Chapter 38: Follow- up oncologist phone call

 

Hey all,

So in the last post, we ended off at the follow up MRI and CT scans. All in all I certainly was very hopeful that things would work out in my favour, seeing how the past few months have gone thus far. I really just felt as if I needed a “win” right now even if it was a small one.

Following the scans, I did read the results online on my electronic chart. As we all know, in no way am I a doctor, mind you if I was, that would make this part just that much easier. Even if I was a doctor, I wonder what my specialty would be. Hmmm, let’s see, I’m good in emergency situations so maybe something cool like a trauma surgeon or an ER doctor. I figure on the brighter side, at least no days will be the same and it’s always something to keep you on your toes like a pro boxer. I can guarantee you in no way would I want to be an ear doctor, podiatrist, or a gastroenterologist. 🤢🤮 Mind you, I’m always down for a good poop conversation. It’s the only way you know if what’s coming out is normal or not. However when it comes to rectal bleeding or anal leakage…..bro! I’m out! 100% waving the white flag, or at this point I guess the “brown flag” would be more accurate.🤣

But I digress, unfortunately as much as I googled from all the medical jargon I read, it seemed what they happened to find in the scans did not look good at all. Even now, after it being a few months later, my stomach still turns just at the thought of how I felt just those few short months ago.

 The best I could seem to do at this point was just sit back and wait to hear from my oncologist with any sort of news to help clear this all up. Luckily by this point, my Dr. F knew me well enough to call me as soon as she saw the scans. Meaning, pretty much the next day or so. As naturally I would want to know what was going on with my body that was clearly failing me by this point.

I knew from a few weeks ago I certainly had cancer, for sure no doubt about it. However there was something pretty big that was up in in the air about this whole situation. What is that you ask? well none of us really had an idea the extent of the cancer. Meaning myself and the team of doctors working with me. Just to clarify we were all certainly hoping for only a stage 1 cancer. In regards to stages, stage one would mean the cancer was still fairly small and was only in that one area. Naturally aside from not actually having cancer, having stage 1 would be the best case scenario for sure. So to help clarify the other levels of cancer I have added the following information for you from https://www.cancer.net:

"Cancer stage grouping

Doctors combine the T, N, M results and other factors specific to the cancer to determine the stage of cancer for each person. Most types of cancer have four stages: stages I (1) to IV (4). Some cancers also have a stage 0 (zero).

• Stage 0. This stage describes cancer in situ, which means “in place.” Stage 0 cancers are still located in the place they started and have not spread to nearby tissues. This stage of cancer is often highly curable, usually by removing the entire tumor with surgery.

• Stage I. This stage is usually a small cancer or tumor that has not grown deeply into nearby tissues. It also has not spread to the lymph nodes or other parts of the body. It is often called early-stage cancer.

• Stage II and Stage III. In general, these 2 stages indicate larger cancers or tumors that have grown more deeply into nearby tissue. They may have also spread to lymph nodes but not to other parts of the body.

• Stage IV. This stage means that the cancer has spread to other organs or parts of the body. It may also be called advanced or metastatic cancer."

For those of you who are not familiar with the above stages, metastatic means travelling. So when cancer is metastatic, it means it has travelled from it original location to another area of the body. Eventually when Dr. F called me she proceeded to inform me about what she saw on my recent scans. Well I had a feeling it wasn't going to be the best news, unfortunately I was right. SH*T!

Dr. F proceeded to tell me that on the positive side, on the scans, the cancer did not seem to have gone though the uterine wall. However, she did notice that one of my lymph nodes adjacent to my uterus was enlarged since the initial scans. In fact, in only 3 months, this particular lymph node increased in size from a pea to a grape. WTF! It also appeared to be abnormally shaped, WTF! again. Not exactly what I was hoping to hear of corse. But here's the kicker, seeing the change in the lymph node, the level of cancer I had was no longer stage 1 it was now possibly stage 3.

As soon as I heard those words come out of my telephone speaker, I immediately froze. I felt the blood drain from my face, and what felt like to be the rest of my body. But wait this makes no damn sense I thought to myself, I'm not supposed to die. Throughout this whole experience I always thought everything would work out, it was going to be tough as fu*king h3ll, but I was going to figure it out, and live. Until now.... It was at this point as I not only completely lost my breath, seems I lost all feeling in my legs and what seemed to be all of my optimism as well. I was no longer going to be ok, I was going to die from this bulls*t. Naturally, Dr. F apologized for what she just said to me and that she wished the situation was different for me. Seeing as we were in the midst of trying to have a family, which is how we even ended up in this fu*ked up predicament in the first place. I couldn't help but repeatedly think to myself of how I might not ever be able to grow my family. Even if we could, would I be around to see our little ones grow up in the next 5 years.

Terrifying.

Absolutely, fu*king terrifying.

No. FU*K NO! this CANNOT be happening to me!

and yet here we are, it in fact WAS happening to me.

I then asked Dr. F where we were to go from here. She then proceeded to mention to say they are not 100% sure that the cancer has for sure travelled to the lymph nodes. To have a more accurate picture she wanted me to have a PET scan done. However, to have a PET scan its not something you can just sign up and get. You actually need to have the powers that be discuss your case. I had to wait about another week give or take to hear if and when I could have a PET scan if at all.

Until next Monday.

References

https://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/diagnosing-cancer/stages-cancer