Milestone

For various reasons, I haven’t posted in a long time. Mostly it’s because sometimes, you want to forget about cancer. Who am I fooling? The truth is, you don’t. You don’t because you can’t. And you can’t because it never truly lets you go. It’s like the stain that won’t come out, forever imprinted in your psyche, on your body. You are never quite the same again after the day of diagnosis.

 I’m writing here and now because of a milestone, plus, I have something to share. First, the milestone. Five years ago when I was diagnosed, it seemed impossible this day would come. It’s a significant marker for cancer patients, one each of us yearns to reach. There’s a two year one as well. Let’s be honest, there are a ton of small milestones and goals in between and all along. Get the treatment plan. Get through treatments. Heal. Make it through the next scan. And the next, and so on.

The differences between the two year and the five year markers are this:

• Most cancers that are going to come back, usually will within two years or so
• After five years, one is even less likely to get a recurrence.

That said, most cancer doctors will never say you’re cured. I’ve read that even if the cancer hasn’t returned, it could. That even while you’ve completed treatments, and made it to five years, cancer cells can get left behind and could decide to grow again. This is the stain of cancer on your body, on your mind, and on the minds of those around you.

In the very beginning, through treatments and then post-treatment, most cancer patients (like me) live in increments of time between their scans. Every three months, off I went to get mine, and then waited anxiously for results. If/when they were good, I could go about life with a bit of ease. As the next one came up, my tension and nerves over it would grow. One learns to ride the cancer roller-coaster, gripping and holding on, tight as we can.

Over the five years, there have been good scans and bad. The one for the metastasis to my lung. The one where they thought I had bone cancer. (game changer) The one when lesions were found in my liver, and my diagnosis became incurable cancer. Since treatment for that, I have continued to be checked every three months. Several “stable” scans over the next couple of years got me moved to a stretch of four months. That happened in May of 2021, then a six month stretch was offered in January of this year.

Now comes a bit of an extraordinary news.

I had a scan this past Friday, July 29^th, the first in the new six month cycle.

I will admit to a major case of nerves, because after all, there was that extra three months and cancer does seem to have a mind of its own. I was cautiously optimistic. You can imagine my shock at hearing “there are some new spots.” My oncologist was quick to point out, “I’m not worried. Every July there are new technicians (inexperienced) who come on board to read these, I think you’re fine, but let’s get a liver MRI to be sure. It’s been a while.”

He wasn’t worried but I was, and stunned. His “I think you’re fine,” didn’t even penetrate. My mind did what my mind does, fast-forwarding to where are they, how many, what would my treatment be – Lord, not chemo again. That would make three times, and from the last round, I already have permanent side effects. Three years of stable, stable, stable, and now this? I was handed my check-out papers and out the door I went.

The girl at the front desk took to heart my oncologist’s instructions: “MRI now.” It didn’t matter he also added I come back in six months. He was certainly standing by his “I’m not worried,” but I don’t operate like that. 😬 I was WORRIED.

Three hours later, I was in the clanging/banging/knocking MRI machine for forty minutes. What a great way to spend a Friday afternoon. I was told it would take two to four business days to get a reading. I went home for the weekend to wait.

Duke Medical now has a new process. As soon as a scan is read/interpreted and notes are written up, they are released, to you, the patient, through a handy interface called Duke MyChart. I really like this interface for a variety of reasons – paying bills, passing messages along, etc, worrying over RESULTS. Yes, you get to read them before you’ve even been contacted by your doctor. That’s INTENSE and quite honestly, heart pounding. They have a handy, friendly “patient version” where you can hover your mouse over the medical terms and read the description. There is nothing to manage heart rate skyrocketing, or hyperventilation while one is looking for the statement, “concerning for metastatic disease.”

This is where it gets interesting.

First of all, when you get a scan like this, they discover OTHER things. Those are interesting to read about but, I won’t bore you with my other medical data. What I’m on the hunt for is the liver info. And what do I find? GOLD. The new spots – of which there is a cluster, “while technically indeterminate, these are favored to be benign given homogenous uptake and may be perfusional (related to blood flow) in etiology.” (Heart rate lowers, breathing slows)

And then – even better than GOLD is this: The remainder of the lesions, while indeterminate, are unchanged when compared to 2019 and favored to be benign given stability over time.”

