waiting until she returned to tell her but it just sort of gushed out. My daughter has endured a lot during her 21 years on earth - the loss of two young cousins, a brother, and a grandmother that she adored, and she was recently diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. It sucks that she now has to deal with her mothers illness but there is no reason to keep it from her.

I didn't want her to worry, so I explained it in a way that I knew she would understand.  

"I'm just like Samantha on Sex and the City," I told her. "Yes its true, I have catstir, but I'm still fabulous."  

I don't care if I lose my hair. I have plenty of wigs.  

I don't care if I lose a breast or two. I have made the most out of them. I nursed two children with them. I twirled fire topless with them.

Yes, there where times when I flaunted them, but I have never been defined by them.

They did their job. They served me well, and I will have a party in their honor when they're gone.

I know having catstir will suck but it will NEVER be as hard as losing a child. THIS is something I can do something about and I will fight it with every ounce of my existence.

There are gifts in this catstir, just as there are gifts in all pain, suffering, loss and trauma. 

Today, I received my first catstir gift - knowing I want to live. For years after my son's death I wanted to die in the worst way but I didn't have the brain disease that my son had, and therefor, I knew I could not take matters in my own hands. 

Knowing I want to live and that I will fight to live, makes everything sweeter.

Please don't gasp, or cry, of sigh. Don't pity me. And for fucks sake don't ask stupid questions. Just smile at me and know that I have been given this catstir for a reason. I believe that with all my heart. 

There are so many unknowns but for NOW, in this moment, all I know for certain is that I WILL write about it.

For those of you that are late to the party - "catstir" is my code word for the other "c" word - no... not THAT "c" word - I would never say THAT.  "CATSTIR" is code for...that scary, big "C" word.  If I use the word in a post, google gobbles it up and then starts targeting me with big "C" advertisements, etc.  I don't want to see a wall full of big "C" stuff every time I turn on the computer.