Greetings from your delinquent blogger.
I've waited for some time to give you my "quarterly" report. It is time to tell you that I am
… happy …. no,
… euphoric …
… amped…
… pumped …
… stoked …
[pick and add the modern vernacular noun of your choice]
about my most recent (Nov. 13) CTscan results: the tumor is stable! No activity. It is the same size. No metastasis. No sign of rebel terrorist cancer cells attacking some other part of my body. I am just plain "pleased as punch" (to quote Hubert Humphrey).
Dr. Yee orders CTscans every 90 days (hence "quarterly reports") and they just keep rolling in on the positive side. What great news for me. It is a most pleasant cycle of reports which I hope will keep on keeping on.
Two years ago this coming Tuesday before Thanksgiving I got the phone call from my PCP that I had a mass on my pancreas. Almost instantly a thick heavy cloud came over me. I mean it was very dark below this hanging cloud with very little light coming through. I knew in my mind that the sun was still shining on the other side of the low, dense cloud - but for a few days I saw very little light. I didn't get the actual "official" cancer diagnosis until December 2011, but I was never very hopeful that the test would show a cancer-free mass on the pancreas. I had never heard of a mass on the pancreas NOT being cancerous.
Amazingly, miraculously over the past two years the cloud has lifted and thinned and broken up into much smaller fluffy clouds. This past week the skies have been clear with the sun shining brightly.
Along with the fabulous "pictures" of my gut came a good lab report on the blood serum cancer test CA19-9. Here are my most recent results. The lower the number, the better the report. Notice the downward trend. Yippeeee!
116.6 unit/mL Date Nov. 20, 2013 - High
134.8 unit/mL Date Nov. 11, 2013 - High
172.4 unit/mL Date Oct. 30, 2013 - High
174.5 unit/mL Date Oct. 23, 2013 - High
181.8 unit/mL Date Oct. 16, 2013 - High
After some complaining by me about the side effects of chemo, Dr Yee agreed to change my treatments from once a week — three weeks on, one week off — to: two weeks on, two weeks off. I have just finished my first two weeks on and will not go back for chemo until Dec. 11 and 18. My chemo is on Wednesdays in Hershey, PA, at the Penn State Cancer Institute.
Over the two years I have found and collected several "cancer" blogs/CaringBridge journals, etc. and created my own folder bookmarked on my browser titled "cancer blogs". That in itself is a rather sad, dark story. But, naturally, through these blogs we who have been stricken with cancer can follow each others journeys and give each other encouragement and I find encouragement in reading them.
Writing a blog is not easy for me and honestly not that much fun. I resonated with the feeling shared by a fellow cancer blogger who wrote that if he had known he was going to live this long he would not have started blogging so soon!!
But, I AM happy to share great news and, when it comes, will share the sad news as well.
Non-cancer news would be that Barb and I took a day trip to New York City yesterday to see the 2 pm performance of the off-broadway play "The Preacher and the Shrink". It was written by Merle Good, a Lancaster County Mennonite whose wife Phyllis Pellman Good wrote the "Fix It and Forget It" slow cooker cookbooks and own/operate several businesses in Intercourse. We joined a group of 54 other countians on a chartered bus. The play offers much food for thought regarding relationship and religion.
We had a great visit by South Dakotans Marlyce Miller and Janette Epp last weekend. (Thanks for the Freeman bologna, Dimock colby cheese, pepper nuts and other goodies, girls!)
We are planning on having some guests for Thanksgiving and look forward to serving up a traditional dinner.
We both keep plenty busy. Barb especially with her work and home projects has a very full plate. Obviously, we have much to be grateful for. I am especially thankful for the many ways you bear me up.
We send all of you warmest Thanksgiving greetings and may you find happiness in the bounty of nature and your lives.
