Stuck In a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of

The long-awaited CT-Scan of the pancreas was today, and well…someone please tell me how I’m supposed to feel about the results.

“There is a subtle vague very approximately 1.4 cm focal rounded pancreatic head lesion abutting the duct and stent suspicious for the patient’s known pancreatic adenocarcinoma. It was not well seen as a discrete measurable lesion on prior examinations making comparison difficult, but it may be mildly increased.”

Translation: “Whoever did the CT-Scan before didn’t get a good tumor measurement, so we can’t really tell if it’s changed in size or not, but it may have gotten a smidge bigger.”

Well hell.

Con: I really would have liked it to have shrunk. In fact, I expected that.

Pro: The status quo is not horrible, and I’m grateful it has not gotten dramatically worse. Something is working.

What does it mean? The oncologist is viewing this as very vague information. She will talk to the surgeon to get his feedback. The point of my chemo, after all, is to help give the surgeon a good canvas on which to paint. Is he getting what he needs?

Meanwhile, my tumor marker (CA-19-9) number has dropped down into the normal range, which means there are fewer cancer proteins running laps in my blood. A swing in one direction or another can suggest whether treatment is headed in the right direction or not.

That my number has dipped is a good thing, and I will cling to that for now—as imprecise a measure as it may be of my overall health.

In the meanwhile, it’s time to better manage the areas I can control—exercise, diet, sleep, etc. I can punch harder, you bastard tumor.

[Stuck in a Moment You Can’t Get Out Of, U2]