July 25-28, 2022
Monday, July 25: “Hold Your Breath”
This is a multi-part entry, designed to capture up to the minute information, mostly because I don’t want to forget anything. At the recent conference I attended, I learned that docs are getting anecdotal evidence of some cognitive responses to osimertinib, my miracle drug. These include issues with memory and finding words. My mother said she’d been intending to talk to me about observing the memory stuff, but she probably forgot. (That’s what happens when you open your pills in front of others and some kind of fumes from them get into the air. 😱 )
You can sign in for an appointment online, answer all the goofy questions– no, this is not the result of an accident, no, it is not related to a mining accident (or some equally ridiculous question)– but there is always paperwork. Two pages of it today, one of which was ridiculous. One question: have you had CT scans in the past, when, and where? With only 2 lines provided for a response, what else could I say but, “You have got to be kidding.”
Then there was a question about cancer treatment. “Lots,” I wrote. I mentioned the osimertinib, since that seems to react with everything, but otherwise, dear hard-working CT people, I have a chart. The technician cracked up when she read my responses and apologized. Evidently, the folks that work there are trying to get ride of all this paper. Thank goodness, when the folks doing the IV and the scan asked if I’d had one before and I said, “tons,” they said, “great, we won’t say anything more.”
When the action is about to begin, the machine gives three instructions as the table slides in and out, positioning you under the laser: Take a breath. Hold your breath. Breathe normally.
The results came in just a while ago and they couldn’t be better. The teensy nodule from last time? Gone. The usual mumbo jumbo about scarring appears in the summary below:
- Stable likely treatment related scarring in the perihilar portion of the right lower lung. No local disease recurrence. Stable moderate scarring and architectural distortion in the right lower and the right middle lobes.
- No suspicious pulmonary nodules. No adenopathy. No osseous metastases. [Translation: no lesions in the bones. This is important– lung cancer likes brains, bones, and sometimes, adrenals.]
Tonight, I am having cake to celebrate (It was DH’s birthday party yesterday and there’s a ton left over. I know how sorry you feel for us.)
Tuesday, July 26, 2022: Checking In with Dr. Oncology
All the way to the top of the parking garage I went, around, and around, and around. What was the deal with no parking spaces? Most likely the cancer center was giving out free chemo;Â who can resist that?
The visit with Dr. Oncology was short and oh-so-sweet. I need to repeat the key words here:
1. Stable
2. Stable
3. No. No. No. No.
See that word stable? See that word no?Â
Excuse me while I pause to let that fully sink in. This is a process. It always involves a few stages. First, the re-realization: Oh, I have lung cancer. (How on earth did that happen?) Luckily, I enter the first stage with some impatience: Yeah, yeah. We know that. But I need to give that absurd reality its due. I’ll undoubtedly return to it later.
Second stage is like climbing out of a bunker. It’s wow; it’s thank you; it’s time to take a deep, cleansing breath.
Stage 3: Stupid cancer. I gotta run; I have things to do.
In the detailed part of the report, one phrase caught my attention. “Moderate degenerative changes in the thoracic spine. No aggressive osseous lesions.” Always, that hyperactive brain chimes in. If they aren’t aggressive, are there other kinds? Just read the sentence, silly: “No osseous metastases.” In other words, “Oh shut up. You know how to spoil a party, you know that? Mark reassured me: “It’s just old age,” which was oddly calming.Â
The bigger excitement was a tick that we’d surgically removed the day before (with a sterilized needle and pair of tweezers), and its telltale bullseye rash (typically, a symptom of Lyme Disease). I brought it in for Show and Tell in a pure white bowl, tightly covered in plastic wrap so Dr. Oncology could see the teeny little legs. I told her it’s not every day a patient brings in a fascinating present. She laughed heartily. “I thought you were bringing me strawberries from your garden!” She looked in with some trepidation. “Don’t take off that plastic!” she said. Even though I reassured her it was dead, she recoiled a bit. Then her science brain took over. She pulled out the little scope doctors use to look up your nose. Those little legs! That prescription for antibiotics! Even with something as simple as antibiotics, she left to visit the oncology pharmacist about potential interactions with osimertinib. No wonder I have a medical alert bracelet.
Brain MRI the day after tomorrow and Dr. Radiology next week. Then I’m a free being until the next scans, late in September!
Thursday July 28, 2022Â Cakes, The Most Important Thing
Here’s what got delivered today.
It was wicked hot so all the ice in the freezer was used up in a special packing endeavor. I just hope the kids got to see their names on the cakes.
Some day, remind me to tell you the story of how I used 8 tablespoons of vanilla to make the frosting. Usually you use 2 teaspoons, but I had some kind of weird brain fart. 6 pounds of butter and 11 pound of confectioner’s sugar later, I had a reasonable-tasting frosting– and I now have pounds and pound of it in the freezer.
Thanks for reading. Here’s hoping you get a cake with your name on it soon. Drop me a note if you need a frosting care package….
Thanks so much for writing this blog. I’ve learned a lot about lung cancer, and I’m reminded of my own cancer journey which began five years ago this September.
For whatever reason (and I haven’t explored this and don’t intend to) I have absolutely no desire to be part of the “breast cancer survivor” community. Maybe it’s denial–hey, it was “only” stage 1, I “only” had radiation, etc.–maybe it’s not. But there’s a way in which I feel like “how did that happen?” No one in my family had breast cancer until my sister was diagnosed in April of 2017 and I was diagnosed in August of 2017. The randomness of it all is weird. And unreal.
You sound like you are doing well–thinking of you when I read how hot it’s been in Portland.
Love to you and Mark, and wish him a belated “happy birthday.” Enjoy that cake.
Peace,
Connie
This is such great news! Imma have some cake too!