What??? I asked the medical team to confirm my interpretation that the cancer did NOT metastasize to my liver. “Is that right?” I asked. “Did I interpret this right?” Of course they can’t/won’t say. What they said was as ambiguous as some of the readings of a scan where you get phrases like “not definitely seen,” or, “not definitively seen,” etc. They said, “There’s no way to tell, but the scan looks very good!”

Which makes me want to scream. I understand why they are cautious. They are in a practice that deals with a lot of death, a lot of uncertainty, and without a doubt, every single patient is uniquely different. Were those spots cancer at one time? 🤷🏻‍♀️ What I do know, at least from what I’ve read is this, lesions that are malignant don’t become benign.

Should I be doing the happy dance – you bet. But . . .

Another reason why it seems one can never fully escape from a cancer diagnosis has to do with something else I recently read. Cancer can hide. Cancer can be in your body in undetectable cells called micrometastases, or in the stem cells of the cancer. There you are, (like me) believing you are at the “no evidence of disease” (NED) stage, and further more, a metastasis may not have occurred AT ALL, which (IMO) is a game changer too as to my survivability. Right??? Yet, it can lurk like an alligator in a Florida swamp. Even if with chemotherapy, which targets and kills cancer cells that are in certain stages of division, it may not kill all cancer cells because that depends on what the cells are doing. I.e. if the cancer cells are not at the right division stage for that chemo drug, or not dividing at all, the drugs won’t kill them.

However. This is why many people get more than one chemo drug, and it’s why the doses are staggered out over several weeks. Like my last treatment which involved some pretty rough drugs like Cisplatin for 2 months, then switched they switched me to Carboplatin due to side effects, and I had Fluorouracil 5 throughout. Honestly? If those didn’t kill me, they SHOULD have killed the cancer cells!

Regardless of all the above, I feel so optimistic. I don’t have to go to Duke Raleigh Hospital for a scan until January, 2023.

By then, I will be entering into my sixth year, post diagnosis. Unbelievable.

“Well, it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line.” 😉

Oh, August

As this month came with all of its anniversaries, I thought, oh, August, what will you have for me this year?

In the summer of 2019, my mother and I were fighting for our lives. In this picture below, she’s in hospice, her battle almost over. The date of this photograph is August 10th.

I was with her every day, and some were harder than others. On the day she passed, I remember standing outside her room and staring back at the window, knowing her body was still in there, yet she wasn’t. I pretended I was waiting on her to walk out of that place, tell me it had been a terrible mistake.

I went home, and took pictures of the moon that night.

Today, August 18th, marks the one year anniversary of her passing. August 26th, she would have been 84. ❤ 

One of my favorite pictures of her. Taken in August (of course) 2015.

Other “anniversaries” this month . . . in August of 2012 we lost our beloved little Yorkies, “the girls,” Bella and Kiwi. Bella, on August 2nd, and then Kiwi, on August 23rd.

It was August, 2nd 2017 I received my official cancer diagnosis, and began a rigorous treatment plan of chemotherapy and radiation that lasted into late October.

Oh yes. We’re very happy! Final chemo, October, 2017

They’re still there, helping people fight. The final radiation treatment, 30 in all.

Best card ever from my warrior sister, Keilah Goff.

                                                                          **************************************

Yesterday, August 17th, I was back at Duke Raleigh Hospital for my three month check-in. These have been ongoing since my diagnosis because the monster, a.k.a. as cancer, keeps wanting to rear its ugly little head up in new places, like my lung in 2018, and then my liver in 2019. When I started back on chemotherapy last summer for the liver metastasis, my final treatment was on August 23rd, the day after we had the service for Mom.

Since then, I’ve had three clear scans, November 2019, (PET) February 2020, (PET) and May of 2020, (CT). Clear scans in this case doesn’t mean there are no lesions, or nodules. Btw, everyone has these, unbeknownst to most of you unless tests are done and they’re  found, but it’s also important to note, most are benign.

I haven’t posted about the previous scans because cancer is tricky, and the results of tests are often a lot like riding the Tilt-a-Whirl, slinging you one way, good news! then the other, bad news! The results of a scan and what is said by the radiologists sometimes leave a bit up to interpretation depending on word choices. Things like “less conspicuous” and “less discernible,” or “not well seen,” can make you sit back and question, are they there or not? What does that even mean?

Basically, I decided to wait until I was one year post chemo treatment to do any sort of update because the longer things go with no change, the better. Yesterday’s scan shows “stability,” meaning the liver lesions seen have been there, and are unchanged. In the words of the radiologist to Dr. Smith, my oncologist, “their stability is definitely reassuring.” Are they cancer? We don’t know. The key word is “stability” because to the best of what I can gather no change means they could simply be benign.

