Appt whirlwind

I am continually challenged to stop arguing with reality and instead soften into what is. Over time, I learned to find beauty, meaning, and wholeness in the heart of reality. Unpredictable, ever-changing, humiliating, and humbling reality. —Mirabai Starr

Yesterday, we drove out past Portland for an establish care visit with an endocrinologist. This appointment had been a long time coming, for me and my local endo. My local doctor is very nice,  but I’m far out of her league.

This new endocrinologist had an interesting take on the whole situation. Firstly,  she has suspicions about the medication that I’ve been taking for my autoimmune as a cause for the cancer! She said that obviously it’s just her observation and there’s been zero studies,  but she had about 7 or 8 patients that all have cancer at younger ages and have been on something in that category of medications.  It’s part of the journey,  right? These newly approved Medications have not been tested for everything.  They are mostly effective at fighting off the disease you need it to, but sometimes they come with a price.

Nonetheless,  it’s just her theory, and at the end of the day,  it doesn’t really matter where it came from,  it’s true in this moment. It was interesting, however, to hear a new theory besides all the radiation I’ve had.

Alas,  the visit was reassuring. The doctor is very smart and was prepared with my information; I just filled in the gaps and some missing imaging and blood results that she didn’t have in her files.  Her confidence was comforting to us after encountering several professions that slowly backed away from me shaking their heads.  To her,  I was just another one to monitor,  and that brought some relief.

She said I look ‘normal’ and that everything looks stable right now.  she kept repeating the word stable,  actually,  which was also strangely comforting. She said as long as the tumor marker is in the same range, we just need to monitor every 6 months with a chest ct, neck ultrasound,  and check-up with her.  She reassured me that nothing was urgent.

It was very refreshing.

She actually said that in her opinion,  I didn’t even need to have had the second surgery,  but that the surgeons did a great job for how much ‘disease’ I had.

Also comforting.

So overall,  it was really good. I’m just having a hard time processing it all.  As much as I’ve tried to let it go,  all the worst and anxiety about this disease has also become a part of my identity,  and shedding that is going to be freeing, but also a painful process.  I’m ready to let it go,  though,  and realize that whether or not Tina Tumor is,  for sure, a tumor,  I’m fine with coexisting until we can no longer co-exist. She has some questions for my cardiologist and rheumatologist when i see them,  so I’m trying to make a note to remember. 

On a prairie note,  zie did amazing. Poor thing was in the truck for a long time but totally hung out and was very good.  I’m grateful that we took in her the car alot after we first got her.

We had friends over for dinner that night and it was really nice! We don’t do that as much as we did in Austin,  so it’s nice when we can make it happen!

We’ve had a very chill hang-out-on-the-couch kind of weekend, which i desperately needed.  This week at work is going to be busy,  so I’m grateful I allowed myself to rest.

We let zie in the bed in the hotel(which she is not allowed to do at home) and I took zie over to Smith rock again and putted  around for a bit. I’m still so grateful that place is so close to us