Treatment 9 (Cycle 5A)

"You will not laugh, you will not cry. You will learn by the numbers. I will teach you."

Gunnery Sargeant Hartman , "Full Metal Jacket"

So, why do I have Gunney Hartman yelling in my blog? Because after tons of good news, I'm still freaking myself out (probably for no better reason than being obsessive compulsive). Let me explain:

First, the news that has me worried:

• On the official Radiologist's report for my PET, it says there is "slight to absent uptake, same as background" in my chest still. Per my oncologist, it's a hedge on their part because they can't really see anything, as it is blending in with the chest scar tissue (and probably is part of the scar tissue). There's also a 1.2 cm lymph node still in my right neck, but there is zero PET uptake anywhere in that region (meaning anything that's there is scar tissue, normal lymph nodes, or dead cancer).
• My chest mass hasn't shrunk as much as I'd hoped. It was larger than originally thought (it was 12x9cm, not 10x9), and shrunk down to 8x6cm. Its about a 40% drop, but we still have a grapefruit in there.

Now, onto why it probably doesn't matter (which Suzanne will tell you is completely the case and I'm paranoid. She probably enlisted Gunney Hartman above. Evil woman ;-)

• My oncologist has no worries about that label on my PET report - Her evaluation is that its nothing. My PET scan says we are NED (No Evidence of Disease). We're cancer-free at the moment.
• I asked about getting the port out before our vacation in July. She said yes - She chemo'ed me with curative intent and believes at the end, based on these scans, I will be. No reason to keep the port around. If she was spinning the confidence I'm good, there's no way she would have agreed to that. This is probably the most important factoid for me.
• Mass doesn't bother her, as we're going to radiate it, which will shrink it some more. Anything in there will be dead (if there's anything left at all).
• She is stating we are looking at a 90 to 95% chance we're cured now, following these scans (of course, everyone has a 0 to 100% chance of relapsing, it depends on the person, yada yada. But statistics dont lie).

Her POV is we're either cured or will be by the end. That's some pretty nice info from an oncologist who is known (both from my personal experience and others I've asked) to be a no-BS kind of doctor (another reason we love her).

So why am I so friggin spooked? Honestly? If I think about it some, its probably due to the fact that we're approaching the end of treatments. Right now, if anything is in there, chemo is going to kill it if it decides to show its face. In less than two months, there won't be any more chemo, just radiation. Then a few weeks after that, there will be nothing but follow-up scans. That really is a scary thought. I need to get out of this whiny mode. I need Gunney Hartman to beat the crap out of me and remind me I have b*lls ;-)

Thank you all for the support you're giving me. We're near the end friends, and we can get on with life. I'm going to have scanxiety every 3 months for the next year, then 6 months the year after that. But I think we're good, just have to get over this silly nagging thoughts.

On a side note, the chemos are really starting to hit me kinda hard now right after treatment. I'm weak as hell, and TIRED. Only three more to go, but that "additive" effect is definitely kicking in