[If you aren’t a daily reader, and you haven’t seen the CT Scan results from earlier in the week, be sure to check them out first!]

There were a few questions from yesterday’s comments (as well as from some emails) about the tumor on my spine. Unfortunately there weren’t many definitive answers on that from the oncologist. It’s entirely possible that it’s gone, she couldn’t see anything in the CT Scan results, but she admitted that she’s not the greatest at interpreting those results. But she did note that the radiologist who looked at the results didn’t mark anything in that location so it might be gone. That would be consistent with the amount of shrinkage seen in the chest tumor.  But remember it wasn’t until the PET Scan that they noticed the involvement of my vertebrae the first time, although after it showed up on the PET Scan they were able to go back to the CT Scan and could then see evidence of it when they knew to look for it. That was then confirmed by an MRI. Still while it doesn’t appear to be there anymore, I got the impression that she wasn’t willing to give it the “all clear” yet without further tests. But until then we’ll go with “no news is good news.”

When we last meet her, she indicated that I was to have the CT Scan before we met with her again (and I did) and that I might have a another PET Scan after that. I asked her about this on Wednesday and she told me that the CT was more than conclusive enough that things were moving in the right direction that there was no need for the PET at this time. The treatment course it working and seems to be working well.

So the plan now if for another CT scan in about two months. At that point its POSSIBLE (and I stress the word possible) that we may start putting together an exit strategy at that time. I almost hate to even talk about it, as I’ve taken great pains to not think about and/or anticipate when we might bet finished with treatment, so take this all for what it’s worth. But, it’s POSSIBLE that we may have a good idea at that point as to when we’ll be finished. From what she described, we get to a point to where we stop seeing signs of disease and then we go through two more cycles (about 2 months) of chemotherapy just to be sure. So we could be looking at April or May here…  Again, don’t start getting your hopes up. I’m not starting to think about or talk about when I’ll be done with any kind of certainty, I’m just passing along the information as I get it.

If I had it my way I’d have been done weeks ago. I bitched about it a little to the oncologist. About how much I hate coming in for chemo. I haven’t had any symptoms of the cancer for months now. So at this point I’m fully aware that its these treatments that is the only thing holding me back right now. The only think keeping me sick. It just sucks starting feeling normal for a few days before I have go back in and start all over again, with each round being worse and worse. ALTHOUGH, I have to admit, after seeing those pictures I was pretty encouraged and ready to hop into that chair again, excited to keep up the progress. At least until they starting putting drug after drug back into me. I just wish I could have sat in that good feeling for a little longer.

Don’t get me wrong, the pictures are really nice to have. I’m kind of obsessing over them actually. Anytime I start to feel sick I’ll just pull up the blog and stare and those comparison photos. They remind me that it’s worth it!

Yesterday I mentioned that during several days in my chemo cycle I have a metallic taste in my mouth. But my tastes are slowly changing in other ways too. Its something that I was told might happen. Several cancer survivors that I’ve spoken to warned me that my tastes in food would start to change, and now several months into this journey (with several to go) I’m beginning to see what they mean. Luckily for me, it’s not that I’m adverse to foods I used to like, in fact it’s the opposite. In many ways my palate is growing.

The biggest change would be my desire for spicy foods. I used to be the kind of person who couldn’t stand spicy foods at all. Even “1 Star” on a menu rating system was too much for me handle. But now, as my sense of taste is slowly being destroyed by round after round of chemo drugs, I find that I really enjoy and even seek out spicier foods. Foods that I used to not be able to tolerate at all are foods that I’m now starting to find delicious.

Unfortunately there is a downside to my new desire for richer, and more intense foods. Heartburn. Before starting chemo I had only experienced heartburn on a few occasions. Now, it’s something that I can count on for 4 – 6 days of the two week chemo cycle. It started even back before I realized that I was suddenly attracted to more intense flavors, but I’m sure the new spices in my life aren’t helping this new form of digestional torture. Fortunately its thus far been controllable with the use of Tums and other chewable tablets so I would categorize it more as a mild annoyance in the grand scheme of things. But still, it’s a new thing for me.

