Fear

About two weeks ago, Nick became extremely alarmed about a growth on his cheek.  We thought it was just a mole at first, but after a lot of online research, the word melanoma entered our lives.  I love technology.  I am, in fact, an avid user of technology.  But I do think that there is at least one area of our lives in which there is too much technology.  That area is the medical world, specifically self diagnosis. 

I am in no way saying that I thought Nick got sucked into the self diagnosis spiral, there were very real comparisons that scared me beyond reason.  The night the scare came into our lives, Nick stared at his phone for hours, searching every online medical site available.  I lay next to him in bed, becoming increasingly panicked as the hours passed.  But I forced myself to stay silent other than to offer an occasional positive comment.  "I'm sure it's just a mole, even if it's something I'm sure it's nothing really bad, and catching it early is a good thing."  I fell asleep long before Nick.  I kept up my false pretenses for over a week while Nick was waiting to meet with a dermatologist.  Today, he finally had his appointment.

I had myself convinced that I thought it was okay, I buried any worry, and replaced it with optimism.  That is my job as a mom, after all.  But today, I was genuinely scared.  As I waited to hear from my husband, the fear and worry slowly took over, until I was actually envisioning life as a single mom.  Yeah, I may be a little crazy.  Finally, I got a text from Nick that read "I'm gonna live!"  He was still in his appointment, and we didn't get to speak for a while, but it turned out that Nick just had a cyst, not a cancerous mole.  I started to cry before I even finished reading his text. 

Fear is a powerful thing.  Fear, combined with too much information on the Internet, is dangerous.  When I applied all that to my husband, it was too much.  I couldn't picture Nick being sick with something I couldn't fix, it was beyond what I could handle.  Tonight I felt like we had missed a bullet, whether or not there was ever a gun pointed at us.  When it comes to your partner, no scare is a small scare.  And that made the good news more than just good, it was beautiful.