Before the holidays were over and things could get back to normal for all of us, Joan had started her new normal of a constant stream of Doctor's appointments, hospital visits and general poking and prodding. In Late December Joan had another series of scans, PET Scan and CAT Scan this time. While neither are physically painful in the slightest there is the requisite fasting and barium beverages at four AM that are loads of laughs for sure. The PET Scan comes with a radioactive beverage that is so toxic that the nurse who brings it to you wears a full suit of lead and long butel rubber gloves. And of course there are blood tests at the Hospital Lab as well as three blood vials drawn at the Oncologists office. This was what Joan had to squeeze in between visits from our family, our own travels, my company Holiday Party - which we hosted - and her full time job. Don't cry for her too much, I do most of the heavy lifting around the house...
Anyway, if that were not enough to make you pretty crazy, there is the new news for us that Joan's cancer has gotten just slightly worse these last three months. Joan has a new cancerous node in her neck and two nodes in her arm pits that are larger than they had been. This news was especially disappointing because Joan and I were hoping that we would be able to alter her schedule to have these cycles repeated every six months instead of every three months. Crap...
Joan has not quite reached this stage yet...
Since it is my job to remain the optimist I will divulge one other personal secret that was learned on this day. Joan has a Kidney Stone measuring 3 MM in size. Her reaction was anger. Truly there is no one that I know that takes better care of themselves and has never, ever had a puff of a cigarette or any type of illegal drug in her life. She exercises daily and will run outside even when it is raining. She even makes our dog eat special food that can only be purchased at our Vet's office and costs a fortune. She eats berries and drinks green tea and gallons of water everyday, and she gets a Kidney Stone. This made her nearly as crazy as the fact that the Titans only had to play 15 contested games in the NFL this year while the Browns had to play in 16 contested games yet it was the Titans that went to the playoffs, but don't get me started on that.
My reaction of course was different - Hey - not my Kidney Stone to Pass. In my way of thinking God has put this stone in place to tell us that in reality everything is going to be OK. Joan has cancerous nodes that are about 2 CM in diameter or about 50X bigger than her Kidney Stone. But her cancer is not considered threatening to the degree that we have to treat it with terrible poisons yet. Joan's biggest fear is that this cancer will turn into a more aggressive type of cancer like what happened to Tony Snow and Elizabeth Edwards. But now we know that there is no other cancers anywhere in her body that we do not know about. Sure, the cancer that is there sucks, but at least we know that it is there and it can not make a move without us seeing it. In the meantime with all of the tests she has gone through we know exactly what is and is not going on in her body and we get an update every three months. That is not bad.
So we made the appropriate appointments for three months from now so that the NEXT holiday that gets wrecked by her cancer is her birthday in April. Sweet. I have no idea ho
w I will put a positive spin on that one...
w I will put a positive spin on that one...I guess I will have to start early.
As always leave a comment here and it will go directly to Joan's email. Thanks so much for your prayers for us both. Though much of what I complain about may seem selfish and petty, we do realize everyday how gloriously wonderful our God has been to both of us everyday of our lives. These pages are just a way to download. Call it a catharsis, and know that I will keep you all posted on our next update!
