big bro's coming!

Every spring, in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday, the younger kids at Q & E's school dress up as their favorite character in children's literature and march around the school in a parade for the older kids and for all the parents and community representatives that show up (last year, the governor's wife came. Maybe she'll be first lady one day. Friend K got a picture of her with her kids, just in case). Afterwards, each classroom has a special guest come in and read a book to the kids. It's great fun, and I went to watch it today. I stopped by E's room afterwards to listen to the story.

The book was "Watch Out! Big Bro's Coming!" - I wasn't familiar with it. It starts with a mouse, who is running around afraid because "Big Bro" is coming, and he's scary and BIIIG. Thus he tells the frog, who tells the parrot, who tells the chimpanzee, and on and on up to an elephant. By the time the elephant finds out, the story is that Big Bro is ENORMOUS (big as an elephant's stretch) and horrifying. Predictably, it ends up that Big Bro is actually another mouse, only slightly bigger than the initial one.

So, you ask, why am I recounting this rivoting tale? I realized a little while ago that Big Bro is a recurrent visitor in my life. In fact, he rendered me nearly incapable of functioning for the last several days. As you know, we just watched Gerald die of pancreatic cancer. It was really, truly horrible. Because DH's grandfather also died of that disease, and because it is generally accepted that the tendency for P.C. can be inherited, DH went to his doc to talk it over with him. The doc used DH's recent weight loss coupled with the possibility of inherited tendencies as reason enough to schedule him for a CT scan, which took place last week. The report written by the radiologist was passed on to the general practitioner, who talked to the nurse, who talked to DH, who told me (via cell phone, by the way, as I was driving down the interstate), that he had an "enlarged head of his pancreas." Don't do an internet search on that symptom. It's horrifying... and, of course, that is what I have spent the last few days doing. Big Bro was coming! He was huge and scary and I cried and cowered and worried and lived in fear of how scary he is.

SO, the doc wanted DH to have an MRI to have another look at his pancreas. That was today. While DH was carrying his paperwork to the radiology department, he read the report and the actual wording was more like "pancreatic head is mildly elongated." Well. Now. That's a COMPLETELY different take on things. In fact, we heard from the doctor just a while ago that the MRI results, already back in, were perfectly normal. No mass. No cancer. Just a long pancreas, not even "enlarged."

You know how if you are swimming and you go under water and hold your breath for just as long as you can...even longer than you thought you could, then you pop up and take in a huge gasp of air? Yeah.

So once again, I am left with an overwhelming sense of relief, a fresh perspective on what's really important (from past experience, it'll stay around for a while but will eventually be overcome by minor everyday worries like whether the redistricting will affect my kids, and whether we've remembered to change the oil in the cars). I am also left chagrined. This is not the first time Big Bro has terrorized me, and darn it, but I fall for it every time. He's scared me into believing I had lymphoma (turned out to be a hernia) and multiple sclerosis (actually only a pinched nerve).

I don't know. Maybe he's not completely bad. He does help me to remember things like how completely and unabashedly I love my husband and how much I need him around, like how good it feels to have a working body, and how much I love spending every minute that I do with my children. So if you hear whispers that Big Bro is Coming, it's OK to listen, but just a little.