Imagine. Some good news in August. Here I am looking a little tired, (typical writer appearance) but hey! Look! My hair came back. (!!!)

The capacity of the human will, the strength of a human body is never fully realized, until it is tested. 

Back to the Frontline

I’ve hesitated giving everyone an update, but I know many of you are perhaps wondering what’s going on.

Here is some GREAT news! Mom left the hospital on May 8th, went into a physical rehabilitation center, left that on May 28th, and has been at home recuperating to the best of her ability. She FINISHED her radiation treatments this past Friday, June 14th, and now she is through, the next step for her will be an endoscopy – probably within the next month – to see how they worked. The hope is, obviously, the cancer is gone, or at least shrunk small enough she can be monitored.

I wish I’d taken a picture of her beautiful baldness, but I have yet to do that. She might appreciate that I haven’t – yet. 😉

As her chapter closes, mine begins – again. The hope for a “simple ablation” isn’t possible. Strangely, because of just how small those little spots are, they can’t do a biopsy, and they’re not operable, per the liver specialist. He lobbed it back to the bone doctor, and I, instead of waiting on them, went to see my medical oncologist, Dr. Smith. He’s been treating me for the past two years, and I trust him.

That conversation went something like this:

“Well, as you know, there are two spots, and they’re too small to operate on, and too small to biopsy. So, we don’t know what they are.”

“Right. We could wait and see.”

“We could, we could.”

“If we did that, how risky is it?”

“Well, there could be more we don’t know about.”

“Oh. And I guess it could metastasize, or they could grow quicker.”

“It could. Your cancer markers aren’t high, so I don’t expect they would grow too quick, but it could change.”

“What do you think they are?”

“I think they’re cancer.”

Decision made.

Today at 10:00 a.m. I will be at Duke Raleigh Hospital to start chemotherapy again. It will be a visit with my old friend, Fluorouracil (also known as 5 FU – interpret THAT acronym as you wish), and a new drug, Cisplatin. I will have this old friend again too:

Remember “pump’kin?” Called that because last time I was getting infused Sept/Oct timeframe.

This will happen – again:

Goodbye, lovely THICKER hair.

My taste will change, my sense of smell – I remember this vividly. My coffee, I LOVE my coffee, and it has become a new habit for me to swing by McDonald’s for a cup on my way to visit Mom. I’ve been SO tired from everything going on, it was the pick me up I needed. But, last time? Ick. I wasn’t able to drink it for a couple months.

Buh bye, Joe. I will see you in a few months.

I don’t know what all else might occur since I’m not familiar with Cisplatin, but some of the common side effects are, of course, low blood counts, etc.

My hope is this; I won’t feel as miserable because I’m not having radiation at the same time. I read somewhere in my many visits to Dr. Google that radiation intensifies the effects of chemo.

This go around there might be 4-6 treatments instead of 2, like in 2017. Dr. Smith said we’ll do 2, then do another liver MRI and see how they “spots” are responding.

I’m back to that Lady Macbeth saying, “Out, damned spot.”

So, this is what has been going on. I really appreciate all of the support, prayers, thoughts, and essentially all the good vibes from everyone! I have SO much to look forward to, and while I navigate this latest setback, I’m focused on getting through it, and passed it!

If I’m able, I’ll post updates, when I can! Thank you all for reading along, and supporting me!

Not too long ago . . . a rainbow came down from the heavens.

My Own Version of “It”

The beat of this drum has become somewhat tiresome, if I’m being truthful. Tiresome in that I don’t want the only thing I ever talk about is “it.” (reminds me of that fantastic book by Stephen King, read oh so many years ago.)

“It” is an appropriate name for the burden that is cancer. It’s one thing to deal with my own health, but we have Mom added into the mix now. This makes for dual roles – battling my own health issues, while trying to be caregiver to her. The complexities of this simply mean – I’m tired.

People ask, “How are you?”

I say, “I’m good, tired, but good.”

And you know what keeps me sane? Feeling good? Book events! I forget about “it.” I’m in the moment, I’m having fun, I’m laughing, discussing my books, discussing other books. Life seems normal.

Hooked On Books Book Club, Southport NC

Yesterday I was talking to a writer friend, and said battling my own cancer is like playing whack-a-mole. She didn’t know what that was. *You know who you are! It has truly become just like this arcade game – wherever it “pops” up, my doctors kill it. That’s the hope, anyway.

