On 7:30 am on a Wednesday morning, I get a call from the oncologist. "The lab results are back from Utah, and it's consistent with lymphoma." That consistent with line again. "They're calling it Grade I Follicular Lymphoma."

"The indolent one," I say.

"Yes," he replies.

There's an awkward pause on the phone, he waiting for me to ask the next question, and me not bothering to ask. I've read up on lymphoma these past few weeks. I know there's one lymphoma in particular that's considered incurable. Can you guess which one it is?

Grade I Follicular Lymphoma.

"We'll need to do a PET scan and a bone marrow biopsy to stage the disease," the oncologist says. "My office will schedule them." I say okay and hang up.

Grade I Follicular Lymphoma. This is the one I've been hoping, against all hope, that I don't have. Yes, it's slow moving. Yes, people can have it for many years and not have any problems. But that incurable word. It feels rough inside my head--even itchier than the five anti-nausea medications I had the week before. This is also, of course, the "woe is me" stage, in which I am honor-bound to feel the cosmic injustice of my situation: why, oh why, do I have this, the worst of all possible cancers? (Cue mournful music)

After much more research, I will ultimately find out I'm in a very good situation compared to the treatments faced by many, many other people. I will find out, as my future friend Sara so succinctly says on the WebMagic Lymphoma Support Forum, that "ther seems to be on ths bord a weerd 'oh if only i had THAT tipe of ccancer'.....and thts jus bad. ALL CANCER IS BAD. ther is no good ccancer. agresiv or foliculr, it is all bad." I will find out why Sara has trouble typing/spelling, and proudly wears it as a battle scar, and that knowledge alone will help rouse me from my own pity party. I will find out...well, heck, I'll find out a lot of things based around the theme of "The world does not revolve around Tony." (And we can all be thankful for that. Or at least Liza Minnelli can, because Liza Minnelli would not exist in a World that Revolves Around Tony.) But those things are all in the future. And as we all know, before you watch Back to the Future II, you have to watch Back to the Future I to find out what's happening with that crazy Marty. Same situation here; you gotta see this whole thing unfold a step at a time to understand. In this case, Marty McFly is Tony Hines, and my knowledge of future events now has a direct bearing on how I see past events.

But for now, let's just leave me, moments after hanging up the phone with my oncologist and hearing the dreaded Final Diagnoses of lymphoma. Grade I Follicular, even.

The shock value has worn off, I must say. This is, after all, now the third time I've been told I have lymphoma--the first time a "maybe," the second time a "probably," and this one finally a "definitely." I'm getting used to being told I have lymphoma.

Or so I think.