Caution! Detour Ahead!

My travels this year will not be down the road I'd planned as of just a short week ago.  Instead of moving around the country visiting beautiful places, I'll be staying in Kansas City, visiting doctors.

I went in for a mammogram last week.  They didn't like what they saw, so I went next for a sonogram, then to the biopsy room.

I got the results of the biopsy back today - it's cancer.

The doctor who called wouldn't e-mail me the lab report; he said I would get it from the surgeon during our consultation Thursday morning; I'm sure surgery will follow shortly thereafter.

What I did get out of him:

• The biopsy showed a combination of Invasive Ductal Carcinoma and Ductal Carcinoma in Situ
• Imaging shows nothing abnormal in the armpit, so if it's spread to the lymph nodes, it's < 5mm (this is a good news part). 
• The results of the hormone test on the biopsy are not yet available, but the surgeon will have them when we meet.

I've decided to name my demon - I have long been told it is easier to fight one's demons if one can name them.  I found his name in the the book of Tobit; it's Asmodeus (always handy to have a priest around when naming demons), which make my champion the angel Raphael, patron saint of healers.

From the exegesis:
"I increase men's evil-doing throughout the world.  I plot against the newlywed:  I mar the beauty of maidens and I estrange their hearts. ... Through the stars I spread madness among women, and then it spreads itself in great waves; and I have killed up to seven." [third century A.D. Testament of
Solomon 5.7-8]  In that writing, Asmodeus is depicted as an offspring of fallen angels and his angelic opponent is said to be Raphael. --  Joseph A. Fitzmyer

In the story in Tobit, Raphael works with Tobiah to force the demon to flee Sarah's body.  (The demon had been wreaking havoc by killing her husbands before the marriages could be consummated - he was up to seven.)  Raphael then chased Asmodeus into the desert of Northern Egypt, tied him hand and foot, and left him there to rot.  Sounds like a good resolution to me!

I thought about starting a new blog to chronicle this new, unexpected path.  But this is not the end of my camper van travels, rather a detour.  I may not find the time again to travel for months at a time as I had been doing, but I have half the country left to see, and I intend to see it. So there!