I had the liver MRI on Saturday. Sometimes you just know – it’s a feeling and it’s a bit of knowledge. 50-60% of people with this type of cancer see it metastasize to their livers. Those odds are pretty high, so it came as no surprise, really, when my oncologist called me yesterday at 8:00 a.m. and said, “There are two spots, relatively small, but they’re there.”

1.2 cm and 1.4 cm., each is about the size of a pea and they’re close together. Knowing those small details about them is helpful in an oddly, non-useful way. They are there, hidden away, causing me no pain, no sense of them at all. Like I’ve said before, cancer is sneaky. This is why so many people are late stage by the time they’re diagnosed.

What is tentatively planned, a possible needle biopsy, and then a simple ablation, a technique some of you may have heard of with regard to heart trouble, where they go in and burn the connections within the heart to get it back in rhythm. It’s similar with this for the tumors in my liver, but the expectation is to kill them off.

Changes are constant in fighting cancer, and while the recurrences are certainly disheartening, and may appear to offer a poor prognosis, there are still many options available to keep me filled with hope that there will always be an answer to the problems that seem to keep – ha – popping up.

John Hiatt’s CD, The Eclipse Sessions is a favorite I listen to while traveling to book events, or while running errands. Well, that, and Radney Foster’s, For You To See The Stars.

I chose this one for today, because the lyrics really fit. “Get up, get knocked down again, I ask for five, and you give me ten.”

Updates

It’s been a tough couple of weeks. First off, as of right now, my mother is in the hospital. After her 4th chemo treatment last Thursday, (out of 6) she went straight downhill and never recovered like she’d done before. She’d become unable to get up on her own, etc. Very weak, shaky, dizzy, you name it. (She’s also finished 18 of 28 radiation treatments.)

Monday when we went in for her radiation, and she was still feeling so bad, I went across the hall to her medical oncologist offices – where she gets her chemo – and told them they might want to assess her. They drew blood and her counts were so low, they decided to give her transfusions before her next chemo. That was scheduled for yesterday, May 1. However, they only gave her one bag because during the transfusion, she had shortness of breath.

So, she was admitted to the hospital for observation, fluids, blood, tests, and all the other “fun” stuff that happens in that place.

I would also like to add that getting INTO a hospital is as hard as breaking OUT of jail. It was likely more complicated/difficult because this hospital had no beds. Fresh out. That meant we had to go to the Emergency Room, and we ALL know how those trips go. Hours. Hours. Hours. We arrived at 3:00 and got into a room at 9:30. I think. It’s all a blur.

Waiting, waiting, waiting in the Emergency Room area.

She is being treated for neutropenia. She will need more blood. They are doing other tests. Her heart rate was pretty elevated last night – while she was just lying there. (between 110s and 130s – fluctuating) The nurse said it could be dehydration, but they’d given her fluids when she started the transfusion at the chemo clinic – so, I don’t know.

Bottom line, she’s where she needs to be, as many who were around her, and saw her, thought she was not doing well at all. It was apparent something wasn’t right. Hopefully she will feel much better when she’s able to leave. We will then have to resume the treatments, but I’m hopeful they will provide her with a medication to help keep her blood counts from bottoming out again, and I’m sure they will.

As to my own situation, most of you don’t know this past January we had a “bone cancer” scare. I sustained a fx in my pelvic area in September 2018 while running. Because of radiation, everything is different – check out osteoradionecrosis if you’re into reading medical documentation and seeing cool radiology pics.

When I went in for my PET scan in January, I told them they’d see this injury. They did. That became, we don’t know if it was caused by cancer or radiation. Off to the sarcoma clinic I was sent. The doctor there looked at the x-rays and said, “I’m not worried and here’s why.” (Talk about relieved.) Some of what he talked about how to do with that long word above. Some of it was about the fact I was no longer in pain. It was excruciating to walk when it happened, but after about 8 weeks, it got better. The main point, no pain at night which is what bone cancer is known for.

He said, “I’ll see you in three months.

I had the follow up PET scan on April 19th and went back April 23rd for the results. There is good news/bad news. It started off as bad news/bad news, and by now, any improvement in a result – well, I’ll take what I can get. Initially, he said, “Remember when I said I wasn’t worried? Well, now I am, and here’s why.” He said the fx hadn’t healed any more. He said the uptake on the glucose tracer was slightly more elevated – therefore, what he’d avoided in January was now back on the table – a bone biopsy.

