Just Do It!

Our Thanksgiving week started off with a trip to Houston for my checkup. Unfortunately, no real information came from it. I can't say I really know why, but we got very little feedback and still have not seen the radiology report. Each scan is compared to the last scan. My last scan was the same day as my surgery, September 20. That scan was beautiful, probably because I'd just had the surgery. The only thing Dr. No Naps had time to say about this scan, 9 weeks after the surgery, was that there seemed to be some increased flair. That means there are some areas that are lighting up that weren't on September 20. But here's the thing.Anytime someone starts scraping tissue, there is going to be some inflammation and inflammation causes flair. After the last surgery we saw something similar that no one could explain conclusively. That was 20 months ago and here we are again, guessing about what might be going on in there. I choose to stay committed to my diet and exercise, keeping my glucose low. We left Dr. No Naps with instructions to back off on the chemo until we see what's going on with my blood work next week. He says he is looking into different clinical trials, perhaps a T-cell modification trial that is seemingly working for some people. I will obviously have to find out more about all of this, I wasn't able to get much information. I couldn't figure out if the team was understaffed because of the holiday or if they were just in a huge hurry to get to their holiday festivities, but I just didn't feel like I got enough time. Keep in mind that we like to leave there with a list of items to spend all of our free time researching (not that we have so much free time). We are scheduling a follow up scan in 4 weeks rather than 6 or 8, just to see what is happening since this one was on the edge of a mystery. 

I suppose we should treat it as a break from our obsessiveness over all things cancer and enjoy other activities. Therefore, we had a great Thanksgiving with long-missed friends from graduate school. That's one of the many unexpected joys of having a serious illness. You realize that there's no time like now to do things you've been neglecting doing. Further, when I do those things RIGHT NOW, no one can imagine how enjoyable those things are. I challenge each of you to come up with something you've wanted to do or someone you've wanted to catch up with and do it NOW. You will be amazed at how you feel- like you've really connected with a part of yourself, like you are the luckiest person with the most amazing people in your life. You will realize what love really is. You will realize what it really is to LIVE YOUR LIFE. Do. it. RIGHT. NOW.