I.amN.otD.eadY.et children so listen up!

Well, this was it — the beginning of what would be several months of “dis-ease.” It began with that phone call from Dr. Russell.

I never met Dr. Russell. He was the doctor that my primary care physician called right after the first suspicious x-ray. He called Feb. 23, and said “there was nothing he could do.” It was cancer.

“Call an oncologist.”

“I don’t know any oncologists,” I said.

“I will ask my nurse to schedule an appointment for you.”

“Thanks,” I think.

Next on the agenda was to find that oncologist. Do I know one? Why would I know one? The only person close to me that had cancer was my Aunt Alice and she lived for 20+ years after her diagnosis. When he found out, my Uncle Ed threw a grand party for her. He said rather than wait until we have a funeral, we will celebrate Alice while she was alive.

Hey, if I survive the next eight weeks, maybe that would be a great idea. Let’s have a party and see friends before I became too weak or ill to be around. I decided right then to go to my funeral.

Dr. Reynolds was Aunt Alice’s doctor. I guess I did know an oncologist. He went to my church, and we chaperoned a youth ski trip together. He told me Aunt Alice was a cancer miracle. I believe she lived so long because she cared for everyone else above herself — never complaining, rarely mentioned her pain.

Aunt Alice selflessly prayed daily for all her children, nieces and nephews. Alice was well-known in the community because she continued to work as an ER nurse for many years while fighting cancer. I miss my aunt.

Now it’s my turn. I didn’t feel very hopeful at this moment in time. I felt adrift in a world I never expected to be a part of.

Kayla, a nurse, called me the next day and explained her role as a nurse navigator, a term unfamiliar to me. Wow, first the PET scan spaceship experience and now a “navigator.” I needed a pilot.

Nurse navigator is a cool name for someone helping you find your way through everything you don’t understand about health care. For me, that meant a lot. Having experienced nothing but the best health for 66 years, hospitals, clinics, tests and doctors lived on a planet unfamiliar to me.

When I stepped off the PET platform that Thursday in February, I entered “space — the final frontier.” At least I believed it was my “FINAL” frontier.

The nurse navigator said she would call back with my first appointment. The MyChart alert with new information showed up on my phone before that second call. A person shouldn’t read those chart notes before talking to someone like a navigator. The pull of the push notification always wins out.

So, I read the notes. Like she promised, Kayla had called another doctors office with the referral and a second navigator (I assumed) Kristie’s notes read, “regarding incoming urgent referral to Dr. Kurniali for newly diagnosed lung cancer. (Cancer had been misspelled, but I corrected it for this post.) Linda was informed Dr. Wos was on call that Friday for urgent concerns — declined. Dr. Kurniali would return on Monday.”

What did that mean? They declined to help me. Were there that many spaceships with cancer patients circling the planet waiting for a turn to land in a doctor’s office? It was a long weekend wondering what to do.

I took my phone off silent, something I rarely do, and held that phone in my hand the entire weekend waiting for a call from the clinic. On Monday, the nurse navigator did call. Finally.

She said there was a new doctor from Mayo taking patients. The spelling of his name was difficult to pronounce, so she said to call him Dr. Rocket. Seriously? First, the spaceship, the navigator and now Dr. Rocket. Coincidence? Where is this journey taking me?

The first oncology appointment was on March 1, and all 70 minutes packed with more information than I cared to know. It’s difficult to listen to someone when there’s a tape running in your head, “You have cancer, you have cancer.”

What Dr. Rocket and his nurses explained to me that day unfolded in real time hour by hour during the next two or three weeks.

The one thing I remember was not asking to see the PET scan. I didn’t want to know how much cancer a lung could contain, or if it had spilled out. Dr. Rocket said, “You have Stage IIIc lung cancer.”

“What? Why not Stage I or Stage II? It was already Stage III, that’s one step below Stage IV.” I said nothing.

Those words were not as scary as, “Lung cancer likes to move to the brain, we need to make sure the cancer hasn’t spread.”

