Do YOU Want to Know?

It's a funny feeling: as I get stronger and feel more "normal", part of me wants to forget it all (in spite of my weirdly un-nippled breast, which I still have not seen bare) and part of me feels I'm walking on the edge of a cliff, waiting for the news from the path report.

I find myself making plans for the summer and then catching myself: maybe I'll be having chemo then and those unfulfilled plans will make me feel bad. I've just got to know everything is "all right" -- at least, as far as the doctor can tell -- before I can be normal, whatever that is.

I called yesterday with some trepidation, and was told the report was not back yet. The nurse said I can wait for my post-op visit with Dr. C, the surgeon, on Friday morning, when it will definitely be ready, or I can call today or tomorrow to see if it's in before that. I doubt they'll bother to call me, so I feel I have to decide: how much do I want to know this news now?

Remember that old dorm-room question (not that I ever got to have a dorm room), Would you choose to know the date of your death if you could? My answer would be a resounding No. I'm prepared to live with a certain fogginess over the pain of mortality. On the other hand, it's been in the news a lot lately that if a test is developed that predicts Alzheimer's in an individual, some may prefer to know the results even though there is presently no treatment for it. I'm one of those...and I've thought about it because my mother, her father and two of her sisters died of Alzheimer's, so that pushes me on the more likely side of the genetic probability scale. And I'd like to know, horrible as that would be, for a pragmatic reason: I could make arrangements for my children to take over my finances and decisions when they see the early signs.

What's at stake in the path report is not -- at least, probably not -- as dramatic as death and dementia, but a bad report would sure disrupt my life and bring me stress and pain in the form of a mastectomy. The last few days have been the happiest since this bad dream started in December: the surgery is over, not in a lot of pain, I'm out in the world again, and most of all, back at work. If I choose to know early and the report is bad, I will have forfeited a few days of peace and contentment; on the other hand, underneath everything, the presence of those dark possibilities taints it all. And if I find out the report is good, I can be free of that. So I'm not sure what to do.