The saga of my health continues, and we go from one crisis to the next with periods of relative calm in between, where I get to live life like a normal person right up until the next scan, and then it’s all repeated. The latest installment in the series is as follows:
In the beginning of February I had a good scan; significantly, the tumor in my side had not grown, which meant it was most likely not cancerous. We were happy about this, as you can imagine! Normally, it would have been a time for the balloons to fall and the party cake to be brought out, but there was one problem. The tumor marker – that annoying little tumor marker that had been going up for two years – it was was still going up. It had been 330 in the fall of 2017, and now it was 450. (Note that normal people have a CEA of 2.5.)
My cancer at work
So, we decided to get another biopsy since the one in November seemed quite flawed, and I will spare you the details. Results came back this week. It turns out the tumor on my left side is positive for cancer. Yes, positive.
Positive.
This actually explains a lot. All of 2017 was devoted to chasing after a tumor that refused to be found. We mobilized the entire Medical Industrial Complex last spring, me being subjected to every test known to man, and I vowed afterward never to do that again (my entire being seemingly reduced to a specimen to be scanned and stuck) and then guess what: we did it again in the fall, but only worse. By the end of it, I was so exhausted that I told my dear wife, “I’m dropping out and never coming back.” You can read about my frustration here. I said: Never again.
Never again means yet again, and we started all over with the scans and biopsies this February, but at least we have found our missing man (or tumor). I appears that this cancer is not a blazing forest fire but more a smoldering pile of leaves. It did light up on a PET scan in 2017 but dimly, so at least it’s relaxed, easy-going cancer – in no hurry to take over the world.
It is so much not in a hurry that the thing has not grown since November. The question comes: if it is cancer, why isn’t it growing? I mean, is it just hanging out, not doing the work of dividing and replicating, being lazy and laying in the sun! This is cancer on welfare! Nothing can be normal with my body.
The plan going forward is to radiate the area for two weeks. I’ll get rid of this thorn in the flesh on my left side – which is good – but after that I will probably get chemo – which is bad. Such is the cancer world.
In other developments in my life, I’ve been living large and going from one crisis to another. It’s called having eight kids and cancer, with some other nasty conditions thrown in. It’s all great – and if it wasn’t so, who knows what sort of awful, boring life I would end up having to live!
Cancer Chronicles 