Hurry Up and Wait

The news is not the best but it is clearly not the worst. Our appointment was at 11 a.m. but our new doctor did not make it to our examination room until 12:30. My guess is he is busy getting acclimated to his new environment and patient/clientele. However, Diane and I were very anxious, and it was just one of those days when we didn't want to wait to see anybody. Dr. Ali was very informative and thorough. Here is what we know after visiting with both Dr. Ali and radiation expert Dr. McGinnis:

There are two very tiny "hot spots" embedded in two lymph nodes. They may be either nothing more than residual results from the radiation or small early metastatic cancer in these two lymph nodes. Hopefully it is the former and McGinnis seems to think this is the case. If it is the latter, it is currently too small to be significant or even treated via any surgery. Dr. Ali recommends and Dr. McGinnis concurs that we should wait and do another PET scan after Thanksgiving. If something of concern is there, since it is in the neck region, it will grow very slowly. No matter what the outcome today had been, normal protocol for base of tongue cancer would have been to do another PET scan in 3 months.

While we had hoped they would say "get out of here everything looks clean," that did not happen but we guess this is the second best option. Hey, I am not on my way to Iowa City for throat surgery--yet--and hope that situation will not come to pass as that would NOT be good. So there you have it; this is what we know to date.

Elie Wiesel, famous author and Holocaust survivor, explains why Diane and I are doing this blog when he says "Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty." We are doing our best to do just that. As we sit in our kitchen composing this, we are both exhausted. Physical labor is difficult and tiring, but I can assure you that chronic mental stress is not just tiring but can be debilitating as well. Naturally we will not let that happen as we are uplifted by the support we have received from you in many different forms. Friday we felt like someone had punched us in the stomach and today while not perfect we feel much better. Headaches seem to be the only side effect I'm experiencing.