Results of Round Two

I was so prepared to get the FINAL good news.  That hope has kept me completely at peace over the past four months, despite the irritations of radiation-induced menopause and the discomfort of parotid-gland inflammation.  I've been noticing that my voice is a little lower, more raspy when I talk, can't sing for the life of me, and I've completely lost my voice twice in the past few months... once for three days.  My voice fatigues really easily at night when I'm reading out-loud to Reagan, which limits our sessions (well, that and the mama falling asleep mid-sentence....).  So, there have been these annoying little things that are minor, but didn't phase me much at all because I was so ready to hear "you're all DONE!"

My follow up trip to Mayo was last week. Rob scheduled himself some appointments, since he was going to be there anyway. The day ran like clockwork, without a hitch.  Lab work, ultrasound, Rob's xray, EKG, Rob's doctor's appointment, and then... finally... at the end of the day.... my appointment.  When he walked into the room, Dr. Stan smiled and said "are you ready for good news?"  I was like "YES!!  Give me good news!"  I had anticipated, given his demeanor, that he had already reviewed the results and was building me up to drop the "all clear".  But actually, he pulled up the results and looked at them for the first time right there with us.  First he reviewed my chart and history, to make sure he remembered everything.  Then he pulled up the ultrasound.  "OK.  The lymph nodes are a little bigger.  But not much bigger.  Just a little.  And they don't have much blood flow now.  That's good."

Bigger?  That's not what I wanted to hear.  "Shouldn't they disappear if the radiation worked?  Wouldn't they be obliterated by the radiation?"  Not necessarily, he said.  Could be just the cancer inside was killed, but the lymph node itself remains.  OK.  I won't let "a little bigger" bug me.

The ultrasound itself couldn't tell me for sure if the cancer was still there or not, at least in the one or two lymph nodes they could visualize by ultrasound.  Whether there are two or three cancerous nodes is still vague, because the PET scan showed three, and this ultrasound visualized two.  But I know the other one off my aorta, behind the carotid, is too deep to visualize by ultrasound.  So I think there's probably a smaller node in between the two larger nodes that they're most concerned about, under my breast bone somewhere, but more near the neck so they can get an ultrasound picture if they look straight down under my collar bone.  I digress.  But because of their position limiting the full view of all three, and the fact that two of the nodes had gotten a little larger, the ultrasound alone couldn't give me the good news.  Victory would come from my tumor marker.  Come on, tumor marker.  Sock it to me.  Show me the zero, baby.

It's not zero.  It's 2.  Two is BETTER.  It was 106 last time, but that was stimulated in preparation for treatment, so not a realistic number.  That's comparing apples to oranges, because I'm definitively NOT stimulated now.  Then, my TSH (think of TSH as cancer food) was 52. That's a smorgasburg  of cancer food.   Now my TSH is below .01, so low that their lab equipment can't even measure it.  Essentially zero.  We're starving that cancer as absolutely much as we can without me throwing up and being jittery all the time, like I was a few weeks ago.  To compare apples to apples, we'd have to look at my suppressed tumor marker numbers, and those were 3.2 in May, and 9 in March.  So two is definitively better, and the lowest number I've EVER had since this whole cancer thing started.  I'll take it.  It's in the right direction.  TWO.

So, the war is not over, but this battle was won.  I was hoping for the end of the war, so have to admit to being a little disappointed.   BUT, this is good news.  I like good news.  Not the BEST news, but good news.  We will carry on.  Current plan initially was to follow up in February, but we do NOT want to drive fourteen hours round trip in February, so we moved that to April.  Roads should be better in April.  At that time, we'll do another ultrasound and blood work.  If the tumor marker hasn't gone to zero, he'll have me do the low-iodine diet again, and come back in May or June  for a whole-body scan and likely a third round of radioiodine.  If my voice starts consistently getting worse, I'm to call him before that and move everything up, bad weather or not.  He told me he doesn't want me to go back to Marshfield at all now.  We need to stay with Mayo, and I'm totally fine with that.  Dr. Stan is awesome.  Mayo itself is thoroughly impressive.  I was only going to go back to my Marshfield doctor if we had the all clear, and I just needed periodic monitoring, and only because it's so much closer to home.  We're not there yet, so I cancelled my November and December appointments with them.

Haven't written the final chapter yet, like I was hoping to, but I think we're in the "denouement" now.

God is good.  All the time.

In Anticipation

Tomorrow, I get the news as to whether treatment worked or not.  I'm actually excited about this appointment, because I am so confident it will be GOOD news, after three years.  This is not a place I've been in before on the eve of a big appointment.  Typically, I'm scanning the research, mentally preparing myself for a blow, steeling myself for the inevitable bad news (or at least "meh" news).  This time, I am fully prepared to celebrate.  Stay tuned.

If I DO get to celebrate, I've been thinking about the toll this stupid, annoying cancer has taken.  The final score, so to speak.  Cancer has taken my thyroid, one vocal cord, one parotid gland, and two ovaries.  Given that I have a second vocal cord, another parotid gland, and the ovaries were gonna go eventually anyways, I feel like that's pretty cheap.   A side effect of losing my metabolism regulating organ at the same time as my ovaries has caused significant weight gain, and I hate that. I do not feel like myself at all in that regard. Score another one for big C.  Cancer has cost me thousands of dollars, months and months of time off work, and been a holy pain for three years.  It has, in all honestly, cost me some relationships, as I have not been able to go out west to maintain those relationships due to the time off treatment has required.  That is something I regret more than anything.  But we will earn more dollars.  I will regain PTO.  I will try to lose weight if I can. And the three years of my life have been a learning experience, a time to grow stronger, and experience innumerable graces.  Overall, I have been abundantly blessed.

I'm so ready to say goodbye to this chapter of my life.  Cancer has scored some points, but in the end, I WIN.  Not because of anything I did, because of the kindness of a good and gracious Father, who allowed me an experience to challenge me, but not break me.

Final buzzer tomorrow.  Let the countdown begin!!!

Thought Of The Day

”For when men no longer understand the infinite charity of God, they will no longer prize the most striking revelation of that charity, the love of mothers.”  Cardinal Mindszenty