What can you do? Not much. But then, there was a new issue. A new spot on the liver. Uptake on the tracer as well. There has been no liver involvement at all, up to this point. It’s truly like what’s next??? BUT – the tiniest sliver of good came when I was called by the sarcoma clinic and told the bone biopsy scheduled for May 3rd was postponed until they get back results of the liver MRI – yet to be done. I think this is because there is still the feeling that whatever happened with that fx may truly be a radiation thing. From what I’ve read, bone cancer is very painful – it would keep me up at night, plus it’s in an odd area, evidently.

Did you see this picture. (I deleted it when I realized it hit my author page, not my personal page on Facebook. I’m trying to keep those two things separate.) The look on my face says it all.

Those doggone blue bloomers they give you for xrays – fashionista! NOT.

That’s where things are. Liver MRI on May 11th – next Saturday. This is why I’ve been low key on social media. So much going on, yet, it’s often when I listen to music I find my way to a better, calmer peace of mind.

There is something about this particular song, a favorite for sure. And, even while it’s not relative to anything going on, I think what entrances me most- aside from the melody – is the message of enduring love.

Battle Scarred

We’re called warriors. That word and others like fighting, survivor, and journey, are used to describe this experience and never before did I fully grasp it until that day in 2017.

We are battle scarred. In my case, I’ve been tattooed, four permanent little bluish dots which pinpointed where the radiation machine would target. That’s another word to add to the repertoire – target. Like throwing darts, we wanted those beams to hit the bullseye and kill the cancer. Kill it, not me.

I have scars from the radiation burns, from lung surgery, and now I have this one from the skin cancer recently removed. In the grand scheme of things, this was easy-peasy.

“Oh, this little ole basal cell skin cancer? That’s nothing,” I declared to the dermatologist as he stitched up my leg. (I tell you though, skin cancer is nothing to fool with. What I had was literally about this size –> O, if that. That turned into taking out that chunk of my leg like what you see below and eleven stitches.)

That “dip” will go away – eventually. Hopefully before shorts season!

The longer you talk cancer, experience cancer, deal with cancer, the more you realize you are in a war zone, albeit self-contained. There are the inner scars too. These are memory scars, the ones formed over PET scans with outcomes we don’t want, the idea it could resurrect it’s ugly little presence any old doggone time it wants. Our future is at stake until we pass the magic time of two years and five years. At five years cancer free, none of us have any more chance of getting it again than the rest of the population who’ve never had it.

I do my best to ignore it. I’ve gotten pretty good at it too, as these pictures show.

Attended the Women’s National Book Association Bibliofeast

Honored a cherished friend . . .

Accepted this award at the SELA/SCLA Annual Yearly Conference

Thanksgiving at our house with family

Decorated the tree . . .

Somebody doesn’t like their reindeer horns  . . .

You get the idea! 

I have concluded I am proud of my battle scars. I am glad I have them. The fight is over for now. I am completely cancer free – again. I will get through PET scans, and continue to look forward, never backward. 

The hair has come in nicely btw.

I continue to . . .  dream.

Stage IV

A friend of mine wrote a comment on my last post, and in reading it, I looked at the date and realized it had been a while since I wrote anything about what’s going on. To be honest with you, I guess you could say when it comes to that, picture my face like this:

Enough already.

It’s been almost three weeks since the surgery which went as expected. No surprises. Wedge resection was done, wore a chest tube for about a day, and was quite (very) happy sitting propped up in my hospital bed, with a morphine pump and other opiods dripping into the IV. It was like a trip back to the 70’s, all psychedelic and woo woo.

The nurses asked, “What’s your pain level, zero to ten?”

“Zzzzzeeeerrrrooooo,” said I, with a loopy grin.

I checked out the next day, and since then have been at home, recovering. Actually to say recovering is a stretch because the overall effects of the actual surgery weren’t too bad. The worst came the first two days after as the general anesthesia wore off. I drifted about the house feeling zoned, out of it, really. Then, for the following week I prayed I wouldn’t need to sneeze, or cough.  Beyond some oddball annoying muscle spasm that created a sharp pain when I breathed in too deep, and what I’ve called the mad itch from adhesives on the dressing, I have felt pretty good.

I saw the surgeon October 9th and got the stitches out. That was when I heard about the pathology of what they removed. A bunch of staining was done to try and identify cells, some squamous, some with basaloid features, but as seems to be the case with the metastases I get, a hodge-podge of crap that is poorly differentiated, and morphing into unknown . . .  cancerous stuff.

