Day eighty three

I'm writing early this morning because I'm not expecting any post. It's now 4 weeks since I had a CT scan and if anything does come in the post I'll write about it tomorrow.

What I intended to do was offer that Thomas Edison quote, when asked about the number of failures he had, but then I discovered there are several different versions of it, so here are some of those versions (Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb; just in case you didn't know!):

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work”.

"I didn't fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps"

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work".

"I never once failed at making a light bulb. I just found out 99 ways not to make one".

There is another, anonymous one that fits the pattern:

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't"

And just for fun:

"If at first you don't succeed, don't take up skydiving."

I was thinking of Edison after my latest test results. I now know where I don't have cancer. And I am glad that yesterday's results were negative. Of all the places to have cancer that is one I was hoping it wouldn't be.

So I will admit relief for that one. I was concerned - not worried, but concerned.

I have had plenty of time to consider what I would do if diagnosed with cancer. I wrote my will and had my signature witnessed last October. In the will I have given instructions that I am to be dressed in my one remaining kaftan (hippie top) and my last pair of embroidered jeans. And I am to be barefoot. My thinking is that vampires are always dressed in a black suit with white shirt and black tie, so if I come back as a vampire I will be a hippie vampire!

And if you are taking this all too seriously, I am being cremated.

But I will not have chemotherapy.

I have no desire to go through modern life-preserving methods to put off meeting Jesus face-to-face. When it comes time to die I don't want to be reluctant about being "absent from the body", or as Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." (2 Corinthians 5: 8)

So, whether it's 100 or 10,000 tests and scans that have revealed that I am exceptionally healthy, there is still that one test to come that will explain why all day yesterday I was in "gut-wrenching" pain; a pain that had me awake before 5am this morning.

It's not that the doctors have failed. They have just eliminated 99 possibilities, and so I have hope that the next one will reveal some disease, or fault that can be fixed.

As healthy as I apparently am, there is something wrong!.