Well this is the part I hate the most...waiting for the specialist to call.  

I have seen the the ENT and he confirmed the presence of a Schwannoma but not where I had thought it was on the CT that I posted in the first blog. It actually appears to be between two branches of my Carotid Artery on my neck.  It is highly vascular (as was the first one) and confirmed to be about 2.5cm in length.  The ENT took the CD with the pictures of my CT scan and put it in the hands of the specialist's nurse and I was assured a phone call from the special specialist.  It has only been a day since the earliest possible time he could have seen my scan and I would like to give him as well as his office the benefit of the doubt as far as time is concerned and scheduling my appointment, but the wait is excruciating.

In the mean time I am focused on getting things in order, you know like cleaning my house (because that is what one does, right?) oh yeah, and checking my insurance coverage for max payouts, co-pays, and the like.  Our beloved Rottweiler seems to know something is up and has been obsessively snuggling with me, yeah not such a bad trade off really!  

It is taking so much self-control to not call the office of the special specialist but since the school shooting I have learned that despite the world seemingly spinning out of control it is up to me to exercise an abundance of self-control even when it seems others are not.  That is an interesting thing I have learned about PTSD, my knee jerk reaction when people are rude, crass, or just outright unfeeling (like telling me that I should be "over it" by now) is to snap back something equally as rude, crass, or unfeeling but the onus seems to be on me to exercise an abundance of self-control when others are unwilling or incapable.  So that is what I do...exercise an abundance of self-control.  Yeah, look in the dictionary under "long-suffering" and there I am...grace and dignity when most people are watching, its what I do best.

So here I sit eating my lunch and trying to pretend that everything is just fine when in fact I feel as if I am dying a thousand deaths while waiting for my phone to ring.