The other thing (food wise) that I’ve noticed since starting chemo is that I can not get enough Mexican food. I could pretty much eat tacos or nachos for every meal of the day. My appetite for tacos cannot be stopped. Now I have always been a fan, and I don’t know if it’s related to my treatment, or if I’ve just never noticed it before, but if I had it my way, we’d be having tacos here every night. Sadly, I’ve yet to get Stine on-board with turning every night into Taco Tuesday. In fact, she’s probably even tired of Taco Tuesday at this point.

The waiting room in an oncology office is a peculiar place. I make jokes when I’m uncomfortable so I think I tend to overcompensate for the nervous energy in the room and I find that I’m often the cheeriest one in the room. I think some people find it off putting as I tend to pick-up on the odd looks that people give me. “Laughter in a place like this, how insensitive” I seem to hear them thinking. And it’s mostly from those who are accompanying a cancer patient.

When we were there last Wednesday the waiting room was the fullest we had ever seen it (business is up!). Among those waiting was a family of three: a mom and dad reading some magazines, and between them their elementary school aged son. The father had thinning hair like me, and I immediately identified him as the cancer patient. It’s generally easy to tell in that room, if it’s a man they are bald or have short or thinning hair like me, if it’s a woman they’ll have a scarf or hat on. I kept looking back at that family while we waited as I was really impressed that they were all here for the appointment, especially that as a family they would bring their kid in with them. I think it’s great actually, cancer effects everyone in the family.

They called his name before they called mine and as the family got up and approached the Medical Assistant it became abundantly clear that I had made a huge mistake in my assumptions. It wasn’t his appointment, it was their son’s. And in fact it was their first appointment. He couldn’t have been more than 10 years old.

I can’t stop thinking about that family. In hindsight I can see the sadness, the stoicism that the parents were displaying in that waiting room. I can see now that they were scared but were trying to displace their nervousness. They both sat, heads down, slowly flipping through the waiting room magazines (I can’t imagine they were doing too much reading) while their son sat between them eating a small bag of chips and swinging his legs off the end of the chair.

Based on his age, chances are he has leukemia. Like lymphoma, it’s a another type of blood cancer, but one that attacks the white blood cells. And like lymphoma there is fairly high rate of survival. But still, I think of how hard it was for me to come to terms with my illness, that I can’t even imagine trying to explain that to a child. Or worse, to be a parent of a small child walking into that room. It was hard enough (and still is hard) for my own parents, and I’m almost 30.

It was certainly one of those “cancer sucks” moments (or rather, a phrase we’ve come to adopt in this house is simply “fuck cancer”). The moment when that kid identified himself as the name called in the waiting room has really stuck with me for the last two weeks. So much so that I’ve thought about it every day since.

“Are you Thomas?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“And is this your first time in?”
“Yep” he said while looking back into his bag of chips for any which he may have missed.

What’s interesting is that I find that I don’t so much worry about him. I worry about his family. More specifically his parents. I’ve really come to realize to that this experience has in many ways been harder on the people around me than it has been for myself. It can be hard to watch sometimes, not only because its hard to see people that you love go through something like this, but even more so because often times there is nothing to do BUT watch. Watch and wait.

So when I’m sitting in the waiting room, looking around everyone, I never worry about the ones with the thinning hair, or the head scarves. I worry about the people with them. Us, we’ve accepted it. We’re here to get poked and prodded and filled with poison. That’s our job. Sure it’s hard sometimes, but not as hard as being the people who come with us and support us. THAT’s hard. Because all they can do is watch. And wait.

The truth is I don’t mind. I would rather this happen to me that to have to sit and watch it happen to someone that I love. Me, I can handle it. But what I couldn’t handle would be having to watch and wait while someone that I loved went through this kind of cancer treatment, or any kind of health struggle.

I can’t imagine what that must be like.