Being in the Zone

 “You’re in the zone”, he said. I was on a telemedicine visit with my Pancreatic Specialist a few days after my most recent annual MRI to monitor the mucoid cysts in my pancreas (Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN). The good news was that my cysts hadn’t increased in size and I felt relieved to hear this report directly from “the horse’s mouth” although the news was a bit anticlimactic since I saw my report as soon as it was posted on my patient portal.  You can get your test results at about the same time as your physician, that is, if only you can remember your password and how to navigate the site. 

We’ve come a long way since my student nursing days when “mum was the word”.  We didn’t dare share the truth with our patients, especially if the news was in the least bit “negative”.  “Oh no, you’re temperature is normal”, we were told to say as the man lay there in the hospital bed burning up.  (I kid you not! - The medical ethics book of days gone by actually said it was perfectly okay to tell this sort of lie, legitimizing it by thinking to yourself “ well your 103 degree temperature is normal given the fact that your developing sepsis.”

Let me get back to my original point. If you don’t know me well you might not realize I have a terrible way of going off into tangents when attempting to tell a story. I frustrate my closest family members and friends all the time with this lifelong trait of going off into all different directions instead of sticking to one path until I reach the end.  Sorry, but my mind always sees different avenues; it’s just the way it works.

So, getting back to “ being in the zone”, I must confess it took me a minute or two to realize why this highly intelligent Medical Specialist was trying to get at.  The next thing he said aided my understanding. “ You’re 77 years old now, correct?” “Yes”, I said, “I just had turned 77 in March”. 

I don’t remember his exact words after that but his meaning came through loud and clear.  What this dear man was trying to tell me in so many words was that given my advanced age and the reality that the end was not too far off, it would be perfectly reasonable to make the decision not to have any more annual MRIs.  He added something like this, “ You can call me if you develop symptoms”.  So me, being the inquisitive type asked, “what symptoms should I be on the look out for? I have Irritable Bowel Syndrome and have a ton of abdominal symptoms more often than not, so I really wouldn’t know what would warrant an investigation. He really didn’t have much of an answer to my question, so before we closed our 5 minute telemedicine conversation, I mentioned I’d think about his thoughts about me “ Being in the Zone “ but probably I’d continue to have a yearly MRI to make sure my pancreatic cysts don’t develop into cancer. 

Since the original purpose of this Blog entry was to begin an examination and discussion of what it means “ to be in the zone”,  and NOT so much to give you a detailed description of my medical condition, I’ll end by saying I hope to delve deeper into this life stage and its implications and all the feelings surrounding it.  I hope you’ll follow along and share your own thoughts with me even if you’re lucky enough not to be “in the zone” quite yet.  Come to think of it, I guess I’m one of the lucky 🍀 ones to have made it into the zone at all, when so many others never got that chance. 

Before I stop today’s writing ✍️ process, I’d like to thank my dear friend, Tony, for giving me a push to start writing once again.