How not to deliver test results.

I'm going to start this post out by saying Dr. J is fine.  There is nothing wrong with him.  Good, now you won't have to worry about him at all.  Let me tell you, you are the lucky one.

J went to the dermatologist earlier this week.  A few different members in our family have seen him and we get on rather well.  Apparently he wanted to be a med/ped doc before he became a dermatologist.  FYI his wife enjoys dermatology more because of all the free botox and procedures.  Who wouldn't :)  Anyway J has a few little weird moles.  We keep on an eye on them but there was one on his temple that was making him a little nervous.  The dermatologist agreed it looked a little iffy so they took a sample of it and sent it off.  Thursday at like ten the dermatologist gives me a call on the my cell phone.  "Hey," he says, "Is your hubby there?"  I told him that he was sleeping.  This week he did a slew of nights.  "Oh," he says, "well I'm going to give you my cell phone number and when he wakes up can you have him give me a call so we can talk about his lab results."

Now I'm going to interrupt this story right now to remind everyone I run pretty high on the anxiety front.  The second he offers his personal cell phone and ask me to have J call him when he gets up to get his results I start to freak out a little bit.  Why wouldn't he just tell him to call the office when he was off?  Why wouldn't he just email them?  Why wouldn't he just call his phone and leave a message?  I've had to call in plenty of times to get perfectly normal results from the office but no one has ever offered me their personal number.  They leave the office number and say to call in during office hours.  Heck the fact that it was even the doctor that calls has me on high alert.  Usually it is a nurse or an office person who calls.  So I have to sit with this for six hours.  Six hours I'm worried.  Six hours I'm thinking good grief this is such a weird way to deliver news.

Finally I hear the shower pop on upstairs.  I take care of the dog, get the kids settled, grab the number and head upstairs.  "Hey," I say my voice sort of catching in my throat, "the dermatologist called, he wants you to call him about your test results."  At this point J goes, "It's cancer."  Now mind you I haven't even mentioned yet that he left his personal cell phone for J to call.  I start to cry.  J gives me a hug and says, "It's ok.  Don't worry.  It will be fine."  But I'm thinking, "Will it be?"  I have friends and family who have fought cancer and won but I also have friends and family who have died and guys CANCER SUCKS!  It is just the worst.  It steals your loves ones.  It takes their health, their happiness, they lose their vitality and they slowly just disappear from you.  So I'm crying as I tell J that he left his personal cell phone number.  "Well," he says, "I better call."  So he calls and after just some general pleasantries the dermatologist says, "Yeah I just wanted to let you know your labs came back and they are benign.  No cancer."  I started to laugh but I'm not kidding at that moment I wanted to slap the dermatologist.  So there you go.  J doesn't have cancer.  Our dermatologist is still a pretty cool guy but for crying out loud that was a lame way to share that news!