Dear Angels o' my Life,
I'm so glad Steve came in for the after-treatment consultation. He was as lucid and clear as I was not. My sleep patterns (such as they are) are erratic, to say the least, and I was just too beat and tired to be as clear at the time as I wanted to be. Most everything is coming back to me, and Steve is there to clarify and give his take on nuances that I missed.
I was given a short list of things that the brain might do, as it recovers from the onslaught of radiation, but I felt it to be little more than that just that: A list. Anything serious, like stoke symptoms, would be a reason to go directly to the ER, but I felt no indication that Dr. Rosenblatt had these concerns. He just read me the rules, is all.
As it turns out, cancer of the lung is not lightweight. The lungs supply oxygen to the brain, which craves oxygen as much as any organ in the body. A while ago, on the latest MRI, I was even shown the blood vessel that probably delivered the cancer cells to the brain along with the oxygenated blood. It makes more sense to me today, as to how this happened in my head as it did. This wasn't merely "roving" cancer cells; they were hand-delivered by the lungs, which--even though we know it's a cancerous tumor--the body itself views it as just a part of the lung. Cancer is a trickster, and an imposter, apparently. Enough about the workings of it; Google is your 'friend' if you let it be. You can learn so much without having to talk to a specialist, as I did.
Steve asked Dr. Rosenblatt, the radiologist, what the status was. A question was, "Is this now 'arrested' or 'quarantined'? The answer was clear: The cancer cells have been mortally wounded. (there's my little Mercenary metaphor for ya) It will take a while (weeks, likely) but they will finish dying and be removed by the body itself. I had hoped to hear that, and it gave me comfort. I wasn't looking forward to anything invasive in my skull. They are very sure they got everything there was/is in the brain, concerning this cancer right now. What did concern me, though, is that there is a chance of it 'coming back' the way the first tumor came. Fortunately, they are already proactively going to watch for that, and nothing will be as immediate or large enough to be of similar seriousness. So, I'll choose to remain hopeful, and go for my first periodic MRI on Feb 6 to see what's going on in this head of mine. Meanwhile, I'll be weaned off of the steroid (the reason for swelling feet) over the next few weeks. We're done with this particular lesion.
The question of the hour is, "When do I start getting this treacherous mass in the lung dealt with?" I've decided, for the moment, not to try to chase down the answer but to let TN Oncology tell me when all this is going to commence. Probably pretty soon, I would think, based on it having become troublesome already. I'll let you know, obviously. My "journey" is an open book. It may even end up as a portion of my book "Memories From The Path", which is really in blog pieces right now. I registered the ISBN years ago, under that title, thinking I would have the book done in a year. That was over a dozen years ago. "Best laid plans", comes to mind.
Thanks for all you are in my life today, and for 'listening'. I still prefer to just lay my cards on the table here. It's cathartic, I think.
Love you truly,
Ken
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