Thoughts

I tried to take a picture of myself in the pose of "The Thinker" to add to this post. It didn't work, I even had Max give it a shot. I'm really good at wasting time. Rather than google how I should correctly punctuate "The Thinker" I'll just leave it as is. For those of you that know something about grammar… sorry. I do math.

I found an article in the NY Post today about a new drug to treat cancer. By 'found' I mean I was wasting time on Facebook and read a short blurb someone else had "shared."It basically stated that Stanford had found a drug that showed very promising results to cure all types of cancer. It had been tested in mice on breast, liver, brain, ovarian… etc. AMAZING! Cancer basically keeps growing in your body because your immune system doesn't know it should kill it. It's a tricky little bugger. This drug (in my dumbed down version) blocks that part of the cancer cell so the immune system realizes it's bad news. They received huge amounts of money in grants to now begin testing humans. They briefly mentioned side effects, but it was a minimal mention. I'm sure there are some, I'm sure processes and such will take forever, blah blah blah. BUT IT'S EXCITING!!!!

It also got me to thinking… what if cancer really didn't exist? What would that world even look like? First of all, I'm quite certain that big pharmaceutical companies would make the drug so inaccessible it would be obscene. They need their money, right!? What would oncologists do for a profession? Where would all of that money go? Donated funds to cure cancer, runs and walks and triathlons galore to raise money and awareness for cancer. Pink stuff made for October, ribbon magnets, car stickers, save that tatas shirts, cancer cookbooks, wow there's a lot of stuff out there! What if there was no longer a reason for it!? Its incredible to think about. American Cancer Society, cancer related blogs, Cancer centers of America… what would plastic surgeons start reconstructing without breasts!? Wow. It could save lives, and ruin some too. So many people hurt because of cancer and so many people make their living because of cancer.

I'm ready. Let's end this sucker. Let's use that financial guy's snowball effect for disease. Everybody target one (but I get to pick which one), then once it's cured and eliminated, everybody migrates to the next disease. Yes!? YES! I should totally be in charge of the world...

Scan Results are IN!

Hello cancer? I'm kicking your ass!
Cheesiest picture I could muster:

I went to see Dr. Lee today and the biggest news is that the scan results were good! The small tumors can't even be seen anymore, and the big one went down from 11mm in size to 7mm! Let me repeat… some are GONE and the others are soon to be GONE. Feel free to bust a move, dance whatever dance you feel suits your abilities and personalities best and go for it! I just received a video of a happy dance and it was well… pretty awesome!

Other good news: the results in blood work and the results from the scan are showing the same thing. This is hugely awesome because it means there is a direct correlation between blood work and what's actually happening. The tumor marker is something that is kind of iffy for some people. It can give inaccurate results. In my case, it gives accurate results which is great news. It means that I can keep track of what's going on in my body through some simple blood work without having to do a bunch of other scans and tests. Some people have scan results that show growth, but the blood test doesn't show that, so they get to keep scanning and scanning and scanning. Thankfully I don't have to do that.

I will continue to do blood work every 2 months, but I don't have an appointment with Dr. Lee until September. Six months from now. aaaaaahhhhh….. So nice! We went out to dinner to celebrate, and we're all feeling pretty cocky around here. :)

Wheeeeeee!!!!!
Love you

Down again!!!

Scan results will happen tomorrow at four, but... Numbers are down again!! 37.1 was January, 34.7 is now. Woooo hooooo!!!!

DUN!

Scans are done, blood work is done, now we wait for Thursday afternoon to see how it all looks. I had a really nice sunshiny day. I'm worn out all of a sudden since I was up at 430, so now the worry sets in. It's amazing how much your mood is affected by sleep. Brent's off to get me a milkshake so I should be good to go in no time.

I'll let you know what the Dr says on Thursday!

Scan day!

I'm a little nervous, but pretty relaxed. I'm anxious to know how things are going, but have been able to not think about it constantly. I'm currently sitting in the waiting room grading papers. I'll head for blood work from here. I can hear some construction sounds going on around the corner. I'm really glad I saw the workers on the way in. If I had heard sounds of saws and drills and thought they were medical sounds I'd be a little freaked.

Little excited

I'm starting to get excited about my scan on Tuesday in some way. It could be the pedicure I have planned for later in the day, but whatever works. I'm anxious to see how things are going. I won't have the results until Thursday, so keep thinking tumor shrinking thoughts. 

I read an article somewhere written by an oncologist. He was talking about common themes he sees for his patients who are doing well. He talked about his patients with a strong support group and how much of a difference that can make. Duh! I have the biggest support group ever, so proportionally I should fare the best, right!? :)

The article also said patients that don't really know what's going on seem to do well also. This made me laugh. He described one patient who was in the chemo chair talking on the phone and said "I don't know what it is, lymphoma something?" (It was leukemia) I'm not that clueless, but I feel like he was saying those patients that are bogged down in stress and constantly thinking about it have a rougher go. Interesting article.

I'll keep you posted Thursday on results. Until then here's one of my support group. He's kiss ready :)