Category Archives: cancer

predicting the future

06 Thursday Nov 2008

Posted by in cancer, friends, health & happiness, hospitals, video

≈ 11 Comments

crystallball

Back in August my friend raincoaster sent me an email telling me about a very strong psychic premonition she’d had about my situation. Here is what she wrote …

The premonition:

You are in for a two-year haul, but at the end of it, you live. Some of it will be beautiful and joyful, but a lot of it, quite frankly, will be shitty, and battening down the hatches economically would be a good idea. And emotionally, you can and should rely on your friends. They are solid people and will be there for you. The shitty part is, sometimes you will wonder if it’s worth it. Only you can say, of course, but know that you are loved and if nothing else know that your continuing existence is a way to honour that. And if you bear through it, you will come out triumphant if winded in the end.

I’m still waiting for Ricardo to call with Tuesday’s PET scan results, so let’s see how close he comes to Rain’s premonition. There will probably be another clinical session to decide on the next prognosis & treatment, but at least Ricardo will be able to give me an idea as to whether this will include more surgery or just (just – ha!) more chemo. I feel like I’ll be able to focus better (better – ha!) once I know what the next plan of action is going to be. Strangely or otherwise, I don’t feel as worried as I have at other times. Of course I am hoping for the best possible results but, according to what Ricardo told Pipocus and I the other day, even the worst possible scenario would still give me a fighting chance.

And speaking of test results, I’m really hoping that Sara (aka strangelittleangel) gets the all-clear after her tests today. Thinking about you honey!f_hug.gif

Oh, and you can see a short home-movie showing a bit of the Nuclear Medicine department (with a glimpse of Ricardo!) over here … PET scan.

Catch you later – Carmen has just invited me out for lunch. f_redwine.gif

testing testing…

30 Thursday Oct 2008

Posted by in cancer, health & happiness, hospitals

≈ 13 Comments

Here we go again …

The outcome of the clinical session with oncology, surgery & nuclear medicine yesterday seems to be that nobody knows what’s going on. Yet. According to the CT scan I had last week, there are two spots in the area of the peritonaeum that was biopsied in September that might be tumours, even though the three samples taken and tested twice have come back negative for malignancy. Also, the liver tumours that showed up on the PET scan I had in June have seemingly disappeared. And so, another PET scan has been scheduled for next Tuesday.

According to Ricardo, the surgeon will still want to operate again even if the liver tumours are gone (though he thinks it’s more likely that they’ve shrunk) to make sure that there is nothing left in those areas, as well as remove the peritoneal ‘tumours’.  But any possible surgery will depend on the outcome of the PET scan and the state of the peritoneal area.

But hey, at least there is some hope now. Though It means more testing and more waiting. And even though I’m not thrilled about having more surgery, it sure beats the alternative.

Meanwhile … I’m off to Córdoba! Hasta mañana! f_run.gif

yo-yo

28 Tuesday Oct 2008

Posted by in cancer, health & happiness, hospitals

≈ 19 Comments

It’s no wonder I feel like an emotional yo-yo these days.

The latest “good news” is that the second biopsy of the peritoneal area also came back negative, so that is a definite thing and Ricardo says there’s no way it could be a false negative.  On the other hand, the CT scan showed two spots in the area that could be tumours. Meanwhile, it also showed – are you ready? – that my liver tumours have seemingly disappeared! Like – WTF?

Ricardo is at a loss to explain any of this, especially as he got this information for me by telephone and didn’t see the results himself. But there will be a clinical session on Wednesday morning which Isabel (from The Team) will attend and he says they will be able to give me a better idea of what’s going on after that. Though I was told I shouldn’t be surprised if they want me to have another PET scan, and so I’m not going to believe the other tumours are gone until that’s done.

Zoomer was here when I got the phone call from Ricardo (Nog was out teaching) and he immediately gave me a big bear hug and was smiling ear to ear … but although I was very pleased about some of the news, I didn’t want to get overly-excited about it. Been there. It’s worse when you aren’t acknowledging the worst still might just happen.

Other good news of the day.  I got a lovely and totally unexpected ‘goody bag’ from Lizzie in the post today. Trashy mags, tea, organic chocolate, lip balm, Bach flower rescue remedy, body scrub and special soap, and a whack of info (including a dvd) from the Penny Brohn Cancer Centre.  And I also got a notice that the Anti-Cancer book from hmh is waiting for me at the post office. All this after a very nice lunch out with zoomer, Nog and Pipocas – and Dr A even stopped by to meet everyone.

I’m very happy. It was a fabulous day.

~ image from snore & guzzle ~

not exactly back to work

25 Saturday Oct 2008

Posted by in cancer, health & happiness, teaching, work

≈ 9 Comments

Three weeks ago I wrote this post about going back to work.

Unfortunately,  it hasn’t worked out as I thought it would.  The idea had been to do “whenever” classes with a handful of my students for whom learning English is more of a hobby than a necessity.  As in,  we would have classes whenever I was well enough to work. And the first week we tried this it looked like I had enough people interested to be doing at least one class a day.  At least enough to bring in a bit of spending money as well as help me maintain my sanity.  But then . . .

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