Ick.

Here’s what I’ve learned. When you have cancer, you tend to listen very carefully for the positive news while analyzing every word coming out of a doctor’s mouth.

So, while I heard about all those nasty cells, I also heard him say something about Stage I.

I said, “So this is Stage I.”

I think he misunderstood my question. I was trying to understand if my lung cancer was Stage I while I realized my original cancer was Stage IIIB.

He said, “Oh no. You’re Stage IV because of the metastasis to the lung.”

Then he followed up with a couple of comments that sounded encouraging. One was it was better for me to come in with this now versus having had it when the original, primary cancer showed up. The second thing he asked was how long it had been since I was diagnosed.

I said, “Fourteen months.”

He said, “Well this may be it. The longer you go without anything else showing up, the better.”

I got to thinking about those other little spots, and we discussed them too. He showed me they are in both lungs. (refer again to that girl pictured above).

He said, “I would get another PET in three, no longer than four months. And we can always go back in and remove that left lobe, if they’ve changed.”

“What about the right lung?”

“Well, you have enough lung function we could remove some of it, or it could be treated systemically with more chemo. But I’d not recommend that for a few weeks, until you recover fully from your lung surgery, and that’s really Dr. Smith’s call.”

I went home and got to thinking about the doggone spots. For some reason, I thought he was the first person to bring them up, but then I recalled I’d started off with “nodules” already on my lungs (and liver) when I was first diagnosed last year. That’s why I was sent to an oncologist, pronto, and with everything going on, I had not thought to look back at my previous scans.

I went into the Duke portal and checked. Sure enough, all the way back to the original PET scan from August 2017 there is a mention of nodules in both right and left lungs. This is good news! (strangely) Why? Because I’ve had these spots he’s pointing out all along, and I’ve had a total of three more PET scans, and the spots haven’t changed. The one they took out was new as of the June 2018 scan, hence his comment, “This may be it.”

Let’s hope and pray it is!

In other news – remember my title on the last post?  (Running with Lung Cancer)

Weeellll, I won’t be able to do that anytime soon. I suppose that’s what I get for thumbing my nose at the Universe.

Getting radiation to the hip/pelvic area can cause weakened bones. This was a risk, but I suppose it’s hard to really know you’re at risk without going through yet another scan for bone density. So, I was out on a run and immediately felt pain and in hindsight, I should’ve stopped right then. I didn’t. My thinking was I could run through it because over the course of the years I’ve been doing this, I know that weird pains show up at the beginning of a run, and most go away within half a mile or so.  So, I kept on. It stayed with me the entire time, which should’ve been a big red flag. Once I finally did stop, I knew I’d made a mistake. So, I’m sidelined with a pelvic fracture, the type that needs nothing but time. It’s going on six weeks this coming Tuesday, and while there is still pain, it’s much better.

But – I’m not done YET. (!!!)

Let’s add some icing to the “what else could go wrong” cake.

A week ago today, I went to a dermatologist for a possible  . . .  skin cancer. We’ve all heard the saying “it comes in threes,” right? Is “it” karma? IDK, but whatever “it” is, mine apparently comes in fours.

I’ve had a “funny” area on my lower right leg since chemo ended last year. Actually, I thought this tiny wound was some odd thing my skin was doing because of the chemo since it showed up right after I was done with that treatment. It’s been there changing, doing it’s thing, bleeding now and then. Since my Dad had skin cancer, and I inherited his olive complexion, I thought, the way my luck is going  . . .

I went to see a dermatologist a week ago. They took a biopsy, and the pathology on it will be back in about two weeks, so that was a Charlie Brown moment, as in good grief!

Let’s see, what else . . . kidding! Because, yeah, that’s enough, already, isn’t it?

Despite all this, you wanna know exactly how I feel? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Round Two

What a roller coaster ride it’s been the past few days. Some of you know this past Saturday I posted about receiving the Southeastern Library Association’s (SELA) 2018 Outstanding Author award in fiction for THE ROAD TO BITTERSWEET. And now, for the past fifteen hours or so, I’ve been scratching my head at the latest news based on my PET scan.

I’ve been a runner for 30 years, and I mention this because, you know, exercise, eating right, etc., fights cancer, right? (Btw, I’m back into it, to the best of my ability, despite lymphedema problems. But hey, there’s some spiffy compression socks for that!)

At least they’re in style these days!

