Not what I wanted to hear

Well it is not pneumonia. When I asked the doctor, (now know as Doc M) "Is there any chance this is something other than cancer?" he told me there is about a 5% chance it is something else. Since the %'s don't seem to go my way, I did not even ask what the "something else" would be.



With my history, it is likely sarcoma that has moved from my leg to my lung. That is where sarcoma goes. In fact, he said if it is sarcoma, I could have this surgery 4 or 5 times in my life time as the tumors seem to pop up every now and then and you go in and take them out. More about the surgery later. However, there is a possibility that it is a primary new lung cancer. About 8% of women in my age group, who have never smoked, still get lung cancer. It is even possible that one leision is lung cancer and the other sarcoma. If either is lung cancer, they will remove lymph nodes to see if it spread. They do not do that with sarcoma, as it does not spread to the lymph system. We will know during surgery what kind of cancer it is as they will do a frozen section then and there.



Before surgery I have to have two tests --one on my heart and the other on my lung capacity. I guess they are a type of screening test prior to surgery --probably next Monday. Of course I am having the PET scan on Thursday. Doc M is booked for the next 3 weeks so I will not be able to have surgery before then unless somebody cancels. The surgery is a little different than I expected. They will cut(I thought is might be done laproscopically -have no idea how to spell that) me open about where my bra is on the side and about 5 inches or so. I will be in the hospital about 5 days. He said recovery is 3 to 4 weeks. Later I stopped him in the hall to get more info on recovery. I described my job, and he said I would feel like working 3 or 4 hours per day, from my house, even the day I got home. He discussed no heavy lifting etc., and driving, probably after a couple of weeks,(I assume depends on how much pain medicine I am own). I asked him could I go to either Birmingham or Destin for Thanksgiving, and he said "sure". I am guessing the surgery would be a week or two before then. He said I possibly could even go to England at Christmas--if I felt like it. I will be plenty sore from them spreading my ribs apart. His perspective of travel and healing time was based on surgery alone-not any after treatment. The chemo Doctor (Dr. Saba) will decide what happens next and when. For sure, if it is a new cancer and in the lymph system, there will be more chemo. If they are both sarcoma, they could just watch it and do CT scans every 3 months (which they will do for sure) and do chemo or not. I will see Dr. Saba on Nov 5 for an appmt we had set up previously anyway. I thought my cell type, pleomorphic, was the most aggressive type of sarcoma, and I was glad to hear from Doc M that it is moderate. Now what that means for treatment of this cancer, I do not know. Everything is really up in the air.

Knowing that is it is not pneumonia does go ahead and resolve some issues. I won't stay awake nights with false hope any more. I know it is cancer; I just don't know what kind. Of course now I am worried about the PET scan and fear that every area of my body will light up indicating cancer. At least from that we will know what all we are dealing with and how to tackle it.

There are a couple of good things about surgery being 3 weeks away. I can get my leg closer to being healed by then. It gives me 3 weeks to take care of some things around the house and work that I really want to handle. And likely it will give me some almost "normal" days before I start healing from something else. The bad thing is that I have to wait that much longer before I know when I am dealing with, AND I have to buy candy and open the door on Halloween! I am not a Halloween fan. I was never good at coming up with ideas for Halloween costumes. I don't like costume parties either. I really thought I would be having surgery then and miss the whole thing!

How am I handling this? Some minutes are really bad, and others I just try to perservere and figure out what to do next. Bob is very calm, logical and just takes things as they come. That keeps me a little more calm too. I don't know that he is really that way inside, but that is what I see and it has always been this way. In the meantime, I am going to just keep doing what I do -- work, hangout with Bob and friends and go on with my life. I will do my best to take things as they come and not play the "what if" game. It is hard but it is all I can do.

In the meantime, my tennis team won their division and playoffs start Saturday. I will be down at our courts to cheer them on. I am on the road working tomorrow and will be out alot next week, locally. I have not scheduled appointments for then as I won't know till Thursday when my heart and lung tests will be. I will be able to work on that Friday.

So it looks like the blog goes on. I will be okay but it looks like my road to recovery is a little longer than I expected. I feel like I am running a race, and they keep moving the finish line. At least I am still in the race!