Friday, April 20, 2007

Waiting for test results becomes numbing

I had a CT scan yesterday, just to make sure the pain I'm feeling in my left side is indeed scar tissue and not another tumor. (I'm on chemo and if another tumor popped up during chemo, I will be impressed at the fortitude of that tumor. I may just have to give it a little bow of respect.)

So now I am waiting for a radiologist to read the scan, make a report and send that to my surgeon. This should make me mildly freaked out and I am a bit scared 'cause bad news just seems to be a theme this last year. But mostly I don't care. If they find another tumor that means more surgery, more chemo, more, more, more. And I find myself kinda resigned to it. I think I may have hit my wall where I'm so sick of pain, discomfort, fatigue, roller coaster emotions that I have nothing left to give to anxiety over tests. If it's bad news, we'll cope. If it's good news, we'll cope. What else can you do?

I realize this post is at least mildly depresing, but those are the stakes in Cancer World. Just like in the real world there are ups and downs. But no tumors.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You wrote: "If it's bad news, we'll cope. If it's good news, we'll cope. What else can you do?" And I have to say that this describes precisely my attitude as my mom deals with stage 4 pancreatic cancer that is spreading like a mofo. People who don't have cancer ravaging their families ask me how she does it, how I do it, etc. etc. I say, well, cancer sucks and what else can we do but cope? What else is there to do? Sometimes I think it might be more interesting and fun if there were options, but all we can do is ride this crazy waterlogged raft down the raging river that it cancer.

I guess that sounds depressing, but to me it reminds me that we still have the strength to hang on. Not fun, but we're hanging on.

Hang in there! crow