So, We have your results....
I feel as if I have sat in a hundred doctor's offices, listening to this sentence a hundred times.
It is rarely good.
So, I received the results of my total bone scan a couple of days ago. I went alone to the doctor's office, which you are never supposed to do, but T had to work and we figure that further along down the road we will need her to take off of work more, so....I went alone. C would have gone with me if I had asked him to do so. He would buy me a pony if I asked him for one. But, I am funny about not wanting to break down or cry in front of anyone except T, so I opted to go alone.
The labs are never fun, but Linda, the nurse-who-looks-exactly-like-a-munchkin is not too bad at vein searching. What I like about Linda is that she comes right out and just owns looking like a munchkin. She is maybe 4'5 and probably weighs about 80 pounds soaking wet. She wears her hair in a crew cut. An icy blonde crew cut...sort of like a miniature Pink would wear. In her lab coat, she almost looks humorous. She comes out of the lab and calls my name and then looks at me and cackles.
"Oh, great...," she says. "My luck stinks today because I get the one with veins like silk thread."
I shrug my shoulders and we both laugh.
"No worries," she says, patting my arm. "We'll get you stuck somehow. Maybe we'll try your big toe this time."
She ends up trying twice unsuccessfully to get it into my arm and then she cracks a heating bag and lays it over my right hand and we talk until my hand warms up sufficiently to show a vein. She asks me if I run cold since each and every time she sees me, my hands are freezing. I tell her that I am pretty much cold ALL. THE. TIME. Unless I'm having a hot flash and then for about 2 minutes, I will suddenly spike a fever of 101.
"It's just part of the fun of being me," I tell her. "A little perk that I don't charge for."
So, we talk about dying for a few minutes. This sounds more morbid than it is. The guy in the next cubicle starts it. He is telling his nurse that he never thought he'd see 40. "I was a wild one," he muses. "I liked living on the edge. Now, I just want to live."
I quietly lean over to Linda and share that I always expected to die young, too. That my father died at 41 and I have always felt that we were kindred souls, so that I would die early, too.
"Turns out that I have my father's soul but my mother's body," I say. "She was very sturdy, had an incredibly strong heart, but cancer took her early," I share. Linda says that both of her parents died in their 50's but that they were farmers and worked themselves to death.
"I never wanted to be a farmer," she says. "But, I do like to be busy. I could never do a desk job. I actually like hard sticks like you. Keeps me on my toes."
I tell her that I will certainly do that to a person. She lifts up the hot pack and decides to give my anemic looking vein a try. I am skeptical, but put on my game face. She sinks in the needle and by some miracle, it hits gold and there is blood return. I am good to go.
I drag my feet up to the oncology waiting room. This is not a happy place, but hey...how many doctor's offices are? I mean, who willingly goes there unless they have to? Today, there is a talkative woman whom I have seen before who insists on touching my hair if I sit next to her because it looks so soft. I do not enjoy having strangers touch my strange looking hair tufts. My scalp resembles a baby bird with hanks of soft down sticking up at odd places next to patches of baldness.
I check in and avoid eye contact with the woman and sit next to a black man with round spectacles. He wears a tee shirt that says, If you can read this, thank a teacher. He is reading The Wall Street Journal. Safe.
Levi comes out and calls my name and we do the whole blood pressure, weighing in and oxygen check. My blood pressure is a little low today. He says that it's probably the anemia. I tell him that it's because I am part lizard. He smiles and says, "You? Oh, no..sugar pie. You are all angel."
I like Levi. But, I'll bet he says that to all the girls. And boys.
I wait for a very long time, like always. I entertain myself with People magazine articles about who should have been nominated for an Oscar but was not. At last, there is a brief knock and Dr. P comes in.
Shit.
In general, you see the PA first. She goes over your labs and tests and then discusses treatment and then Dr. P pops her head in for about 1 minute and that is it. For this, you are charged a small fortune. But, when Dr. P comes in...it generally means that there is some pretty fucking bad business to discuss.
I straighten my spine. Gird my loins. Grit my teeth. Hold up my chin. Go for it.
She is holding the results from my bone scan. She says that while it is not horrible, it is also not great. It seems that the cancer that is near my sternum has spread to my spine. My 3rd lumbar to be exact. There is also something called suspicious activity on my right mandible. Plus....what I have had for years: serious degenerative problems caused from rheumatoid arthritis on my knees, ankles, shoulders, elbows, all ten fingers and five of my toes.
In short, I am more like an 80 year old than a 60 year old. And well....the cancer spreading is not good news.
