How are you?

I have not been faithful in keeping people up-to-date on how I am doing because everything is becoming so rote.  I do the same things all the time.  Things go great, things are hard, the medicine is working, I worry if the medicine is working, no more rash, slight rash, no side effects, eew- these side effects STINK!   Same old day-to-day experience of cancer.

But in fairness, when you aren't in contact with a friend frequently you want to know about everything you are missing - here's what you are (not) missing...

I had my morning of an early treat to radio-active glucose on Friday, an experience seldom shared by common-folk, just us high-brow few.

It is lovely to join a small medical staff before 6am, wearing no metal, in a small cold room, whilst they stab-stab-stab for a vein they will never get because no one has accessed that vein in 6 years.  But, try they must in an attempt to prove they are "simply the best, better than all the rest".

A quick hypodermic push of "special" sugar water and I try to sleep for 60 minutes while the injected fluid squirms it's way through my body.  I frequently have near hallucinogenic images flash behind my eyelids during this time.  I wonder if it is anything like street drugs.  I don't really sleep, but I am definitely not awake either.  Then we move from the little room with the pleather recliner to a flat board that floats through the circle of clanking. (The PET machine at my current  facility is so much more quiet than some I have used I often feel frustrated after being on the table for a while and thinking the test hasn't even started yet.)  It all looks so "Star Wars" that I feel underdressed in yoga pants and a hoodie.  I should have one of those unitards with a wing pin on the collar or my hair in two buns over my ears.

The great thing about the PET/CT scan day last week was that feeling you have from radioactive glucose for breakfast laced with irritated co-workers and their moody comments.   Seriously, put on your big kid pants people - we are all just trying to live here.

But, all of that is overshadowed by the generosity of the majority.  So many people are so thoughtful and concerned.  They are willing to help in any way at any time.  And I love the honest words from the mouths of my children telling me that I am the best mom and all they really need in the world is me.

So now we wait, I write that a lot, we wait until I see the Onc at the end of the week and find out what my Star Wars scan tells me and how my tumor markers are rolling. Here is the history of the CA27.29 Roller Coaster:

Tumor Markers CA27.29

One day the CA27.29 test won't matter to me any more.  I can't imagine the day.  I won't care about my blood, my PET/CT, my RX.  What will I care about then?