I know it looks like I forgot I had a blog. Or decided I didn’t feel like doing it anymore. Maybe I simply couldn’t find the time to blog because I was busy doing AMAZING THINGS. You know, traveling the globe. Writing a novel. Ending world hunger. Becoming an expert at…something. Yeah, as much as I would love to regale you with tales of my exotic exploits, the simple truth is that I haven’t written because I got completely swallowed up by my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done some cool things and had some great experiences this year, but those aren’t the things that have kept me from writing. It’s the underwear. I’ll explain…

I like to call it “Triage” – the immediate needs take precedence over the things that can wait. So in the reality of day-to-day living, that means that if a task doesn’t fall under the category of “This must happen today or I don’t know what will happen but it’s bad,” then it tends to get pushed behind the things that do. Sometimes I’m aware that I’m doing this, but most of the time it just kind of happens. And then suddenly it’s been months since I said I would do this Very Important But Not Important On a Daily Basis thing. I felt a little better about this phenomenon after running into a friend at Target (triage – we needed toilet paper in a rather desperate way. I won’t elaborate). She’s a brilliant writer, and is currently pursuing her master’s in it, and yet she was having the same struggle: “You sit there and think, ‘I could get another chapter of my book written…or I could finish the laundry so everyone has clean underwear tomorrow.’ And the underwear always wins.”

Anyone else feel like that could be their bumper sticker?

“The underwear always wins…”

And here’s the kicker: I’m someone who is supposed to know better. I have cancer, for crying out loud, that was supposed to be my wake up call. The life-is-short-so-do-all-the-things-now epiphany. And initially I did exactly that. I didn’t make a bucket list per se, but I didn’t have to. One stunning diagnosis and I instantly had my priorities in order, along with the motivation to “make every day count.” But as the days stretched on into months and then years, a tentative confidence began to grow, and it whispered, “You know, you might live, did you ever think of that? You have decent odds of beating this thing.” Yeah…better wash the underwear.

But next week I will make my pilgrimage to the Mayo Clinic for my 9 month check. Next week it gets real again. It always does when I go there. Scans, blood work, billions of pictures of my eye (I don’t think I’m exaggerating, it really is excessive), and then the wait. Sitting in the ugliest waiting room (again, probably not an exaggeration), with my headphones in to drown out the depressing music (see also: my previous rants about Nadia’s Theme), as I wait to see my oncologist and hear my results. My palms sweat more than hands should, and I get this weird feeling in my stomach that kind of feels like falling. My heart lurches every time a nurse comes out to call for a patient. And in those moments, the confident voice that has been whispering for the last 9 months is silent. Because what if I come in to this too cocky? No, there is a necessary fear and trembling with which I approach these days. Just in case.

Scanxiety.

I wish I had thought of that word, because it’s brilliant. It is exactly what it sounds like – although, for me it only applies to the actual day at Mayo. The two weeks or so before my appointments, I’m not so much anxious as I am freaking neurotic. But “MRI’m losing-my-mind” doesn’t have the same ring to it, so we’ll stick with scanxiety. My poor family. I am not fun to be around in the weeks before a Mayo visit. I know it, but I’m powerless to stop it. I actually was so distracted with some big events at the end of May and into June that I didn’t realize we were entering That Time. It finally dawned on me, sort of like for us ladies when we realize it’s a certain time of the month and go, “Ohhhhh, so THAT’S why I hate everyone right now.” My family knew all along, by the way.

So I’m looking forward to getting my Mayo day – and the ugly weeks before it – over with. And not. Because while fear-induced neurosis definitely isn’t healthy, neither is being so confident you have a million tomorrows that you neglect your today’s. It’s good to be a little scared. But not too scared.

The underwear can wait. Maybe that’s my new bumper sticker.

We all have things we want to do, things that get pushed aside because life happens. Because triage. But let’s pick one thing that we don’t want to get triage’d out of our days, and then fight for it. Mine is writing more. I’ve always been someone who works better with a deadline, but I don’t want to wait for a dire scan result to give me the ultimate deadline.

I promise to be timely with my next post, and I have high hopes that it will include a positive report from my Mayo day. I know I haven’t been great about health updates recently, but quite frankly, it’s my least favorite thing to write about. That said, I did realize that I neglected to share with you the biggest news of my last Mayo visit: my oncologist looks like Einstein now. Totally true. His hair has gone white and he let it grow out; that, plus the mustache and it’s full-on Einstein. I’m sorry I missed telling you that, because it was awesome. I will try to be better about communicating these important things in the future, I promise. In the meantime, since I’ve finished this, there is the matter of some laundry…

Happy Friday, everyone. Go carpe that diem!