Again.

We're waiting right now. In this hellish, familiar limbo of schedules tests and opaque doctors' comments. We're going to treat this as a worst case until we know exactly where the tumor is located. You can't rely on CAT scans for certain details, and a dye test will give us a clearer picture.

This time it's my mother-in-law. Eight months ago we breathed a sigh a relief after Dad's funeral and told ourselves that we could begin to find our way back to normal. To a new normal, anyway. Thursday night ended that return.

It's either ovarian cancer or it isn't. It might just be a fibroid tumor. Whatever it is, it could be benign. Maybe it's not. We don't know yet. Thanks to insurance and doctors and the legal holiday, the test itself isn't even scheduled yet. It will be scheduled tomorrow and done within the next 48 hours. We know that much.

I don't feel like it's real. Surely it's been enough to bury three grandparents and a father in the last three years. Surely Gavie won't lose another beloved grandparent, not so soon after his Pap-Pap left him.

We will, of course, persevere. We're tenacious like that. We'll see her through whatever it is and we'll deal accordingly with the cards we hold. I'm already counting the small blessings: her daughter who's a nurse, having three grown children who can arrange their schedules if needed, our living so close by. I'm already planning, thinking about all of those things that we needed to do with my father's illness.

Like her doctors, I'm treating this as worst-case... for while it seems so surreal, I can't fathom life being so fair as to let it be nothing after all.