[orthodoc]

One step forward, five steps back ... phone call from the oncologist today says they all went over the pathology again and want to add an addendum saying it's not as bad as it looked at first glance (but this doesn't fill me with confidence - did it take the entire team to convince themselves of this? Why didn't it look medium-bad at first glance instead of severely-bad?). Okay, it's good news.

Then he tells me the surgeon and plastic surgeon think they can get together in the same OR with me in ... OCTOBER. Fucking OCTOBER!!! That's oh, 3 months post-diagnosis. Maybe there'll be lots of little positive nodes to keep them busy then, maybe even a liver or brain met to make their day exciting ...

I lost it. I burst into tears on the phone. I have now cried twice on this man, this oncologist, and I haven't cried on anyone else so far; only by myself. He's going to think I'm a nutcase. I told him the national average 'wait' for breast cancer surgery is one month and WVU tries to do better, so what is this? Does no one at WVU get reconstruction done? He was very nice, he's honestly a great guy, and he said he'd call other surgeons in town and see what could be done. But now I don't know ... do I call UPMC? Call my insurance and see how much it'll cost to go out of network? Screw it, borrow money and pay cash somewhere out of state? Yet I have to keep working here. I can't quit or I'll lose my chance at writing Boards (which I need in order to be employable in future).

All this delay also promises to scuttle my MPH. The university is totally rigid with dates for dropping courses. If I have chemo and it spans both first and second semesters (because it doesn't start until November, with an October surgery), thereby scuttling both, I won't be able to make it up and I'll be out of the program. Meaning I won't graduate my residency, won't be able to write my Boards, and won't be employable on the other side of all this (assuming there IS an other side). The more delay, the better the chance that I'm screwed.

And ... one more big lousy karma turd falling on me ... not only have several of my 'friends' bailed after a quick 'so sorry', but a guy I was seeing - as a friend, no big relationship, but someone I liked and was willing to just go along and see what happened ... I let him know how things were looking last week, before I got the path report, and ... silence. He's gone to radio silence. Wtf, I only wanted to be friends, and friends ... at least say 'so sorry' before they bail. I wasn't even worth a 'so sorry but I can't deal with this'?

These men who sing sad songs on videos about waiting on a woman and having their hearts broken and all that? I haven't met any. I just ... I don't know. I know others are having a hard time, I don't want to give offense. I just don't know why I've never run across any of these nice, normal men. If they were all in happy, fulfilling relationships I'd be happy just to know they existed, it'd restore some of my confidence in the human race.