The Concern Tsunami

When doctors find a grade 4 glioma in your brain they schedule surgery right away, and radiation and chemo right after. It all happens so fast that you barely understand what's happening as you're wheeled under the lights with a mask crammed on your face; then teams of doctors and bureaucrats show up a  couple of hours afterward to regale you one after another about doing their jobs while you're still hooked up to a hundred tubes in the ICU. You do everything they tell you to do, you get your head cracked open, and then you try to fill out sheafs of insurance paperwork as accurately as you're capable.

So, you get behind on correspondence. It doesn't help when your SIM card malfunctions and you're unable to answer phone calls in real time, (until your dear friend JD helps you fix your phone- and this is just ONE kind of support when you're still off-kilter from brain surgery and adjusting to chemotherapy that is invaluable, magical, wonderful support).

Then you start listening to the 50+ voice messages and reading the stacks of texts and emails you missed, and it's like a tsunami.  Your commuication channels are flooded. 

So much of it isn't demanding in tone, but rather is tender, loving and kind, that you feel like a complete asshole for getting so far behind.

So, I'm sorry.

It's going to take me a while to catch up with the tsunami.

In  a couple weeks, the oncologist tells me, the cumulative effect of rdiation and chemo could make me very fatigued.  It's possible there could be complications and other meds that could have different effects, too.

So, I simply can't make other plans at this point.  I'm driving in a white-out.  I can't tell people what to expect.  I've never done this before.  And I can't answer individual messages with full awareness yet.   I don't have my feet under me yet.  And I don't know when I will.

So, as I use now for my every email signature,

Thank You For Your Patience.