Rarely do I eat fast food. Only on occasion do I eat fried foods. And honestly, do you know how anti-southern that seems??? I mean come on, we’re supposed to eat fried food daily! But no, what do I eat? Lots of cereal, fruit, salads, vegetables, not too much meat, etc.

Cancer is ignoring this evidently.

In the last post after the one about the PET scan which showed two new areas, I updated everyone on having an x-ray which ruled out bone cancer for the new spot on my hip. (double yay on that!) But there was that pesky spot on the lung – and the only thing we could do was wait at least two months and have another PET scan.

Well, yesterday was the day. I went and had it in the morning, and I was really surprised to get a call in the late afternoon from my oncologist.

He cut right to the chase and said, “It’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that spot on your lung. It’s grown, and it’s the only area that lit up with the tracer. It’s a problem.”

He asked if I had ever smoked.

“Yes.”

Y’all – it’s been so long ago, I can barely remember it. I put the last cigarette in my mouth 32 years ago. I guess that doesn’t matter.

Part of the good news – it’s small, and they will simply take it out. It can hopefully be done via laparoscopy, and, it’s slow growing.

He also said “once it’s out, it’s out.”

Then he said, “The other good news, it’s literally the only spot that took the tracer, even where your original cancer was, there’s nothing. No sign of it. With this, you won’t go through chemo, you won’t need radiation.”

Of course that is GOOD news – yet my thoughts stalled on lung cancer. He doesn’t know if it’s metastatic, or a new one. He tends to think it’s new because the type I had, if it’s going to spread, usually goes to the liver.  We won’t know until it’s taken out and biopsied.

What I’m going to do until I know when all this will take place is this. I’m going on a ten day trip to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. I’m going to attend my book events, and I’m glad for them, glad for the distraction, and for getting to spend time doing what I love which is talking about books and writing.

It didn’t go unnoticed I’m almost exactly a year out from when I found out I had cancer last year.  That was on August 2nd. Ten days later, on August 12th, I knew what kind.

As I wrangle with this news, this song came to mind. While it sounds melancholy – it’s not! It’s about feeling blue and singing it out.

 

Still fighting. Onward.

 

 

 

Better News

This is a quick update to say I (finally!) had that “good old-fashioned x-ray” as my oncologist called it which showed nothing significant – only a few calcifications which could come from the running.

Phew!

There is no bone involvement which would have meant a completely different view of my future.

There is still the PET scan to do in August, but I’m feeling pretty optimistic that too will prove to be something ordinary, some benign process going on versus cancer. Of course I can’t feel 100% at ease until I hear that, but I do feel a LOT better than I did when I wrote that other post a little over a week ago.

In the meantime, I forgot to mention  . . . I got a hair cut. (!!!)  You might be wondering how that’s possible, but yep, I actually needed one to shape things up.  And  . . . the other day?  I actually used – wait – hairspray!

Such a tiny thing, but emotionally huge in significance.  Anyone out there who’s lost hair due to treatments – you know what I mean.  If you’re going through this and you’re staring at your bald head, wondering when, when, when, it took about eight months (for me), to get back to something where I look more like myself. It will take longer if you had long hair.

So, from this:

The hair decided to leave. It had had enough.

To this:

To, finally, this.

In Davidson NC yesterday for a book event. The first picture where I felt like I didn’t need to wear a hat!

That’s the thing with cancer. When treatment is going on, you’re fighting the devastating results to your internal systems, and praying hard it all works out. There’s a deep emotional quotient too, some of which is affected by outward appearance. Once you’ve gone about in the world in a particular way, cancer alters that, whether you like it or not.

I learned you have no control over it. You simply fight it, then wait, and hope and pray you can be you again one day, an altered you, but still you.

I look at pictures taken before I had cancer, and those taken now. I look pretty much the same, although I’ve lost weight, have shorter short hair, yet I also know I’m quite different physically, and emotionally.

And, I’m okay with it.

 

 

Mixed News

I’ve been wanting to do an update for some time now, and I suppose with this past week’s news, now is as good a time as any. I had my third PET scan Tuesday, June 12th. My oncologist called me Wednesday, and I could hear frustration in his voice.

He began quizzing me, verifying what he knew, and simply confirming my history. “I’m looking at your PET scan. You’ve had nodules in your lungs . . .?”

“Yes. I had a CT scan before I came to you, but it only caught the lower area, not all of my lungs, and that showed some nodules. Then we did another one at Duke, and it showed those, and a few more but they didn’t light up on the first PET scan.”

