I'm into song titles of late apparently. Don't know who sang the song with the line "I'll be over the edge now in no time at all" but boy, it sure was an appropriate one to use to label me this past weekend!

I was really on the brink of going "over the edge" there for awhile. Friday was a bit of a close call for me.

The reason for my recent near plunge stems from a week's worth of issues that had a really rough impact on my life.

First, there was the so-called "routine" colonoscopy - actually overdue by about a year - but done to try to keep tabs on any new developments in my colon. I had a colon resection done three years ago to remove a malignancy, had chemo, radiation, more chemo too and to date, my tests had all been coming back pretty clean. However, the past year, off and on, I had been noticing a lot of issues with my colon, my bowels, so I was somewhat concerned over this test.

The surgeon told my daughter and me after the procedure that he had found a tumor - in the same location as the first one - partially blocking the colon, very low, making removal of it difficult, at best.

He had gone on to say he planned in the next week to talk to my chemo doctor about his maybe mixing up a "cocktail" of some type or other for me and I was to come back to talk to him in a week when he would have the full results back then from my test as well as his consult with the chemo doctor.

Although he never came out and said the tumor was malignant, he sure did imply that is most likely was to my mind, simply because he planned to talk to the chemo doctor.

Over the next couple of days, I started having other pains, developed a rash and by the following Wednesday had come to the conclusion on my own that I had now also developed a full-blooming case of the Shingles! A not very nice ailment that cause nasty, ugly little water-filled pimples along your body - very uncomfortable to deal with, lots of pain and just plain yucky to look at too!

Then, Thursday after my procedure, I got word that the state had come and removed my aunt and her daughter from the family homestead and placed them both in a nursing home.

Not that this was a really huge shock on one hand as there had been all kinds of issues cropping up with my aunt and cousin over the past month or so and this move, ultimately, was done really in their very best interests although my aunt sure didn't see things in that light. She went kicking, screaming and spitting! Pretty good feat for a little lady of 89 years who barely tops 5 foot in height! Her daughter, who is 49, is severely mentally and physically challenged and my dear aunt has been trying to care for her daughter basically on her own for the 49 years of my cousin's life. Also, quite a feat and one I know I could never have done and certainly not with the aplomb my aunt had during those years!

Friday, a week after the colonoscopy, I went to see the surgeon again and get his follow-up report.

He started out telling me he had some surprise news, good news, he felt. And he went on then to say the biopsy on the tumor said it was benign. Sounds like a perfect answer there, doesn't it?

He went on to state he felt unless I had more problems in the next couple months with the tumor constricting the colon too much, I didn't need to come back for 6 months and at that time, he would run more tests and possibly decide then to do a colostomy - which he had said he felt was looming down the road for me because of this potential constriction problem.

Although I was a tad confused over the biopsy report - wondering if I dared to trust it - I was accepting his word as gospel until he made the comment that there still could possibly be another tumor though, behind the one he biopsied, and that tumor might actually be malignant but he didn't know there since he hadn't been able to scope any further than the location of the tumor he had found.

Now, hearing that is what began setting me on edge!

You see, 26 years ago this summer, my mother was quite ill and finally agreed to see a doctor who, during a physical exam found a tumor in her rectum, had her admitted to the hospital and over a week's time, ran a whole battery of tests and biopsies on her - all of which came back as benign.

And yet, less than two months later, she was dead of cancer of the rectum, liver and spleen!

Granted, I know my Mom had waited way to look to seek any medical help and probably knew what her problem was by self-diagnosis - she was a registered nurse. But, I had trouble understanding how all these tests done in late July of 1979 could come back with no traces at all of cancer and at the end of September, each of the same tests all yielded a verdict of malignant!

So I had gone and talked to the first physician - just wanted some type of explanation how all these tests could give such vastly different results in that short a time span.

That doctor's answer to me was that perhaps there had been a tumor behind the initial tumor and when they biopsied the first one, had inadvertently disrupted the second one, causing it to erupt into a rapid growth type phase. Something to that effect, anyway!

So, hearing this surgeon give me that statement was far from a comfort-type bit of news for me and instead, it set my mind at work overtime!

Add to that, the Sunday of that weekend, I got word another aunt of mine had just been diagnosed with cancer in her lungs, that had spread from a spot on her kidney and I found myself in one hell of a depressed state.

By this past Friday though, the combination of the shingles, pain and irritation from them, the pressure on my backside from the tumor (my diagnosis there) had my behind, my hip, my right leg, in constant turmoil and pain too and I was not dealing well with the whole boatload of events that had set in on me in the space of a ten-day period of time.

I could barely talk to anyone without going a little bonkers at the drop of the hat -either really edgy, grumpy, down-right bitchy or just weeping uncontrolably at times. No happy medium there at all.

I debated all day Friday about calling my primary care physician but then kept thinking I had no good reason to call her as I knew what was wrong with me. So why bother her in her busy schedule.

But when her office called to give a reminder that my step-granddaughter had an appointment there for today, I decided to ask the receptionist to have either the doctor or her physician assistant call me as I had some concerns.

The PA - Mary - returned my call and I started trying to stay relatively calm as I told her about the surgeon's announcements to me the week before and his game plan for me and told her flat out that if he thought I was going to be able to deal with the type of pain and anxiety I was experiencing now, they may as well just go get the gun and turn me loose, let me shoot myself right now, cause it just wasn't gonna happen! I was really right on the edge, ready to go totally off the deep end and what I needed to know was if I was acting really irrationally there!

Her response to me was if it had been her who had been given news like that, in that manner, with my prior history considered, she too would have been pretty much a basket case too! Her suggestion was to get a second opinion! Her reason was that she didn't understand why the surgeon was going to wait that long to run more tests, especially since I had a history of cancer, not just myself, but in my family tree as well.

Since then, I called a cousin to tell her about our aunt and her health problems which helped me greatly to be able to talk to someone about that issue and the future there and also, helped me to get myself back on track a bit too.

Today, I am waiting now to hear more from my primary care physician about a possible referall -probably will mean a trip to Pittsburgh to see a specialist there which I hate to do because of the disruption it means for my kids to take me there, but yet, I feel now as long as the doctor who sees me there is honest and upfront with me as to what my issues really are, I can work on this and hopefully, take control of my life, my feelings once again.

But, not knowing any more at this time about the tumor and is it really benign, is there another one lurking there in the darkness, just left too many unanswered questions for me to contend with that I felt was not fair to me nor was it a fair way to expect my kids to react, to understand all the issues, the potential ramifications there and why I was just coming unglued rapidly at the seams.

I can handle the news, even if it is a bad diagnosis, provided I am given honest, direct answers to my questions.

But I never want my kids to have to face a sudden, really terrible ordeal such as I went through when my Mom died almost 27 years ago this fall - with no means of any advance preparation.

That was just grossly unfair, in my mind, to do that to my children!

Just my thoughts after a really horrid two week period in my medical issues life.