Hurry Up and Wait

I am having a bone scan today for my hip. I think my bionic parts are loosening, they have felt "off" for about 9 months or so, and the pain in the joint is on the increase. Pain that wakes me up in the middle of the night. Pain that makes it difficult to walk straight, and thus wrecks my back in the process.

A bone scan consists of going to the imaging center at Hoag (took almost an hour today to get there), laying on the table, getting injected with some sort of nuclear isotope, having some images taken, then being sent away for 3 hours to eat, drink, and be merry; only to come back for about 15 minutes of more "picture taking". All in all, not really a terrible exam, just very time consuming.

I am typing this at Panera, land of the free wifi. I was told to drink at least 32 oz of something so they can get better images. I have a cup of coffee and two glasses of water in front of me. The coffee is taking precedence at the moment.

My back is still tweaked. So far today, it is not too bad, but the beginning of the day has been far better than the end of the day. Still no word on the biopsy, but I really did not expect to hear until Friday at the very earliest, possibly Monday or Tuesday of next week. The lymph node is still a hard and enlarged mass on my neck. And yes, I am obsessed with it.

I desperately need a haircut. My hair is shaggy and not in a good way. But I refuse to spend the money if it is destined to fall out anyway. I will get a haircut when I hear the gland is clean. If I hear otherwise, I am going to shave my head. It will save some discomfort later, when the hair falls out. When part of my hair fell out back in 1987 (the hair that was in the radiation field was toast), my head was super itchy and because my hair was long, it kind of prolonged the inevitable. I figure with super short hair, it should be less uncomfortable. We have the clippers at home, I am not afraid to be bald. Besides, I have a ton of scarves and bandanas, if I do feel at all self-conscious about it. I am thinking I probably won't feel too self-conscious. Who knows, maybe I will. I am mostly beyond caring what other people think.

I have had way too much time to think about it all though, which I hate. I know I will survive this, because that is what I do, but I just hate the idea of it. And it will be harder because the rest of my family is 1800 miles away. I know I have support here, online, and back home, but it is going to be so hard not to have face to face interaction with people back home. Oh well. It is what it is. God, now I am crying in a public place. I HATE that.

Sorry about the "stream of consciousness" nature of this post. My brain is really random and under stress becomes even more random.

I must say, though, that Panera has pretty good coffee and makes a mean chocolate croissant.