Happy New Year!

Z. put the New Year's hats on the paper Xmas trees last night just after midnight. I thought they made a good picture to start out the new year.

So, for those of you who haven't heard yet, I got good news yesterday morning when I got my ct-scan report. The report said:

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1. No evidence of recurrent or metastatic disease.
2. Interval decrease in size of fluid collection in the pelvis since 9/17/08

and then farther into the report it says:

RETROPERITONEUM: Multiple surgical clips are visualized. No new enlarged retroperitoneal or pelvic lymph nodes.

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Now, both A. and I stared at this as it came out of the fax machine in disbelief. What do you mean no evidence of disease? The tumor has been there, pretty much not changing in size for the last three scans. How could it possible disappear in 3 1/2 months? I know that the drug I am on (Megace) is not supposed to shrink the tumor the way that chemo does, but if the tumor were to die, it would do just that, just die. A couple of scans ago there was something about necrotic tissue in the center of the tumor but all the drs. dismissed that as not being important. We have really been lead to believe that the most that we could hope for was stability. I really am perplexed. Both A. and I keep harboring thoughts that the scan report is wrong, that it's a different person (there is an error on the report, in two spots they say my diagnosis is endometriosis, instead of recurrent endometrial cancer- I did call them and asked them to fix that), but in the description they have who I am correct (51 years old and my past and current cancer history). It's likely a typing error by the transcriber, I have had numerous people along the way try to put down endometriosis instead of endo cancer, but it does make one nervous about the rest of the report (although all the other things that reference previous scans are all correct). That is why neither A. nor I will be really confident in this news until I have spoken to my med onc next Wed. At that appt. he will sit down and view my ct. scan and the previous one in addition to the report, so I will have confirmation. He can also tell me what he thinks this means. Is it possible that there are cancer cells in the pelvic fluid? Should a PET scan be done to look for metabolic activity? Is this a fluke? Could I actually be in remission?

I guess an argument could be made for having the dr. give you the results rather than getting them yourself like I always do, but I'd much rather be wondering about this stuff than sitting here anxiously awaiting news for another week. I can't even begin to tell you how difficult that waiting process is. Knowing, even if knowing isn't complete, even if knowing isn't necessarily good news, is so much better.

So, for now I am not really feeling excited, but I am feeling a sense of calm that there's a really good possibility that I am going to be around a good while. That's a real shift in thinking, so it will take some time to process that. It does make all the other health issues I have become more important. I feel like the rest of my body has rebelled this past year (much of this is from the medications I am on for the cancer and pain) and is way out of balance. I'm working on the pain med situation (I'll save that stuff for another post) and am working with my internist on the other things. I am trying to give myself the space to work all this out in time, piece by piece, and stop panicking every time I get a bad reading. I've been reading lately about how cancer and it's treatments can throw so many things out of whack, so coupled with my genetics, it's no wonder I'm struggling with all of this.

Anyway, I am happy, it's just that it's all very complicated right now. I think others with cancer probably understand how getting good news doesn't necessarily mean you are ready to start dancing in the streets. The skepticism is common and it will take time and more good scans to feel real.

So I'll end this with a cute picture of Calvin. I can rarely get a good picture of this cat, I'm not sure why, but today he was very cooperative and gave me his cute pose without doing goofy things with his eyes. I love how he's the same color as our floors.



Happy 2009!