(Gotta love Judge Marshall)

The hospital called today.

This is a reminder that you have a 1:15 appointment tomorrow with Dr. Hunter and Dr. Pye.

I said thank you and that was it.

The patient portal says:

Three doctors at 1:15. That is the cerberus II appointment.

This is from the email I got about tomorrow. Note that the name “Mary” is exactly how the email came, and my name ain’t Mary, and the bold is in the original …

Dear Mary,

This email is to inform you that your Flexible Sigmoidoscopy appointment with Dr. John Hunter has been scheduled for the following date:

Wednesday, August 8, 2018 arriving at 12:30PM for a 1:15PM procedure.

…

I did get the same email a bit later with my real name and the same information. It is a 10 minute procedure, at the most, but not the appointment with three doctors. So no reminder of the flex sig and it is not in the portal. Or is it all one appointment since Dr. Hunter is involved with both?

I will get there at 12:30. Dr. Pye will show up over nine years late, and lord knows why Dr. Roentgen will be there or when.

And yes, I am anxious. At some point tomorrow I will find out the results of the CT, MRI and flex sig. I will learn if the tumor has grown or shrunk (or is it shrank? … The past participle is the form of the verb used in the present perfect tense, which shows action completed at the time of speaking, hence shrunk should be correct.) Has the cancer spread to the lungs or liver? Did the chemo-radiation make any difference at all? Has the tumor miraculously vanished and I’m just full of shit?

Everything I know points to some good news. My nuts no longer hurt and the assumption is that the tumor is no longer hitting some otherwise useless nerve and hence has shrunk. Other than the last two days, my bowels seem to be functioning more like my baseline of a year ago (late yesterday and today I believe have left over effects from the laxative and contrast). My CEA level (cancer marker in blood) has gone down. I am not dead yet.

And what Plato says, That there are few Men so obstinate in their Atheism, that a pressing Danger will not reduce to an acknowledgment of the Divine Power… ~Michel de Montaigne, French Renaissance philosopher and essayist

Hence, now that we know there are no atheists in a situation such as this, it is only appropriate to research if there is a prayer for my czar of a tumor …