Day 2: Final word, but not officially

The next morning my mom, my boyfriend, and I headed out to see this retinal specialist here in Boston. When we arrived I went through a similar procedure: dilated eyes, pictures, exam... except this time this Dr. (who was a complete and total sweetheart) gave us the bad news. He believed it to be a malignant choroidal melanoma. ::Enter scare end of life music, tears, and loud sobs:: all by me of course. I think my mom and boyfriend were both in SHOCK. As was I, but I was also bawling my eyes out. Outfit: A previously "lucky" outfit, stretch black pants, black turtleneck, and comfy empire black/white/yellow cotton dress, w/ black peep toe shoes. This outfit has pretty much been banned from my wardrobe.

The Dr. tried to lift my spirits a bit by saying that the treatment at MEEI (Mass Eye and Ear) was the best I could get for this disease, and that we could test for TB and maybe that might come back positive (a good thing at this point, as it would indicate an infection behind my eye). Alas though it was not TB and is in fact cancer.

The rest of this day was fairly blurry as well, I know I had a chest x-ray and bloodwork done to see if it had spread. Though from what I know now that was completely insufficient for an initial testing.

I retreated home to my parent's place, and then went to Maine for the weekend with my mom, bf, littlest sister, and aunt to try and get a little peace of mind before the actual "final diagnosis" day on Monday when I would meet with the Ocular Oncologist at MEEI.

Mind you at the time my family had decided it would not be in the best interest of my younger siblings to tell them that it was cancer, at least not until after we had the final word. So the weekend was spent trying not to say that in front of my younger sister.

It was a pretty teary weekend as my emotions ranged from that of "I can beat this thing, I will beat it down! I am healthy I can do anything (this happening both when I was a bit intoxicated, and also when I was running -- nothing like fresh air, the ocean, your body working hard, to make you feel alive!!) to I'm going to die soon, I'm sure it has spread, I probably don't have much longer, I want to quit my job and have kids now! etc...

I remember my most distinct thought when the Dr. told me what it was, I didn't feel regret for anything in life, I didn't have a list of "I wish I had.... or I wish I hadn't ..." and I was very very proud of that, I did however have a stabbing pain in my heart that held my desire to want to be married and raise a family. I don't know when this desire became so poignant, but it did, and it was there being threatened by this awful ridiculous disease. I'm still trying to come to terms with this...but more on that later.