There was the trip to the eye doctor, no nothing was very wrong, but a friend reminded me that after four or five years I was due for an exam. I did the retina test, once, twice and then three times. The optometrist showed me the failed test, and sent me to an M.D. the expert of experts. The heart stopped and there again was the moment. “It’s not typically a tumour although I don’t know, you need to make an appointment and follow up,” she said. “Immediately?” I asked. “Well I wouldn’t wait more than 2 or 3 weeks.”

The imagination, that Tasmanian devil, awoke from hibernation. Maybe the cancer cell had found its way into my eye and there was a tumour sitting on top of the optic nerve.

Nail biting, nervousness, sitting on the edge of the seat at the M.D.’s office. I took the same test and fidgeted and sweated through it. The doctor looked through the results and asked me why I was here. Was I having trouble seeing things? Did I suffer from headaches? No, no, but I kept thinking about the poor young woman at the cancer meeting who shared her story about her eye cancer spreading to her breast.

“Well, the results aren’t great but aren’t terrible,” he said. “A person of your age should fly through this test, but some people can be poor test takes. Let’s monitor this, come back in six months.” Then he smiled at me trying to ease my worry. “I’d be worried if you were walking into walls, like some of the fragile old ladies that I see, but don’t take offense at this, you don’t look like you are about to fall over." This broke the heavy air, and we laughed.

But the season of symptoms continued. There was then the morning where I detected Kool-Aid colored urine, another sign of software gone haywire. I turned to the ladies on the Facebook forums, and shared my predicament with them. Perhaps one of them would call me a hypochondriac or suggest I see a shrink. No such luck. Having all been through breast cancer in one capacity of another they shared their concerns, one said that she had a hysterectomy and was treated for stage 0 cervical cancer.

Another wrote, “Just saw a show on Dr. Oz about blood in the urine, and it probably isn’t, but could be bladder cancer…also I know from my experience with my dad, could be kidney issues…do get it checked and keep us posted…hoping it’s nothing serious.” Oh sheesh, I sighed. Well, I hoped so too. This was after all the Year of the Horse, the season of lucky read packets. So I focus on the silver lining as faint as it seems, I dare not look elsewhere.