Still waiting to hear

I am doing just fine and waiting for my appmt on Tuesday afternoon at 3:15pm with Dr. Miller to find out how he is going to get rid of this spot on my lung. My new motto is "Hope for the scope!", but I am not real optomistic that I will avoid a throchotomy.
I went to the Sacoma support group on Wednesday. It was great to see the folks I have been building a relationship with for about a year now. Most have been through much worse than I and they are truly an inspiration. In fact, before the meeting I contacted two members you have seen me write about before, Karen and Virginia. Karen has had 3 lung surgerys and 4 surgeries on her leg over the past 5 1/2 years. She is about my age, works from home and is a lot of fun. She is so positive and does a lot of research about our diease. She does not have the same cell type of Sarcoma as I do, so her treatment is a little different. She did have radiation but no chemo. She continues to have spots on her lungs, and when they get to be about 1 cm (as mine is now)Dr. Miller takes them out. She has accepted that every year or two she will need to have lung surgery and adjusts her schedule to fit. All of her spots have been sarcoma. I am still hoping this one is not, but the fact that it grew over the last 3 months is worrisome. However, I look at Karen, who is handling this all so well, and know that I can too. She has been very open about talking with me about all of this, and it is so nice to have someone who has been there before and knows what you are experiencing and help you anticipate what to expect next. For example, before my thorochotomy last time, I had to have a drug-induced stress test and a lung capacity test. I did not know if that was something that had to be done before every lung surgery or a one time thing. Karen never had the stress test (because she never had chemo, we guess) but did have the lung test -- but only before the first surgery. I was wondering about this because if Dr. Miller does let me go to England before surgery, I was not sure if I would need to have these test again before surgery and may need to build in some time for that. Of course, no two cases are exactly alike, but I am guessing there are some similar things.
I am still concerned about taking two weeks vacation, and then coming back and being off 4 to 6 weeks for surgery. It just does not seem right. My boss Kendra tells me not to worry about it, but I do. So if he allows me to go on to England and postpone surgery, I am going to have think about whether I should try to come back a few days ahead of Bob and get some work done first. I know I am the only one putting this pressure on me --but I cannot help it! I have a lot of work things we are doing that I am really excited about, and I do not want to miss any of it! But nor do I want to miss our time with family in England. A delimna for sure.
Virginia had sarcoma behind her knee 20+ year ago. It reoccured in 2007. The sarcoma was wrapped around so many vessels etc and the best option for her was to amputate her leg at the knee. Without doing that it would be a useless limb so now she can have a prothesis that helps her. At one point, I just thought that would be the worse thing in the world. It isn't. She is the most darling fun, positive woman who has a full life She drives a regular car with her left leg. She has an outside sales job like me and continues to thrive and be an inspiration for us all. She is always reaching out to new members and making every one feel at home, welcome, and comfortable talking about difficult subjects, as you might imagine. She is having to get a new joint, or something like that for her leg. Evidently your skin changes and from time to time you have to have an adjustment. Just as she was about the get this all done, and her prosthesis Dr was no longer on her insurance, so now she is having to change. She is on crutches now because they cannot reattach to the new joint right away. and I think the insurance company has to get the doctor thing straightened out. Her life continues on like normal and this is just a small challenge to her. She also has sarcoma in her lungs that they cannot remove. Fortunately, it is not growing and she is doing great. My little spot seems as insignificant as a broken finger nail (ok - those of you who really know me know that can be a little traumatic!). One other thing, the type leg she wanted costs $16,000 and is not covered by her insurance. She was going to get it anyway, hard as that would be. The company she works for had a big golf tournament, and unbeknowst to her raised the money to buy the leg. Another prosthesis company ask her to model a new great "foot" they had created and gave her a $5000 foot for free. These things are not cheap and most likely the ones that look the best may not always be covered by insurance. It is hard enough being sick -- and so many people have to deal with the financial end of it too. I am so lucky!

In the meantime, I am playing tennis, working and keeping busy till I get surgery schedule. I have a sinking spell every now and then but for the most part, I am doing pretty well.

One minor problem - we just got our house painted. We had to have the doors and windows open for a while, and on Thursday night (after we'd closed them all and gone to bed) we heard a noise in our room. Bob thought it was a bird. Being the chicken that I am (and very scared of birds), I ducked under the covers. Bob said it was a bat! It flew around and then, we think, it went into one of our guest bedrooms. We could not find it. Finally we shut the doors to all rooms and went to sleep. I was scared to leave our bedroom Friday morning, so Bob "manned up" and went on a bat hunt. He could not find it, but there is no way it has gotten out of the house. We called Animal Control looking for Batman to come and get this darn thing. They actually sent Batwoman instead. She was a little young thing, shorter than I am. All she had was a cage and a towel. She could not find it either. So "Robin" our code name for the bat is still here - somewhere. We mainly keep the doors shut. We had to open them when the carpet cleaner came today, and we did not tell him to be on the lookout for Robin either. I am not sure what our next move is. Batwoman told us to listen for Robin at night, and when we figure out what room he is in, to call animal control and they will come and get him. I thought we could leer him out with food. I think they are vegetarians and eat bugs too. So I am picking up some tofu at Publix. Just kidding I am kind of making light of this but frankly I am pretty scared! I am guessing Robin will either fly around at night and be heard banging against the windows trying to get out or will starve and die. It is really gross to think about. But it is another distraction none the less!
I will update on Tuesday!