On the way to the hospital this morning, as we navigated the morning rush hour / rainy day traffic, my husband and I were saying that we would just for once like to leave one of these meetings with some really good news. Just a little luck, that’s all we wanted. Sometimes it feels like we’ve been so beaten down with bad news and raw deals that just a tiny bit of good luck would send us into paroxysms of glee and gratitude. We’d be so giddy that people would cross the street when they saw us coming.
So, because the universe has a sick sense of humour (and has obviously bugged our car) when we arrived at the normally chaotic, totally un-parkable hospital, we found the world’s most perfect parking spot waiting for us right in front of the entrance to the breast clinic elevators. Imagine – in the pouring rain, armed with a broken umbrella (I pulled it out of the stand in two pieces this morning) we beheld this beautiful, glorious parking spot – I swear it almost glowed. It almost made that chorus-of-angels sound. We had to laugh: just our luck that the answer to our prayers for good luck would come in the form of a great parking spot.
Well, I’m very happy to say that the good luck didn’t end there today. Ladies and Gentlemen: I have great news, good news and no news!!
First, the great news: The CT scan showed no spots in my brain! My notoriously low blood pressure is the cause of my dizziness and I can take a break from worrying about nasty things growing in my brain. I know some of you won’t be able to resist the airhead jokes (you know who you are… Shawn Coppen) so I’ll beat you to it: Finally, we have proof that there is nothing in my brain! And that’s fine with me.
Next, the good news: The lymph node tumours have either shrunk or stabilized! Those one or two lumps in my neck are indeed getting smaller (okay, so maybe this counts as great news!) and the others haven’t managed to get any bigger. Stabilization is almost as good as shrinkage, because, as my oncologist explained, Tykerb/lapatinib gradually stabilizes tumours over time and then begins to shrink them, hopefully all the way to oblivion. So for now, stable is just fantastic in my books.
And finally, in the no news department: Well, it seems there was an error. The analysis of the chest CT scan was compared to an old scan from last year, rather than my most recent scan in August, so it’s no good. My oncologist has ordered a re-analysis against my most recent chest scan, so we can see what’s going on with the spots between my lungs. Reassuringly, my doc says her initial reading is good, but she will call me tomorrow when she has the complete analysis. No news – while not as thrilling as “no new spots,” “shrinkage,” or “stable” – is still good news.
So, I’m massively, tearfully, hugely relieved. And, oddly, also deeply thankful, though I’m not precisely sure to what or whom. But the gratitude I feel is strangely palpable; I can literally feel it emanating from me. Also, I find I’m physically exhausted. Like, knackered. I guess all the tension that I have been carrying has finally been released and my body wants me to let it rest now. Which I will gladly do, as soon as I post this.
Tomorrow is another day – for chest scan results and parking spots – and let’s just hope the luck continues!
On Friday I had CT scans of pretty much everything but my arms and legs to check the stage of my lumps and bumps as compared to three treatment cycles ago (that’s just over two months ago.) We’ll get the results Thursday morning, when I go in for my regular clinic appointment.
Normally a head scan wouldn’t be included but I’ve been having some dizzy spells and frankly they’re freaking me out a bit. Despite my best efforts, the words “brain tumour” crept into my mind like sneaky little spiders leaving clingy cobwebs of fear behind. Reassuringly, my oncologist said that the problem is more likely related to circulation (it mostly happens when I stand up or get out of bed) but since I have a pretty good record of reporting symptoms that turn out to be indicators of disease progression, she’s not messing around. She tagged an “urgent” head scan onto my scheduled CT so we can get all the results at the same time.
And so here I am again, trapped in the hope-fear continuum, as I always am whenever I wait for the results of tests like these. No matter what I’m doing – working or buying groceries, talking or typing, listening or laughing – I can feel the almost magnetic tension between the poles of hope and fear. It feels like walking a tightrope, where any slip can hurl me either into terror or wild optimism.
And this time in particular there’s a lot going on, pulling me in both directions. There is the fear that the scans will reveal tumour growth or new spots, possibly in my (gulp) brain. I’ve also noticed pain at the site of my original tumour, the one long-ago removed, and …is that a little lump under my arm??
But before I spiral down into the murky depths of Fearsville, let’s just shake off the slime of terror and foreboding for a moment and give the other end of the spectrum a chance. Because there is also the lure of hope: pure and shiny and just as powerful a pull as the gravity of fear. And this time, offsetting the whirlpool suck of fear, I have to say hope’s got a pretty good leg-up. This time, I actually believe I have reason to be hopeful – dizzy spells and phantom tumour pain notwithstanding.
Even though I’m superstitious enough to hesitate to blog it out to the universe for fear of jinxing myself, I’ve decided that I will share why I’m leaning toward hope because I also have a cockamamie theory that other people wishing for it too might help to make it come true. So, here goes: I can feel that the lumps in my neck are getting smaller! Its not just my imagination – my oncologist has on two occasions made a happy/surprised face and a little “Hm!” sound when examining me in the past few weeks. (She is not the overly effusive type, so for her, I like to think “hm!” is the equivalent of jumping up and down and high-fiving me.)
Anyway, I’ll know on Thursday. In the meantime I’ll walk the tightrope and try not to go completely mad. Although I confess I’m rubbing my shrunken neck lumps like lucky pennies, and giving my brain and under arm lump 800-pound-gorilla status just by dint of the concentration it requires to not think about them.
Luckily, I had a visit with my amazing cancer shrink yesterday, and he says “What-ifs” are strictly off limits. No matter how positively you spin a What-if, reasons my amazing cancer shrink, it invites its opposite, thereby opening the door to anxiety. And nobody wants to live in that house, located, as it is, in the reeking swamp of Fearsville. So I just have to stay with what I know, which, right now, is …nothing. Nothing is pretty hard to hold onto – but even if it’s not as great as good news, it’s still better than bad news.
