What a Day!

This has been one roller coaster of a day! It started with a CT scan this morning and I have to say I finally met the one technician at the Imaging/ Cancer Center who should look for a new line of work and soon. Up until now no matter how uncomfortable the test was the people were great, today this young man turned a simple CT scan into a ride on the anxiety train that lasted for way too long. If he had bothered to read my chart ( that he had in his hands) he would have known that yes I've had 2 rounds of chemo and yes we were doing this scan to see if the tumor has gotten any smaller and therefor easier to shoot full of radiation without harming healthy lung tissue. But he knew none of this and looked extremely skeptical as I told him, he then handed me a towel and pointed to behind the CT machine and said " you can just go back there and take off your shirt and bra and hold this towel over yourself and lay down on the machine. Call me when your ready." By then I was so flabbergasted I did what he said and ended up having to move some medical equipment to make space for my clothes. At any rate I managed to get through the scan but his questioning attitude had me a bit crazy especially on a day when I was waiting for the MRI results.

On my way to the test I dropped my car off at the garage, my AC hasn't worked all summer ( nice when you can't breathe) and I had a tire I thought had a slow leak. I no sooner finished with the CT scan then they called from the garage to tell me that the tire was shot and it would be 137.00 for a new one was that OK ? ( no I wanna ride around on 3 wheels ) They hadn't started on the AC yet.

So off to the oncologist we go, I get my blood drawn and then it's sit in a room til they get around to you. The oncologist himself came in which is unusual, normally I see his PA. He does a brief exam and asks me when I say the radiologist last. I say I haven't seen him but I had a CT scan this AM. He says " well let me see if they've read it yet" and disappears. Meantime after about 10 minutes of waiting I hear him say, " Yes I have Susan Kirkegaard here" and then someone had the nerve to either shut his door or make some noise and I couldn't hear what he was saying....torture I tell ya torture! After another 10 minutes but what seemed like an hour he came back in and said " well, things look very good."

So here's my awesome news! The tumor has shrunken by about 50% and no cancer detected in my brain . So that means no cancer in my lymph nodes, bones or brain, and the chemo is working on the tumor!

The next step is chemo and radiation at the same time. 6 weeks of radiation and 2 more rounds of chemo. I have a feeling this won''t be the best 6 weeks of my life but if it kicks this crap out of me I'll fight my way through it kicking and screaming the whole way!

So, thank you for all of your prayers and positive energy and good thoughts. I truly believe you all are as much a part of this healing as the medicine is.

Oh yeah and another victory today I actually got my usually stoic oncologist to smile !