Oh I missed this blog so much!
I had not written since my last days in Morocco, one long year of literary desert ago.
And things have happened to the Queen, some amazing, some less. But nothing worth writing home about.
Until....Until destiny decided to direct its wrath on the most protected, hidden, and unglamorous part of our Queen's anatomy.
Note to first readers: The following is a huge departure from my usual topics, describing countries and places and nice experiences. But life happened.
Happy Place
It all started with an inglorious visit to the Gastroenterologist, for inglorious little problems. No, I will not expand. But it happened, and so did the ensuing examination of the Queen's royal rectum.
As a Queen, this is tantamount to Guillotine. But as a Queen, she took it!
Not really.
She was a wreck, she was tense. The nurse present in the room was holding her hand, telling her to go to her "happy place".
The thing is, the Queen had an intuition, and she had it for a while, that something was happening up there. Something that possibly was far worse than the small little inglorious problems that had brought her there.
So while she was eagerly trying to go to some happy place, struggling to find an imaginary place where having a large object stuffed up her rectum would be an option, she could not help but worry.
The examination ended, with no serious findings, and the doctor in his kindness gave the Queen a tissue. Mistaking the gesture for an invitation to let go of the built-up tension, she proceeded to burst into tears in said tissue.
"It was supposed to be used to clean yourself up" he said with a compassionate smile.
New tissue. All cleaned up, except the Queen's pride and dignity.
"You are good, nothing we cannot treat pretty quickly. But I am sending you for a colonoscopy ASAP".
Two words resonated.
The first, colonoscopy. The Queen has no age, we all know that. She floats in a timeless universe, looking and feeling gorgeous. But the despised calendar milestone of "needing a colonoscopy" had passed quite a while ago, conveniently ignored and denied. Ugh.
The second word, ASAP.
"Why ASAP? What did you see? Tell me!" She urged the nice doctor.
He saw nothing, suspects nothing, but the Queen's age...Ignorant peasant.
Colonoscopy scheduled, ASAP.
Queenoscopy
Fast forward on the horrible laxative potion, the runs to the bathroom, the gown opened in the back, we stop at the moment when the Queen wakes up from a blissful 15 minutes of induced sleep.
"We found a tumor, 30 mm diameter (a walnut), we could not take it out with our little scissors"
There is no happy place where the Queen sports a walnut in her colon. That is heresy.
The rest was a mixture of reassuring words, "It is soft and movable, that is encouraging", with urgent scheduling words, "We have an expert surgeon in the hospital that takes complex cases, she can schedule you in a few days". ASAP. Indeed ASAP.
The good news: It would not be surgery per se, no incisions, no open colon. They would try to extract it rectally, if possible, via a more involved colonoscopy. If not, there would be surgery.
From then on, the Queen adopted a new mantra, "Hopefully Rectally". She never thought those two words would ever be her mantra. But life has its way of taking you places you never thought you would go.
The Middle
Fast forward on a week of cancer-googling, studies, consults, some wine, some self-pity, some partying, some hugging, some horrible laxative potion, runs to the bathroom, gown open in the back. We stop when the Queen wakes up from two blissful hours of induced sleep.
"We got it all out. Get some rest, don't run a marathon. Watch for heavy bleeding" These are Monica's words, my expert surgeon. Ruthless.
"What did you see Monica? Did you see cancer? Tell me"
"Nope, nothing to say, wait for biopsy results"
The Queen doesn't give up that easily, she begs, urges, cajoles, bats her eyes, whatever it takes.
Monica delivers her cryptic omen :
"If it was very bad, I would tell you. If it was very good, I would also tell you. I am not telling you anything. You are somewhere in the middle"
The middle.
Where is the middle? Seriously, where is it?
Of course there was to be heavy bleeding, a night spent at the ER, where time stands still, but the Queen recovered. Eventually, she was walnut-free.
The descent
There are two kinds of people : The blissfully optimistic kind and the pragmatic realistic kind. The Queen, it appears, belongs to the latter, with a dollop of doom-impending tendencies.
See, the Queen does not believe in positive thinking. She tries. She fails repeatedly.
The next six days were spent in planning for death, or worse, for the wearing of a stoma bag for life, a great fashion accessory if you are dating.
Agonizing wait. Compulsive checking of the hospital portal for results. She reached to her base: family, friends.
She was in the Middle. Not knowing what will be. Monica's middle is not her happy place, it is not.
Invasive Adenocarcinoma ... but a cute one
It was Colon Cancer. But a very small tiny one. Well contained, a baby, really. Hidden in the middle of a benign adenoma (40 mm after all, a golf ball).
No need for further treatment, removal was enough.
"You were extremely lucky to catch it at this stage. It had started growing". Even Monica was cheerful on the phone.
The Queen was cheerful as well. She dodged a royal bullet and she knew it.
Very rarely in life one gets the chance to truly appreciate one's life and health. That was that moment. Pure bliss, joy and relief.
Public Service Announcement
There was no guilty pleasure in me sharing my butt stories. But there is a goal, a reason for it.
Go schedule your colonoscopy, drink that horrible potion, shit your brains out for a whole day, wear that gown opened on the backside. Lie down on your side, count down from 5 to whatever it takes for the anesthesia to kick in. (I got to 3). And make sure you are ok.
It is, literally, a life or death situation.
I love you all, I made it this time, and I hope that will help someone else.
(Mic drop)
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