My first night after getting the brain MRI results

I was exhausted around eight o'clock last night so I started heading to bed about an hour later, hoping to sleep most of the night.

I made it two or three hours.

I was feeling the weight of a metastatic cancer diagnosis. It's weird, but I don't feel dread. When I got my first cancer diagnosis 14 years ago I was terrified. The second cancer diagnosis three years ago was more like this—I'll deal with whatever it is as I know more.

And though this one looks particularly dire, I can say I've been preparing for death since that first cancer diagnosis.

Because I know we all die at some point. Whether it's cancer or something else, we each one will leave this earth. And I knew I needed to get myself ready.

I don't know how long I have. It might be a very short time or it could be years. The PET scan will answer that. Or at least give an indication. I have so much pain when I move around that I wonder if it's on the short side.

So my mind bounced around to what I'd like to do. To give things away. To pare down. To enjoy the company of my sister and others. What I might like to do if "doing" is in the picture.

My body is feeling the tension that my mind isn't. I'll catch myself picking at my cuticles, a lifelong giveaway that I'm tense. Yeah, they're already getting raw in places. But I can't seem to stop, at least not right now. My hands don't want to be still.

I was glad to get two or three hours of sleep and know I dozed off several times when my mind was wandering around. I hope to take a nap when I finish this post.

I wonder if I'll actually have the PET scan today. It hadn't received "pre-cert" from insurance as of 4:30 yesterday when I called to be sure of my time to arrive. So I may get a call this morning saying it's postponed until pre-cert approval.

I have to start fasting at six, though, because you can't eat or drink anything but water six hours before a PET scan, and mine is at noon.

I remember from the one PET scan I had 14 years ago that you have to be completely still. You don't even want to move your eyes because movement would show up as cancer even though it's not.

I wonder if my spine might be full of cancer because I have a lot of pain that seems that it could be connected with my spine.

But honestly I don't know. That's why the PET scan.

I'm prepared for the worst news and am hopeful for better news.

Though I know what is, is. And I'm okay with that.

I love being in this world. But I also believe that the other side is WAY better, incomprehensibly better. I don't know what it's like but I've heard stories of people on this side getting glimpses.

One of those stories from many years ago was from the brother of a friend who was dying of AIDS. He had gone blind from the disease. He was in his hospital bed, and his South Georgia farm mother, salt of the earth woman, was in the room with him. He sat up in bed and whispered, "It's SO beautiful!" His mother asked what was so beautiful, because she knew he was blind on this side of the veil. He said, "Mama, are you here??"

Well, actually two stories from that brother. Because he heard music when he was by his brother's hospital bed as his brother was dying. He said the best he could describe was that it was "celestial music." He checked the TV in the room, walked into the hall because maybe it was coming from there, checked anything that might be emitting sound. No, he could only hear it when he was next to his brother's bed, and when he moved away he didn't hear it anymore.

Those two stories have always been reassuring for me. I've heard lots of others as well.

All of this to say I'm hopeful no matter the PET scan results.

Because I'm going to be okay either way.

As Julian of Norwich said, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."