Friday, March 4, 2022
The pea. The simple, insignificant pea.
In my experience, peas are not popular. My sister-in-law refuses to eat them; in fact, she makes faces and gagging noises when they’re mentioned. One of our au pairs was more discreet. On her first night with us, she sat politely at the dinner table, her homemade split pea soup untouched. We learned later that her father was a pig farmer; peas are what he fed the pigs; we’d unknowingly delivered a huge insult. Peas are also the smallest food items the National Cancer Institute uses in their helpful chart on envisioning the size of a tumor.
My original tumor was about the size of a lime. No wonder Dr. Lung said he thought that tumor had been there for a while. And, after all my adventures in lung disease, no wonder my lung capacity is now a little diminished, which I learned this past Monday, after visiting with Dr. Lung. This is the benefit of blowing into tubes and seeing stars– I learned my lung functions are normal (see? I told you), even if my lung’s capacity is on the lower side.
Confessing to being an avid bicyclist, Dr. Lung said he was thrilled with my goal of riding from Portland to Multnomah Falls and back; he said it was a beautiful ride. He also revealed the secret of my high-to-me resting pulse rate: “I think it’s simply de-conditioning.” For those of you watching at home, that means being wicked out of shape. And, he scolded me. That came after I said, “Well, lung cancer always wins.” Apparently, for someone with my initial diagnosis (Stage IIIa), cure is always considered possible.
Monday afternoon: PET exam. No badness revealed! Woohoo!
Tuesday: Frosting School. No badness there either, except for maybe too much sugar. Let us eat cake!
Late Tuesday: MRI and Happy Time with lorazepam. I was almost asleep in the tube when a stunning BANG made me jump– at least, as high as you can jump in an MRI chamber. No results were available Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, when we visited with Dr. Oncology. That’s when we all agreed that if the little spot in my brain that could have been Nothing turned out to be Something, we’d simply gamma knife the sucker. We learned you can get gamma knifed many many times. You can also get your whole brain irradiated. Perhaps a benefit would be clearer thinking? Better memory?
Then the MRI results came in.
IMPRESSION:
Enlarging ring-enhancing lesion in the paramedian right frontal lobe which is suspicious for metastatic disease.
Oh.
Basically, the lesion has doubled in size since the MRI in early January, bringing it to the size of a pea. The magnitude– or lack of it– is not what’s concerning, it’s the pace of its growth. Hence the M word: metastatic.
So, after my week with the -ologists, I’m sitting here like a bedraggled princess, hungover from a killer party, missing a shoe, and black and blue from sleeping on a lousy mattress.
I know it’s just the typical flock of delayed feelings coming home to roost. I know I need to put one foot in front of the other. I have a call with Dr. Radiology in about an hour. I want to know if she sees any nodules in the lung or if they’re receding or simply too small to count. I want to know all that’s next.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking about cake. Sunday we celebrate the birthday of R’s partner. I have good plans for that cake. Tuesday we have our final in Frosting School: a cake of at least four layers, frosted in preparation for decorating in class. I’ve made roses, violets, a plethora of drop flowers.
Monday afternoon, a video chat with Dr. Oncology, after she talks with the Tumor Board.
Right now, I’m focused like a laser, on cake.
I can do cake.
[…] When last seen, Our Heroine was waiting for a call with Dr. Radiology to discuss the “Enlarging ring-enhancing lesion in the paramedian right frontal lobe which is suspicious for metastatic disease,” as was reported in the recent MRI results. What is there to say? Dr. Radiology did not mince words: “This is clearly metastatic.” Welcome to Stage 4 lung cancer, baby. […]