Upside-down Etch A Sketch

Some eighteen years ago, I had a subarachnoid hemorrhage. It’s the kind of brain hemorrhage that is fatal more often than not. I was fortunate that the aneurysm resolved itself and I didn’t need surgery.

Prior to the hemorrhage, I had plans to engineer a live broadcast of the Detroit. But then, my plans were completely erased. After that, my plans were simple – survival, and then recovery.

Just after I started to feel better some seven months later, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

Upside-down Etch A Sketch – plans erased again.

Careful readers will remember that I’ve been been working through a major depressive episode that I was slipping into for several years and have been in treatment for over a year. And I just started to feel good at the beginning of May, and yes, I’ve been making plans for the summer ahead.

Prior to feeling better, I scheduled an annual with my doctor, time to get some blood work done, and get other things checked out.

I was astonished when I stood on the scale and found that I had lost ten pounds in the past three months (not part of my plans) and I’m off more than twenty pounds in less than two years.

So, here again – my Etch A Sketch seems to be turned over (but not yet shaken). With my cancer history, it was prudent to have an ultrasound.

I write this having viewed the doppler imaging of the ultrasound, and to my untrained eye, it appears that I don’t have cancer (it didn’t look like it had before years back). The report will come in due course. The labs aren’t back yet, either. I’m rather hopeful that they point to some explanation, or else there’s going to be more testing as we explore the other reasons for my symptoms. I keep reminding myself of all the other follow-ups over the years, of the mindset I had to adopt, that the test results were merely confirmation of what already was.

My Etch A Sketch turned over, waiting for the news of what already is.