Homecoming

Today is the day Don and M2 get home from their trip. Their flight arrives at nearly midnight. It's gonna be a long day.

I have managed to dole out the kids in order to get to my CT scan. My sweet friend, L, insisted that she take me to the hospital. Neither one of us was sure if I could drive afterwards. It was good to have the company.

Despite having just been there for the chest xray on Thursday, I still have to jump through hoops of red tape AGAIN before I can go to radiology.

I just want to interject here that I LOVE hospitals. It feels like home away from home to me. I guess that comes from being a nurse. To me, there is no fear or trepidation at all in setting foot in the doors of a hospital. I am totally at home there.

Once we get to radiology, and they call my name, I am reminded of how friendly most health care personel are. The techs were amazing and we actually had a pretty good time.

I've never seen a CT scan done, so I took in the experience completely. It was over in less than 10 minutes.

It was important to me that I have some sort of information to tell Don when he got home tonight, so I asked them if they could tell me anything. Of course, I knew there was nothing they could tell me, but they did let me look at the images myself.

There is a mass there, I already knew that. But the image that stands out in my mind the most is the one where they said, "Here is the mass (pointing), and here is your heart." And they were the same size! Now this was a part of my heart that is not the BIGGEST part of my heart, but still.

I went home with the image of a golf ball in my chest.

It is hard to describe my emotion exactly, afterward. But I was not scared. Somehow, I was totally at peace with the whole thing. A peace that passes understanding.

We hit Panera bread on the way home. It was my last chance for the summer salad. It is good to taste again.

Don and M2 made it home after midnight. It was important to me that I pick them up. There was a lot of catching up to do on both ends.

As you can imagine, Don was upset that I hadn't told him sooner. But I think he realized that he would have worried. And there was nothing he could have done otherwise.

It is really good to have them home, each in one piece (especially after hearing some of the tales of their trip!)