Good News!

Very good news! My lymph nodes are clean, meaning the cancer hasn’t spread!

I had a follow up appointment today. Shortly after I arrived, I overheard the receptionist calling someone for my test results. Eavesdropping as discreetly as I could, I came to the disappointing realization that I might not know anything today. Even after waiting for an hour to see the doctor, they hadn’t yet received anything.

I was a bit disappointed, but went home armed with 3 more scripts: call the physical therapist asap to get an appointment this week to be fitted for a compression sleeve for flying next week, call a radiation oncologist for a consult and call a medical oncologist for a consult.

So after a couple of detours on the way (can’t just drive by an AC Moore, and then there was WaWa!) I arrived home and settled down to take care of the appointments.

First was the physical therapist, to make sure I could see them in time. 12:30 tomorrow. Great. Second, the radiation oncologist. June 11th. Wow. That’s a bit farther down the road, but the earliest I could start radiation would be 3 weeks. I must be completely healed first.

While I was on the phone making the second appointment, call waiting chimed in. I didn’t even check to see who it was. At the same time, Gaby came home from school, so I didn’t get around to making the third appointment right away.

When I went back to the phone, I got the familiar beep beep indicating a message, and remembered the recent caller. I was surprised and thrilled to find that it was my doctor, who said she was calling with ‘good news’ and would I please call the office. Didn’t waste anytime on that!

Jacki answered the phone and was able to give me my results. I’ve been wanting to devote a post to Jacki, and plan to soon. She’s another one of those amazing encouraging health care professionals I’ve come in contact with since all of this started. Nurse practitioner, I think. I’ll have to ask next time I see her. She’s the person who monitors me for signs of lymphodema, so I’ll be seeing her every 3 months or so for the next 2-3 years.

Jacki confirmed that the nodes were benign, so I asked if I still had to make the appointment with the medical oncologist, since it was my understanding that this might mean that only radiation was necessary.

Here's where I learned something else, but didn’t write down the name of what next needs to be done. I’ll find out what it’s called. The tumour that was removed is typed, to determine if chemo would benefit me. Jacki started the paperwork while we were on the phone, and we’ll have the answer to that in 1-3 weeks.

In a string of bad news leading to bad news leading to bad news, this is very good news indeed!