So many CTs

“🧓💬 Stat(s) of the Day: If you want to live your life with no ragrets (not even a single letter), then listen up. After years of caring for ill hospital patients, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider recently shared the top-five regrets she observed among people near the end of their lives: -I didn’t spend enough time with the people I love. -I worked too much and missed out on life. -I let fear control my decisions and didn’t take risks. -I wish I’d been braver in the face of uncertainty or opportunity. -I focused too much on the future and lost touch with the present.” –donut news email [I get one email per weekday with pretty balanced highlights of the news and other fun facts. It’s how I still know what’s going on but don’t cause my nervous system any more stress than it is already dealing with. Highly recommend]

First, I thought that was interesting and wanted to share. Second, yes, Zie is ok. Thank you all for the texts and well wishes. She is still a huge pain in the ass in her teenage phase, as she ate one of our living room chairs and continues to be very vocal about things she doesn’t like(!), but she is healthy. Third, in continuing the trend of terribly timed phone calls, my surgeon called the other day while I was walking Zie. He looked at the images of the ct scan and while he understands why they think it’s the same mass in there, he thinks it’s scar tissue. He reminded me that the path report confirmed that what he took out was cancer, so he definitely got the 17mm mass they were targeting and he said he ‘cleaned out the area pretty well.’ However, since the tumor marker went up, we know there is something in there. He did notice a ~6mm mass in the similar area and there are some tiny spots in my lungs. These may be cancer, but it could also be a lot of other things from all the other various chest and lung related issues I’ve had. Sigh. So now he wants a ct with contrast. I have asked my endo to order that so I’m just waiting for them to process the order with insurance so I can schedule it. I wish I could just have one of those machines at home. Test. wait. test. wait. test. wait. Such is life now. I have the oncologist visit tomorrow with OHSU, but I have a feeling he won’t be able to do anything until the other ct scan results come in. I’m guessing that my best option right now is the targeted medication that he can prescribe, but I don’t really know. I am just guessing these other spots are not operable, even if they are cancer. But I will join the zoom and see what he has to say. The other thing going on that I’ve just been dealing with on the side is my ear. There is a mass of something in the right ear that is causing a pulsing sound and some crackling. It is worse when I lay down, so I often lay there, listening to my own ear, which I can’t do anything about. It’s somewhat crazy making, especially on top of everything else. I saw the new otolaryngologist on Tuesday. He’s young, but was patient and listened to all my struggles after calling me ‘complicated’ once again. [I am sooo over that word]. I don’t have high hopes that he can fix it easily, but is open to trying new things and is going to do some investigation. Nothing shows on on the pet scan in my ear, but if it’s that small, there is (a very, very minimal) concern that it could be cancer. I won’t lie, we’re both struggling. I can’t keep anything straight at work and keep making stupid mistakes. Jeremy is just kinda…frozen. We have so many decisions to make and things to do with jobs, insurance (Jeremy got an ACA plan and I am paying the exorbitant rate for cobra since I hit my yearly max), Zie, this house, etc., but neither of us are feeling very capable right now of anything besides the requirements. We’re just…exhausted. Mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Alas, one positive note. I used this news as motivation to go ahead and book the trip to Japan that I’ve been researching for a couple months. Life is too short to spend it all worrying about money. We’ll be there over new years, so hopefully that will provide us with a truly unique fresh start.

If anything comes of the oncologist appt tomorrow, I will update you all. In the meantime, thank you for the texts and emails. They really do help. I apologize that it might take me longer to respond, but each one does bring some joy to my heart, and that is always a positive thing.

My heart still has some stubborn, so I’m not through yet!