Holding onto nothing… Oh my, my, my. That’s the thing about cancer: you might beat the disease, but you’ll probably go crazy doing it.
A few weeks ago, Georgia and my mom and I all participated in a commercial for a fundraising campaign for the Gattuso Rapid Diagnostic Centre at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto.
We had fun doing it and I’m a big supporter of the whole idea behind the Rapid Diagnostic Centre — that being to cut down the wait time between testing and diagnosis to one day. Yes, just one. Not the several agonizing weeks it usually takes. Imagine taking that excruciating time-warped endless agony of wondering if you have cancer and smacking it right down to size? Waiting for results is like your standard what’s-behind-the-door horror film scene: no matter what’s hiding behind that door, the scariest part is the eerie music and the slow, creeping, spine-tingling approach to the unknown evil lurking in the dark. I always have to fast-forward through those scenes. And basically that’s what the Gattuso Center will do for that slow, creeping, terrifying approach to the great unknown of a cancer diagnosis.
Of course it won’t always be good news behind that door. But, like in the movies, at least once you’ve seen the monster, you can start figuring out how to destroy it.
You can view the commercial here (at http://www.pmhf.ca/)
Oct
14
I just had another bone scan. I like the bone scan, as I have mentioned before, repeatedly, and to anyone who will listen. I just happen to think it’s amazing to see my whole skeleton on the computer screen. Really, who ever gets to see every bone in their body, from head to toe(s)? I think it’s totally fascinating. Not to mention rather seasonal, what with Halloween right around the corner.
For the uninitiated, the bone scan takes place in the terrifyingly named Nuclear Medicine Lab, and involves getting an injection of tracer fluid, which comes in a lead tube with this symbol all over it:
I never tire of saying that they give me this radioactive injection “just in case I don’t already have cancer,” and today I thought it would be funny to say it to the lab technicians handling the injection. They didn’t laugh. They looked at me and blinked and kept doing their thing. Clearly they’re not so much into cancer humour down there in the ol’ Nuke Lab.
Actually, for all the Chernobylesque weirdness of it, the needle is tiny and doesn’t hurt at all. The fluid travels through the blood stream to the kidneys and into the bones, which then magically light up onscreen when they slide you through the giant George Foreman Grill type apparatus. This takes about twenty minutes.
Painless, fascinating, and effective for diagnosing any trouble cancer might be causing in dem bones. What’s not to love about this test?
Also, I make a nice nightlight for a few days.
Not true, I just wrote that to irritate the lab techs. But if I were to have to fly somewhere in the next couple of days, I would set off the security alarms at the airport. For this purpose, you can get a special post-scan medical card that says that you are not a bomb (not in so many words.)
Here are some things I learned today:
- An x-ray looks at the anatomy of bones whereas a bone scan looks at the physiology. In other words, an x-ray knows what my bones look like, and a bone scan knows what they’re doing.
- With an x-ray, the radiation comes from the machine, whereas with a bone scan the radiation comes from you. And you were worried about standing in front of the microwave.
- Because the radioactive tracer fluid goes through the kidneys into the bones and is then expelled through urine, all you’ll see in the imaging is bones, and sometimes kidney and bladder, which show up as black spots. This is very important to remember since when people with caner see any kind of black dots whatsoever on medical imaging they tend to freak right out.
Coming soon: the actual scan images of my skeleton… Hoping to pick them up from the hospital records desk in time for my Halloween post! Spooky!
Aug
26
Yesterday was one of those great days: In the afternoon I met my niece, who is perfect and amazing – just a miracle of life wrapped up like the world’s most beautiful burrito in my arms – and in the evening I ate lobster with a friend who always makes me laugh and inspires me, having herself recently kicked cancer’s a**. Needless to say I slept soundly. Smugly, even.
Alas, this morning I came screeching back into cold hard reality at full-speed – right back into the routine that somehow never becomes routine:
- 9 a.m. needle to the port in my chest – check
- Extraction of 6 colour-coded vials of blood – check
- ECG – check
- IV fluids & drugs for about 2 hours – check
- Review bloodwork results with my nurse: all counts low, especially platelets. Am instructed to rest as much as possible, and to avoid getting any deep cuts or gashes. Cancel my sword-fighting plans this weekend – uh, check
This evening I’m scheduled for my first CT scan since beginning the clinical trial. They’ll scan everything from head to pelvis, looking for any sign of further metastasis (please, no more) and of course, measuring the growth of the ol’ neck lumps (please, no more than 20%).
I’ve already choked back half the gigantic bucket of nasty chalk-juice, which, by the way, some jerk had the audacity to brand “E-Z CAT” – probably a relative of the jerk who came up with branding Fox News “fair and balanced.” Now I shall proceed to eat everything in sight before fasting begins. Then I’ll nap, if I can possibly quiet my mind, and later my husband will take me back to the hospital for the freaky sci-fi space capsule scan.
And then?
Well, then we just wait. Probably until Monday. We wait and try to enjoy our weekend as much as possible, hopefully avoiding “deep cuts and gashes” or any manner of flesh-wound, and also trying not to think too much about the results. This of course is like trying not to breathe too much.
I really want to stay positive and only think of good things (my family, my new niece, lobster dinners) but the truth is I’m terrified. Still, if there is something to know, I’d rather know it. Can’t fight it if you don’t know it’s there, right? And maybe there just won’t be any surprises. Maybe the test drug is working, in spite of seemingly enlarged neck lumps, which yes I have stopped touching all the time. Mostly.
Anyway, on with the dragon hunt. Again.
