I stopped by the gastroenterologist yesterday for my follow-up appointment. About a month ago, he found about six polyps, one of which was pre-cancerous/cancerous/it wasn’t quite clear to me. It was the best kind of dangerous polyp to find; it was easily enough removed and had not yet spread in any way. He tells me I was just a millimeter or two away from having a “real” problem, and that I am a very lucky lady.

I am.

A few of my friends were quite kind about this while I was getting the news, telling me there was absolutely NO way *I* could be diagnosed with cancer right after the year Celia just had. I’m convinced that unfortunately, the world doesn’t work that way. It’s pretty random, and some people get a whole lot more than they can realistically handle. In effect, what I did was dodge a bullet. Had I been a bit more cavalier about scheduling my 10-year-checkup, I might not have been so fortunate. This is why we do screening exams. (And yes, for those of you playing along at home, why thank you. I AM awfully young to have screening colonoscopies. My digestive system is not, shall we say, a team player.) Because my colonoscopy at 37 was completely normal, I seriously considered waiting until 50 to go back. And that might have been too late. I’ve won myself a trip back to the rubber hose in 4 years rather than 10.

Needless to say (?) I decided that it was time to go ahead with that mammogram too. No point in tempting fate.

Also yesterday we had the perfectly normal experience of taking Celia to her regular pediatrician for a regular old sick visit. She’s had a cold for a couple of weeks and it finally seemed like it had hung around long enough for her to be checked out. She’s fine; she’s not that sick. If it had been 2 years ago I would have hesitated to take her. This is the funny part of remission. Part of you thinks, “Oh wow, do I call the oncology clinic and get their input?” while another part of you realizes they would be on the phone with you doing one of two things. Either they would say, “We’d better bring her in and do a series of tests” or they would say, “Woman, are you kidding me? She has a COLD.” Hard to adjust from the thinking that if she were to spike even a low fever, she would have to go to the ER.

Colds aside, she’s doing well on re-entry to teenage life.

In August I wrote a story for one of our town magazines about Celia’s cancer; she is the cover story in honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. (I have about 10 extra copies thanks to my neighbors, so let me know if you would like one!) The point of the story that I hope I got across is that our neighbors and our town rallied around us in an amazing way. Our families and friends across the country did too, but unfortunately there is not yet a magazine dedicated to Balderston Family and Friends. In the waiting room yesterday I came across and article that was unfortunately named something like “Things to Make Mid-Life Years Better” and the one part that struck me was about setbacks. In the middle of this long paragraph about how we handle setbacks/crisis/bad events was the advice: OPM. Other people matter. “People who let other people help them tend to recover better than those who are fiercely independent.”

Nailed it. (We nailed it, I mean. We let you. We really let you.)

We got so much help, and I hope that you all still know how much that continues to means to us. We’re continuing to put together our team for Comer’s Race for the Kids on October 16th and hope you will join us: (http://race.uchicagokidshospital.org/faf/search/searchTeamPart.asp?ievent=1157270&team=6737979)

I told you I’d nag.

Ultimately that OPM experience is helping me cheerfully hit up all of these health screenings I ignored for the last year and a half. They’re not fun, and they have their scary moments. But I’m secure in knowing that I am not alone in this, as much as midlife kind of feels that way sometimes.

More soon. Go get your screenings!