Wait, what? That’s all I needed.

An MRI was scheduled for that afternoon. After plowing through the remains of an overnight snowstorm to get to the first of many 8 a.m. appointments, our stay at the hospital that day was extended by four or more hours. There was no choice, we had to get the MRI as soon as possible.

By the way, MRIs freak me out.

As silly as this sounds, two things cause me panic attacks, fear of heights and a fear of enclosed places. When we ski, which I love to do, I white-knuckle every chair lift ride to the top of the mountain praying it doesn’t stop midway. However, my greater fear is being buried alive in a small box. You know the story. Before modern medicine people were buried with a string attached to a bell near the headstone in the event you really weren’t dead.

The hope was someone would hear you frantically ringing the bell and dig you up. I know, I read too much Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King.

Naturally, the nurse kindly offered something to relax me. Thank goodness my husband could be the designated driver. Medications, even over-the-counter pain relievers, were used sparingly at our house. A controlled substance would quickly put me into orbit. We, the nurse and I, after discussing this sensitivity to drugs, decided on .5 mg of Ativan instead of a one-milligram tab she first suggested. It was a wise choice. The prescription was for two tablets, just in case.

With plenty of time to kill, and no dietary restrictions before the MRI, we went to lunch. Instead of pancakes, we chose Panera. I should have gone for pancakes. Pancakes seemed to sit better in my churning stomach.

We waited for the Ativan prescription before heading to the MRI building across the street from the hospital. We were early. The nurse called my name before we had a moment to settle in, so I swallowed the first tablet. Then, more fill-in-the-blanks — same questions, different clipboard. Always name and birthday.

During the intake conversation, I said something that opened the door to the nurse asking, “Where are you planning on going?” She didn’t mean shopping or out to eat.

“I know where I am going. I’m on a fast track to eternity.”

“Would you like me to pray with you?”

“Absolutely.”

The next 45 minutes were spent trying to stay awake while waiting for my turn for the MRI. It was a struggle, and I paid for it later in stiff muscles from holding myself upright, again dressed in one of those flimsy gowns trying not to fall asleep on a straight-back chair. Thank goodness I refused the one-milligram tab of sedative. The staff would have had to pour me on the MRI platform.

It was time.

The young man who helped me into the next room had a familiar voice. Maybe it was his face, which I could see as his mask was pulled down to his chin.

“I know you from somewhere.”

No response.

“Did you go to BSC?”

“I’m not from here.”

“Hmmm.” That would explain the twang in his voice as he explained how the test was going to work. As usual, lay down, hear a loud noise, inject dye, more loud pounding, finished. I have had an MRI before.

“I can do this.”

Newer MRI machines are not the dark tubes that cause me panic. Even with the more open platform, I try to visualize happy places or count backward from 100 to survive, and keep telling myself if I move halfway through the scan the techs will have to start over. That would be worse than enduring another 10 minutes in the tube. If I lay still for the 20-25 minutes it will be over.

As I was being positioned on the machine’s hard surface and given instructions about moving by the young man standing over me it dawned on me.

“You buy sauerkraut from me at the farmers market.”

He conceded.

“I don’t usually like people to know I work here. I still have some of that sauerkraut left.” And then, after covering my eyes with a dry washcloth, he left and I felt myself transported into the tube.

The MRI was loud, even with earplugs, loud. I was happy when that ended. I was also thankful for the arm offered because sitting up too fast makes me dizzy, even without drugs. This likable young man with a Southern accent walked me to the dressing room as a precaution.

“Hey,” he said before going back to work. “Do you mind if I tell my girlfriend I saw you?”

“Not at all.” Nothing would make me happier.

As usual, the test results were in my online medical chart by the time we got home that day. It was a long day, but not so unbearable after all. It took courage to open that notice about my MRI results. I almost didn’t peek. But I caved.

The paragraph of findings at the bottom of the narrative included many unfamiliar words and five sentences that began with “no.”

The first ray of hope — my brain was clear and free of tumors.