Yesterday

Dangit! I missed a day. It happens.

Even though I haven't been doing Writing Jenny for long, I already have this kind of internal alarm clock reminding me to post daily. (It's a recording that pops up when I'm pouring milk into my son's Honeycomb or stepping painfully on the seventh Lego of the day: "Blog! Blog!")

But the truth is, I didn't think about this blog even once yesterday. Didn't cross my mind.

I've spent a good chunk of time at Mayo lately -- a habit I'm none too keen on continuing. Yesterday, I had my fifth appointment in as many days, three of which found me with my feet in stirrups while I made small talk over my knees.

So it hasn't been my favorite week in the world... but it could've been much worse.

Last week, the doctor holding my test results told me he was going to "ruin my day." Not exactly the intro I was looking for. He told me that I have a mass on my ovary... and that we better screen for cancer.

He talked about surgical options and risk factors, too, but they came after "cancer," so they're pretty much a blur. I took a blood test, and then spent the weekend prepping for the triathlon, staring at my kids, and whispering "benign" to myself, as if repeating it would make it true.

And then yesterday, the doctor who ruined my day told me that my blood test -- which screens for ovarian cancer -- came back negative. Is it 100% accurate? Nope. But it's promising, and I'll take it.

I have some more not-so-fun appointments ahead of me, including surgery later this summer. But I can't help but feeling incredibly lucky.

I feel lucky to not only have access to healthcare -- but to have access to some of the best healthcare in the world. I feel lucky to live in a country where health information is accessible, so that I have long been educated about warning signs and when to get help. I feel lucky that medical research has developed screening tests -- and that mine came back negative. I feel lucky that I have a support system of friends and family at times like these.

So I didn't blog yesterday. I didn't blog because I spent the first half of the day making that above-the-knee small talk, and the second half hugging my kids while thinking about how lucky I am to be me, here, now.