I asked Mike how to title this one, and to make it somewhat silly if he could. His answer was that it is hard for Mike to make funny when he is sad.
I figured I would get my results yesterday, but just in case I called and left a message. I am annoying sometimes, but being slightly cute helps you handle annoying – maybe.
I am not sure at what point you officially just embrace the use of the word “concerning” in multiple conversations about your health. My pulmonary nodules jumped from “at this rate of growth you have 20 years to live” to what we are looking at now 4 months later. My little lung nodules (that were slowly inching along) were distracting us from what was going on in the background.
We did a full body PET-CT in January, all we had to be mostly concerned about were some small lung nodules that were growing. Two had some itty bitty uptake, but nothing definable. Not like what they were looking for, and found, this round.
My newest PET-CT reads like a … I don’t know what it reads like. Maybe a war story? I ask my doctors for the original copy as I always do, because I appreciate the abbreviation, but I want to read what the radiologist says (not always a good choice). It confirmed some details I was looking for though… my lower back pain is caused by a 1×1.2 cm tumor in one vertebrae in my lower back and a 8mm tumor in the next one up. With a total of what looks like 5 tumors in my spine. One in my rib. Some lymph nodes that are lit up like Christmas and of course there are the 5 tumors in my lungs (now we are officially calling them tumors). One did finally get to 8 mm.
I am waiting to hear when I am going to go in for the biopsy and my radiation consultation is on Thursday (they want to shrink the tumors that are causing me pain). My oncologist will get the rest of the plan together once they know what the tumor cells look like at this stage.
The report is titled: Indication: Breast cancer, restaging – so here it is folks. I am stage 4.
Mike and I had to kind of close ourselves off to the world last night for a bit in an attempt to process the news. I am mostly confused on how I had cancer progress so much in the last 9 months. I am scared because it progressed that fast. All of the time I thought I had is ticking away. Of course I am going to do everything I can to stay here with my handsome husband, my awesome friends and my amazing family as long as possible.
We went camping at our friends cabin with the RV this weekend it get away.
