My mind started to wander in this direction after I listened to the voice mails that had accumulated while I was gloriously out of cell service. One of them was from a woman at the doctor's office. We'd been playing phone tag and while I told her I'd be out for a few days, she called anyway. Her purpose was to schedule me for a particular treatment. Actually an undetermined series of treatments. She also said she had the "approximate cost share" I would have to pay.
Because it was the very news I had been dreading, I decided I would wait and call her back the next day. I just wasn't ready. From the day I sat in the office and he told me about the treatment I cried. The nurse was so compassionate but nothing she said would make it better. I appreciated the effort though.
But aside from the cost (which I didn't know the exact details of that day), why was I so opposed to this particular treatment? I stared out the window for miles and asked myself that very question over and over. Why? Like a ton of bricks the answer fell in my lap. I turned to Steve and said, "you want to know something?" Before he even answered I said, "Cost is only part of the reason I am opposed to what Dr. A wants to do." He asked, "what's the other part?"
"I don't want to do it because it's what sick people do," I replied on the verge of tears. He briefly looked over and said, "well, you ARE sick." I stared at him as if he'd thrown ice cold water in my face. No, I am not, I thought. But that's not true. I am. Through a stream of tears I said, "I'm not ready to concede that yet. I don't want to be."
The ever practical man sitting in the driver's seat stated, "It really doesn't matter what you WANT to believe. You ARE sick."
And there it is. Denial in its most ubiquitous form. I am thrown way off guard with this realization. I don't know what to do with it yet.
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