She tells me that we can get an MRI of my spine to see exactly how big the cancer is and exactly where it is. I ask her if this will change my treatment. She says no. My treatment is what it will be until I die. It is done to prolong my life for as long as humanely possible. There will be no cure. They are just trying to keep me alive and up and moving for as long as they can.
"So, why would I get an MRI?" I ask. "I mean, it isn't going to change my treatment and seeing that lump on my spine will just make me more depressed. Let's skip it."
She nods. Agrees. Says that a lot of patients like to see a picture of it just so that they know it is real. But, really, it is unnecessary. The shadow on my jaw is also a concern to her, but since I had a total dental check up complete with wrap around ex-rays in January, she is fairly certain that it is nothing to be concerned about.
We agree to continue with treatment because there is a speck of good news amid all this bad. My white blood cell count, while very low, is no longer dangerously low. My platelet count, while also very low, is low, too. But not dangerously low. My kidneys have stabilized.
The best news is that my cancer markers have gone down from 106 to 62. Which means that the cancer is taking a serious beating from the chemo.
She and I agree to continue with oral chemo treatment and that I will get my chemo shots today as well. She will see me next month.
"All in all, you are doing fairly well considering that your body was in such disrepair to begin with," she says. We shake hands and she leaves.
Two nurses come in with my chemo shots and I get one in each butt cheek. They burn like hell and both nurses are murmuring sweet nothings to me as they push down the plungers of their needles. Afterwards, I take a shaky breath and pull up my pants after they have placed bandaids on me.
I walk out and don't start crying until I stop in the unisex bathroom down the hall. Then, I pull down my pants, pee, and stand up and hold on to either side of the stall and silently cry with my mouth open and muted profanities shouting out. When I get out of the stall, I splash my face with cold water and dry it off with rough brown paper towels and then go out into the cold, snowy day to find my car.
I stop and get coffee on the way home. I make an everything's fine! Marco Polo for L, S, and C. I am beginning to feel the effects of the chemo shot a few hours later.
T helps me into the shower. Before I get in, she stops me.
"Looks like you have the minions this time," she says.
I am confused until she pulls the bandaids off my ass. Tiny minion faces are smiling up at me.
I get in the shower and let the hot water wash the whole day off of me.
Time to go to sleep....perchance to dream.
It is rarely good.
So, I received the results of my total bone scan a couple of days ago. I went alone to the doctor's office, which you are never supposed to do, but T had to work and we figure that further along down the road we will need her to take off of work more, so....I went alone. C would have gone with me if I had asked him to do so. He would buy me a pony if I asked him for one. But, I am funny about not wanting to break down or cry in front of anyone except T, so I opted to go alone.
The labs are never fun, but Linda, the nurse-who-looks-exactly-like-a-munchkin is not too bad at vein searching. What I like about Linda is that she comes right out and just owns looking like a munchkin. She is maybe 4'5 and probably weighs about 80 pounds soaking wet. She wears her hair in a crew cut. An icy blonde crew cut...sort of like a miniature Pink would wear. In her lab coat, she almost looks humorous. She comes out of the lab and calls my name and then looks at me and cackles.
"Oh, great...," she says. "My luck stinks today because I get the one with veins like silk thread."
I shrug my shoulders and we both laugh.
"No worries," she says, patting my arm. "We'll get you stuck somehow. Maybe we'll try your big toe this time."
She ends up trying twice unsuccessfully to get it into my arm and then she cracks a heating bag and lays it over my right hand and we talk until my hand warms up sufficiently to show a vein. She asks me if I run cold since each and every time she sees me, my hands are freezing. I tell her that I am pretty much cold ALL. THE. TIME. Unless I'm having a hot flash and then for about 2 minutes, I will suddenly spike a fever of 101.
"It's just part of the fun of being me," I tell her. "A little perk that I don't charge for."
So, we talk about dying for a few minutes. This sounds more morbid than it is. The guy in the next cubicle starts it. He is telling his nurse that he never thought he'd see 40. "I was a wild one," he muses. "I liked living on the edge. Now, I just want to live."
I quietly lean over to Linda and share that I always expected to die young, too. That my father died at 41 and I have always felt that we were kindred souls, so that I would die early, too.
"Turns out that I have my father's soul but my mother's body," I say. "She was very sturdy, had an incredibly strong heart, but cancer took her early," I share. Linda says that both of her parents died in their 50's but that they were farmers and worked themselves to death.
