I guess there was a reason for my scanxiety. Seriously, it was worse this time than it usually is...and it turns out it was with good reason. Since starting at Mass General Hospital over a year ago, I have become used to hearing, "Your scans look great." or "Your scans are amazing!" But this time I just had a feeling I wouldn't hear that...and I didn't. What I heard instead was, "Well, while the tumor we radiated looks good, unfortunately your cancer has spread."
I now have 8 new, very small tumors on various parts of my liver, and a microscopic one in my lung. I started back on chemo a couple of weeks ago. I am trying to stay positive - really, I am. But it's harder this time. I was doing so well for so long that I had kind of hoped it would just...go away. But apparently that's not to be the case. So the new hope is that chemo will bring about some kind of remission for awhile, and that I will get "chemo breaks" from time to time, but the nature of this cancer is that, since it spread in the few months I didn't have chemo, I will need to be on it for the foreseeable future.
I left the doctor's office feeling pretty defeated. While my oncologists are great at the medical aspects, sometimes they aren't great in the emotional arena. I think sometimes the more specialized they become, the more clinical they are. The radiation oncologist did say they will be aggressive and will keep trying new things when the old stop working. But I still left feeling doomed.
The following week, however, when I went for my chemo, I met with the nurse practitioner, Caroline, who often does my check-ups and she put it in a much better perspective for me to handle. She said she wants me to start thinking of this as a chronic illness, like diabetes, and to view the chemo as "management." My chemo nurse, Julie (or Saint Julie, as I call her), got me to see it as a setback, and not the end. She, too, said it's just a new fight and she agrees with Caroline that I need to start thinking of the chemo as a way to manage it.
Unfortunately, I can't be on the same clinical trial I was on last year. Once you stop it for any reason, such as radiation, you are done. So now I am on two of the three drugs I was on before, and hoping and praying they help. If not, we try new ones. So, faced with all of the bad news, what did I do? Why, booked an all-inclusive, totally out of our budget trip to Disneyworld, of course. Upgrade your rooms? Yes, please! Deluxe meal package? Absolutely! Park-hopper tickets? But of course! What the hell...if we waited until we could afford it the boys will be out of college. We leave June 29th. And I'm not putting things off anymore. Which means that the hardwood floors I have wanted installed in the kitchen will also be making their appearance this summer.
Well, that's the news for right now. I am hoping that my next set of scans, which will be after we get home from Florida, show some progress against this beast. In the meantime, I am trying to claw my way up to "positivity peak", because I do really believe it helps. But I'm not there yet...about halfway, I would say. I'll get there, because I have so many wonderful people loving me, supporting me, and just being there for me. And I hope you all know, I love you right back!
xoxo Joanna
