Cautious Optimism

Those are my words to describe today's appointment. Dr. Patil said that this was an unusual case because I had no obvious signs of a primary source. Nothing other than my arm. He explained that sometimes a metastasized site is the only evidence of cancer. The primary site will sometimes just die or go away, leaving secondary sites. Next Wednesday, I'm scheduled for a PET scan at St. Vincent's and a CT upper torso scan and MRI brain scan at Providence Newberg on Thursday. Friday, September 19, I will meet with my radiology oncologist, Dr. Hansen, at St. Vincent's, which is just down the street from where I work in Tigard.

Basically, barring a surprise finding of a primary site, the plan is radiate my left arm, and blast all of me with chemo, effectively making me throw up gut bombs, lost my hair, and kill any remaining cancer cells that may be hiding inside me. And when I'm declared cancer-free, mom is going to buy me King Crab (eat your heart out, Whit!). Actually, today's news was so good that I'm getting crab tomorrow night at Outback.

Mom and Lori went with me to today's appointment, which I was very glad. For me, it was just another step in the process. For mom and Lori... Well, when the doctor was leaving the room and told us to wait in the waiting room for an appointment to be made with Dr. Hansen, I turned to go out the door behind the doctor. Lori and mom kept saying "close the door!" and I couldn't understand why, because the doctor told us to wait in the waiting room, and everyone knows what a rule follower I am. So, I had nearly closed the door and mom and Lori began jumping up and down, Lori nearly knocked me over (I almost had a concussion, which would have been embarrassing to explain to Dr. Patil) to hug me and tell me that I wasn't dying. Mom smiled for probably two hours straight and commented that she could eat now. She did. She had an extra piece of BBQ chicken with dinner and had a jello dessert later, and then had some little snacks at my house. Mom even danced a jig.

Lige's blessing earlier this month was very effective. I think my family is feeling more relieved an excited than I am right now, but I haven't even had time to bottom out in despair. This has all happened so fast, and today is just another day on the way to wellness. I still have some tummy tossing and hair lossing to do, along with trying to work and pet my cats.

I'll probably have more later, but my elbow is sore and I want to watch Airplane with mom.

Later!