"I never wanted to be a farmer," she says. "But, I do like to be busy. I could never do a desk job. I actually like hard sticks like you. Keeps me on my toes."
I tell her that I will certainly do that to a person. She lifts up the hot pack and decides to give my anemic looking vein a try. I am skeptical, but put on my game face. She sinks in the needle and by some miracle, it hits gold and there is blood return. I am good to go.
I drag my feet up to the oncology waiting room. This is not a happy place, but hey...how many doctor's offices are? I mean, who willingly goes there unless they have to? Today, there is a talkative woman whom I have seen before who insists on touching my hair if I sit next to her because it looks so soft. I do not enjoy having strangers touch my strange looking hair tufts. My scalp resembles a baby bird with hanks of soft down sticking up at odd places next to patches of baldness.
I check in and avoid eye contact with the woman and sit next to a black man with round spectacles. He wears a tee shirt that says, If you can read this, thank a teacher. He is reading The Wall Street Journal. Safe.
Levi comes out and calls my name and we do the whole blood pressure, weighing in and oxygen check. My blood pressure is a little low today. He says that it's probably the anemia. I tell him that it's because I am part lizard. He smiles and says, "You? Oh, no..sugar pie. You are all angel."
I like Levi. But, I'll bet he says that to all the girls. And boys.
I wait for a very long time, like always. I entertain myself with People magazine articles about who should have been nominated for an Oscar but was not. At last, there is a brief knock and Dr. P comes in.
Shit.
In general, you see the PA first. She goes over your labs and tests and then discusses treatment and then Dr. P pops her head in for about 1 minute and that is it. For this, you are charged a small fortune. But, when Dr. P comes in...it generally means that there is some pretty fucking bad business to discuss.
I straighten my spine. Gird my loins. Grit my teeth. Hold up my chin. Go for it.
She is holding the results from my bone scan. She says that while it is not horrible, it is also not great. It seems that the cancer that is near my sternum has spread to my spine. My 3rd lumbar to be exact. There is also something called suspicious activity on my right mandible. Plus....what I have had for years: serious degenerative problems caused from rheumatoid arthritis on my knees, ankles, shoulders, elbows, all ten fingers and five of my toes.
In short, I am more like an 80 year old than a 60 year old. And well....the cancer spreading is not good news.
She tells me that we can get an MRI of my spine to see exactly how big the cancer is and exactly where it is. I ask her if this will change my treatment. She says no. My treatment is what it will be until I die. It is done to prolong my life for as long as humanely possible. There will be no cure. They are just trying to keep me alive and up and moving for as long as they can.
"So, why would I get an MRI?" I ask. "I mean, it isn't going to change my treatment and seeing that lump on my spine will just make me more depressed. Let's skip it."
She nods. Agrees. Says that a lot of patients like to see a picture of it just so that they know it is real. But, really, it is unnecessary. The shadow on my jaw is also a concern to her, but since I had a total dental check up complete with wrap around ex-rays in January, she is fairly certain that it is nothing to be concerned about.
We agree to continue with treatment because there is a speck of good news amid all this bad. My white blood cell count, while very low, is no longer dangerously low. My platelet count, while also very low, is low, too. But not dangerously low. My kidneys have stabilized.
The best news is that my cancer markers have gone down from 106 to 62. Which means that the cancer is taking a serious beating from the chemo.
She and I agree to continue with oral chemo treatment and that I will get my chemo shots today as well. She will see me next month.
"All in all, you are doing fairly well considering that your body was in such disrepair to begin with," she says. We shake hands and she leaves.
Two nurses come in with my chemo shots and I get one in each butt cheek. They burn like hell and both nurses are murmuring sweet nothings to me as they push down the plungers of their needles. Afterwards, I take a shaky breath and pull up my pants after they have placed bandaids on me.
I walk out and don't start crying until I stop in the unisex bathroom down the hall. Then, I pull down my pants, pee, and stand up and hold on to either side of the stall and silently cry with my mouth open and muted profanities shouting out. When I get out of the stall, I splash my face with cold water and dry it off with rough brown paper towels and then go out into the cold, snowy day to find my car.
I stop and get coffee on the way home. I make an everything's fine! Marco Polo for L, S, and C. I am beginning to feel the effects of the chemo shot a few hours later.
T helps me into the shower. Before I get in, she stops me.
"Looks like you have the minions this time," she says.
I am confused until she pulls the bandaids off my ass. Tiny minion faces are smiling up at me.
I get in the shower and let the hot water wash the whole day off of me.
Time to go to sleep....perchance to dream.
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