There was celebration, phone calls, relief. And then things that were not anticipated, the byproduct of my body (fatigue, sleep, more fatigue, more sleep).

I was hoping for a plain out celebration today at Dr P’s office. Certainly it seemed that way. In the hallway, on my way to an exam room, Nurse Practitioner R gave me more than one thumbs up and more than one meaningful smile. When Dr P came in later, more of the same. They were clearly ready to celebrate with me.

And I… just wasn’t 100% on board. Naturally, I am thrilled to have a result to my scan that is even better than the last one. I’m pretty sure today that I heard Nurse Practitioner R say about me what everyone longs to hear, “No Evidence of Disease.”

But I’ve had a couple bad weeks. Fatigue, sleepiness, and more things I didn’t even mention today to the nurse – gross tongue (yes, that is the clinical term, I’m sure), weird food aversions, and just today, mixing up words (or forgetting them altogether). The last one actually happened to me this morning at work, before heading to the doctor. It was scary.

To their credit, after getting over the fact that their star patient isn’t looking as good in person as she was on paper, they started to try to figure out why. I went to see my phlebotomist, B, to get another round of tests. I may need some drug – it isn’t sure yet if that’s thyroid medication, or – horrors – steroids (“A trace amount,” Nurse Practitioner R hastened to say, knowing how awful those were for me) that would make things right again.

I wanted things to be simple – good results, happy feelings, ice cream. Instead, I went back home and crawled in bed and slept until dinnertime. Yes, of course I am thrilled that there is No Evidence of Disease. It’s just… it’s feeling a little hard to rejoice, until my body and mind manage to catch up with what the paperwork says. I’ll get there. I hope it won’t take lots of drugs to get there.