04 Tuesday Nov 2008
Posted in cancer, friends, health & happiness, hospitals, progress
I really should wait until tomorrow evening to post this – BUT I CAN’T WAIT!!!
I reckon if I’m going to ride the coaster again then I wouldn’t mind some company. But if you’d rather not come along for the ride, then read no further . . .
30 Thursday Oct 2008
Posted in cancer, health & happiness, hospitals
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! 
28 Tuesday Oct 2008
Posted in cancer, health & happiness, hospitals
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 ~
22 Wednesday Oct 2008
Posted in cancer, health & happiness, hospitals, life stuff
So I had two hospital appointments yesterday morning with the two different surgeons (colon and liver) as a check up and revision thing. You will no doubt recall that when I saw the oncologist a couple of weeks ago for my updated prognosis she told me that there wouldn’t be any more surgery and that whatever chemo they put me on next would only be a way of slowing things down and not a cure. And when I asked her to give me a survival time frame if I chose not to have chemo treatment she said it would be more or less a year. So imagine my surprise when I got this news …
10 Friday Oct 2008
Posted in cancer, friends, health & happiness, hospitals, life stuff
So this was it – the second prognosis after the aborted liver resection in September. Nog and I left the house early yesterday because we wanted to walk to the hospital through the park – the plan was to meet up with Pablo about 15 minutes before my appointment with the oncologist. And that’s basically what happened. Of course the appointment happened about two hours after the appointed time . . .
We finally got in to see the doctor, and there is no way to sugar-coat this, so here we go…
It didn’t happen quite that succinctly. I had previously briefed Pablo on the situation and about all the questions I wanted answered, so he could back me up. In the end I did most of the talking but it was still good having him there. Nog came too because he didn’t want to be left at home waiting to hear the news, and in the end all three of us squeezed into the consulting room. Here is a pic I took of my two boys in the waiting room, standing in front of a decolourated Matisse print . . .
It was hard. I had to keep poking and prodding … trying to get something REAL out of the doctor. Because she didn’t want to tell me what she ended up telling me. Later she told Pablo she’d never had a patient so … well, so like me.
Afterwards we walked out of the hospital together and, since I hadn’t cried in the doctor’s office (I was soooo close…), I was determined not to cry while we went to find somewhere to have lunch. And when I ventured a self-pitying comment about being dead soon, Pablo quickly nipped that in the bud by saying that I didn’t have to worry because he and Peter weren’t that lucky. Ha! That snapped me out of it long enough to enjoy a wonderful lunch … photos to be supplied later.
But really … this totally sucks.
And I really, really don’t want to die.
Not like this, not so soon …
casa azahar 