CT Scans - The Bearers of Bad News - April

After our near brush with the me almost having cancer again, Dr. Bryce decided that he didn't want to wait a full 3 months before scanning me again. I was not exactly thrilled about this. Especially since, while I had been on my road trip out west, I had made the executive decision that I was only going to get scanned once every 6 months. This cancer business was taking up way too much time in my life and I had a life to start living again. (Obviously the chemo was still affecting the rational thinking part of my brain... well at least that's what I blame it on. Side Note: Most cancer patients have to wait at least 2 years before they can start receiving scans just twice a year. )

So CA being the sneaky and supportive negotiator she very often is, convinced me to get a scan in April. At that point we didn't know how insurance was going to work for the next 6 months. She was about 100% that I would have it no matter what. I was a lot more breezy, like if it comes my way I'll take it if not then I'll turn to mother nature for her remedies. Again it def appears the chemo was affecting the rational part of the thinking process. Thus I was scanned April 9th. Meet with Dr. Bryce April 16th and finally got a clean bill of health! Happy Birthday Tommy!!!

At this point Team Annie was finally comfortable waiting till July!!!! Sweet! Life can start to get back on track, the cancer thing can finally be put to rest.

CT Scans - The Bearers of Bad News - Feb

I had a CT scan as a post chemo check up in February. They found a mass. My heart stopped. I just finished chemo less than 4 weeks ago. This news had perfect timing as well, since I had been violently throwing up all day. And then my very 1st CT Scan comes back not clean. So to top off all that wonderful news they want to poke me with a HUGE needle down through the middle of my spine. I was not in pain, there was no little child trying to climb out of me, I didn't not have 1 reckless night of passion to produce a surprise. No I did none of these things, however they wanted to poke me anyway.

And what say did I have in this? None. They bribed me by telling me that I was going to at least get a sedative. Lies. There was only a little bit of Novocaine. So the poking begins, I see the whole thing, GROSS! I have no idea why anyone would want to, day after day, look at needles going into skin and through organs. And IT HURT! Like a lot more than I expected it. Well and the other good news is that you get to wait over the weekend to get the results back. Doctors just shouldn't have friends or families so that they can work round the clock just for situations like this. (Kidding Doctors should have friends & families, wait who am I kidding I don't have any Doctor friends...and I'm not really kidding... well may be like 80/20).

So then we waited and waited and waited. I had lots of free time over the weekend so I answered a personal ad on craigslist that's ended up leading to something kinda great.

Then it was more good news because turns out the mass was just some left over scar tissue! YAY!!! Meaning that There was no more cancer (well not yet anyway...)

The Return

WOW So the cancer came back. Who knew? Who would have guessed? If I say that I DID think it would reappear then I totally suck because I'm not using my "powers of positive thought", to effectively change the outcome of life events. If I say I didn't ever think about it coming back I'm totally being unrealistic, so I guess you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Or AKA the spot I'm in with cancer again.

And besides I thought that doing the last chemo treatment was like an insurance policy to ensure that the cancer wasn't ever coming back. I totally wish there was a way for me to ask for a refund... or a least a little compensation since we all know that it didn't really work for sh*t. Although there is somewhat of a sense of peace knowing that I already know what it's going to be like.

There is a part of me that is just glad that they knew! They were able to look at it and tell me exactly what it was. It didn't need to be flown off to some exotic country to get examined/drink complex pino niors while overlooking the Tuscon country side. I was so scared that I was going to walk back into the doc's office with this random severe pain again and they were going to be like "ummm yea, we're not really sure". I'm just not really up for being a little science experiment, even though my body is determined to act defiantly.

Soooo here we go again...