Six months to land a man

About a month ago, I was diagnosed with a tumor on my optic nerve. I don’t know what it’s called or what kind it is because as soon as I heard “tumor,” my mind zeroed in on only that word, much like my vision may tunnel in on itself one day, apparently.

Well, maybe. I’m not sure what might happen, since the doctor was trying very hard to downplay the diagnosis until we know more about it. He didn’t laugh at my jokes that the receptionists thought were hysterical, though, so I didn’t take that as an especially good sign. His not thinking I was funny (me! The height of humor!) may have actually been worse than hearing the word "tumor." I mean, let's keep perspective here!

We won’t know more about it until they can measure the pictures of the thing, which were excruciating to have taken, against what it looks like in six months. The pictures were SUPER painful, but the ophthalmology residents milling around took pity and gave me candy. I’m pretty sure I ended up on top of that endeavor—like a toddler given a lollypop to make up for a shot.

There’s no reason to freak out until we know there’s a reason to freak out, right? Well, that’s what the doctor said, or a paraphrasing of what the doctor humorlessly said, at least.

The way I see it, however, I have the next five months to land a man and get him to fall madly in love with me. Let me tell you why: if the tumor is dangerous, treatment is definitely not going to make me more beautiful, at least not on a short-term basis.

Unless they’ve got a peg leg, guys in the bars, at least the ones I like to go to, are probably not going to flock to the girl with the eye patch. You can count on it, though, that if I do have to wear an eye patch, I will certainly play it up! I will go out with a parrot on my shoulder (stuffed, obviously, let’s not get crazy!) and a red bandana around my waist. I’ll also only pay for drinks with gold coins that I take out of a treasure box rather than a purse. And, I’m going to start working now on developing an affinity to rum drinks.

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!” Right?!

I’m not sure I’ll have to wear an eye patch. It might come down to chemo. Of course, I’m hypothesizing based mostly on my hypochondria, which I think the downplaying doctor would entirely endorse. Chemo, though, could result in some really excellent wigs. I think I’d try out red. Or! A different color every night! A guy will meet me as a blonde, ask me out, and a redhead would show up for the date. I'd convince him that he was confused about what color my hair was. It could be very, very amusing and produce a few good blog entries, which in itself would make the entire thing overwhelmingly worth it.

Maybe, though, my tumor will create a boyfriend hallucination for me. I mean, I watch Grey’s Anatomy. Izzy’s boyfriend hallucination made her very, very happy for a while!

All in all, I did catch that this type of tumor is very rare. And, it’s even rarer that it’s found to be cancerous or otherwise dangerous. The specialist I met with had only ever seen five of these, and none of them turned out to be anything to worry about. I’m seeing an even more specialized specialist in January to get the real deal of the thing, so I’m sure we’ll have it all sorted out then. No use getting nervous before that time. I’ve even resisted my usual urge to obsessively online diagnose. Sometimes that’s meant actually sitting on my hands.

In the meantime, my coworkers have taken to calling it my Apple iTumor. And, we’re hoping to develop some pretty awesome apps.