Scans

I've been holding off updating the blog because I like to do it when I get scan results.  My doc pushed them a little longer this time because she wanted to give the radiation time to do it's job, and it appears that it did it's job in some small measure.

Mildly increased conspicuity of radiotracer uptake within the left fourth rib with decreased conspicuity of the diaphyseal uptake in the previously described metastatic lesion in the left femur. No new sites of osteoblastic metastatic disease are identified.

Basically, the cancer in my rib got a little worse.  The cancer in my femur got a little better, and no additional sites of bone lesions are seen.  That left 4th rib has been a problem since the very beginning, I'd love to radiate the crap out of it as well!  I asked the radiologist about it when I did the first radiation on my hip a while back.  She said, "Is it painful?"  Well, no.  "We only radiate for pain control."  Well, how about we radiate it to prevent some pain and to keep it from spreading to my chest wall again?!  The only result I don't have back yet is the chest CT, that will give a little more information about what's going on in my ribs.

The best news so far is the pelvis/abdomen CT.

1. Unchanged sclerosis of the left proximal femur.

2. No evidence of soft tissue disease in the abdomen or pelvis.

CT and bone scans have a different way of looking at things, that's why these results here say the femur is unchanged.  In this case, I think the bone scan is a little more accurate.  

The fact that the cancer is STILL just in my bones is miraculous to me (with the exception of that 5 cm chest wall mass a couple scans ago).  Bone cancer isn't easy to treat, but its more accessible for radiation that internal organs are.  Don't get me wrong, radiation is no picnic, but it's an additional tool on top of chemo that can help slow things down.

Since I last wrote, two friends from my support group have passed.  It's such a blow when that news comes.  Sometimes I'm numb, sometimes I weep.  Writing helps me work through things though.  I'm doing another legacy writing class with the writer-in-residence at Huntsman.  I've been working on 'Stories' for my FamilySearch, snippets of my history, not in chronological order.  I have 32 stories so far, but there's still so much to do!  I'm creating a book on Shutterfly of my stage 4 cancer story, copying all my blog posts into a storybook form.  I did the same thing for cancer 2010, I love how it turned out!  The difference is that was about 1 ½ years of blog posts.  This time (so far) I'm well over 4 years of posts.  I'm already at 20 pages in the book but I haven't even reached 2018 yet.  There will be multiple books this time around.

I have chemo tomorrow which means fatigue the next few days.  It's Mats spring break next week so we'll travel.  I see palm trees on the horizon - assuming JetBlue doesn't cancel one or more flights!  More on that later!  Weather here this week has swung from the low 70's to the 30's and snow today.  We're in a terrible drought, not nearly enough snow pack to fill the reservoirs (as you all know).  All of our flower and veggie garden beds are on drip irrigation.  We've been deciding which part of the lawn to let die, it's going to be the entire front yard.  I'll hand water the trees to keep them going.  We'll only get one irrigation day a week in the heat of the summer and they won't pressurize the irrigation lines until the middle of May.  

I saw this coming.  I've been thinking about the "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat" musical-in the bible too but I'd have to go looking for the reference!  Seven years of plenty, seven years of famine.  After I started my business, I went into our water company and asked them about metering irrigation water.  They said it was impossible, couldn't afford it, they'd have to dig up all the streets, blah, blah, blah.  I get that, but now we're in a world of hurt.  I'm not going to lie.  I pick up a case of water every time I'm at Costco.  And we might actually fill all the 5 gallon containers we have downstairs!  It's making many of us rethink how we do things.  I love puttering around the garden on nice days.  I'm a "fair weather gardener."

Gosh, I think that's all for now!