“Right, right. Well, I think this latest PET scan looks fine, but I have a call into the radiologist who read this. You know they have two people read it before they sign off, and I want to talk to the resident, make sure he’s comparing this to the one in January.”

I said, “Ooo-kay.”

Then he says, “Have you fallen recently?”

“Uh, no.”

“Didn’t you tell me you fell, or something?”

(my brain has been having some fog, so I was thinking hard here)

Finally, I said, “Not that I know of.”

“Have you started back running?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I have, I was going to tell you about that when I came to see you in July. Yes, I’m running again, with walking in between until I feel back up to par.”

There were more questions about being ill, had I had bronchitis, or done a lot of coughing – anything like that? No, no and no, but by now I wished I HAD fallen and had suffered double pneumonia.

I could tell something wasn’t quite right.

All the questions had to do with the fact there were two new areas seen on the PET scan that weren’t there in January.  One is a new nodule in my left lung, and there is a spot on my right hip bone. This was NOT what I wanted to hear, needless to say. When you get a PET scan, they give you a “tracer” with glucose in it. You can’t eat or drink anything except water/black coffee/unsweetened tea, for example, the morning of – so the glucose in this tracer will stick to potential cancer, because, cancer likes sugar. When they look at the PET scan, they’re looking for areas to “light up,” or areas they call “hot,” which is where the glucose tracer would attach.

According to my oncologist, neither area met the criteria for being “hot,” meaning the uptake value he would have expected for malignancy . I’ve read anything 2.5 and higher, but he said he would have expected a 7 or an 8 to really indicate a problem.  These were 1.7 and 1.9. Therefore, the wording on the report wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted the radiologist to change it. The way we left off that call Wednesday was he would talk to the radiologist.

Thursday, the report was released to me through the hospital’s interface – called DukeMyChart. I could read for myself what it said. I will admit, I didn’t like it – at all.  Plus, I didn’t know why it had been released – was this the report that still needed to be changed? Or was this the final report?

Here is what is said:

Impression:
1. New left lower lobe nodule measuring up to 9 mm with FDG avidity, which
is concerning for metastatic disease.
2. Possible new lytic lesion within the right iliac bone with mild FDG
avidity. Attention on follow-up.

FDG is the glucose tracer. Avidity means an eagerness for glucose. Lytic lesion on a bone can be benign or not. That afternoon I heard from my oncologist again.

He said, “Unfortunately, I could not get the radiologist to agree with me to change his report. Because these are new areas, they are of concern.”

It sounded like they argued back and forth over the uptake values, along with the question of doing a biopsy on the lung nodule. (it’s too small to hit)

So, here’s the plan:

I’m getting a (as my oncologist called it) “good old-fashion x-ray” on my hip. He said that would help determine what’s going on, if it’s simply a benign lesion because of the running – or not. I’ve had radiation to this entire area, a pretty rigorous treatment too, and it can weaken bones. Maybe the running I’ve been doing has set off some sort of activity, and that’s what we’re hoping.  As far as my lung, I’m having another PET scan in two months. August 7th.

This means waiting, which isn’t easy to do. Despite all this, I’m feeling fairly optimistic. No, it’s not what I wanted to hear, but I keep thinking about the positives I see in between all of the negatives.

I like lists, so here’s my list of positives!

1. My oncologist said this particular cancer spreading to the hip bone would be, in his words, “an unusual pattern.”
2. Typically, treatment is completed and “we’re usually good.” (meaning, no expectations of this sort of thing cropping up)
3. PET scan avidity, (glucose eagerness) or “lighting up” can happen with non-malignant processes.
4. The glucose uptake was low, in a non-malignant category
5. He’d said, “I’m fine with your PET scan.”

The bad news  – the radiologist stuck to his impressions, meaning his experienced eye saw something suspicious. Maybe it’s simply cautionary, which is fine with me.

I will admit, this took the wind out of my sails a bit because these past six months since the January PET scan have been wonderful, mainly because the weight of worry was gone. While I still contend with side effects, the fact I’d been able to get back to something else I really love, i.e., running, was fantastic. This is my go to method of  relieving stress, and most importantly – solving story problems!

We’re always busy with work over here, and all in all, life has been really good! We’ve celebrated birthdays, been to book events, chilled out on the porch, and watched sunrises and sunsets.

See?

 

While this goes on with me, there are others in our community, and yes, right here closest to me, who are also dealing with health issues. We will remain optimistic and always, always hope for the best outcome.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. Psalm 40:2.

Amen.