Scanxiety and High Five

Yesterday was a very long day at MSK. Surgery is 9 days away, so the sarcoma team and surgeon needed to determine what the plan would be for surgery.  The big upside for the day was that there was no chemo involved in yesterday's visit.  This is a very good thing. Lately, whenever I simply think about MSK and the area I receive chemo, I literally get nauseous.  It has gotten to the point where I began a program with a Guided Imagery expert to help me think good thoughts about the place that is simultaneously healing me and making me sick.  I think it helped to be there without being in danger of getting chemo.

We started off with lab work (about as much fun as it sounds) at 9:00am. Lab work was followed by an injection of some kind of contrast material for my bone scan.  It came encased in something similar-looking to a small nuclear device, with as many accompanying safeguards, including a nurse with 'Ove-Gloves' and goggles.  

Next was an MRI, which at first description, sounds like a relaxing proposition.  Lay still while being X-ray'd by a giant hi-tech state of the art donut-shaped machine.  I could use a nap I thought, sign me up.  As anyone who has had an MRI can tell you, the reality is that an hour and forty-five minute lap through this ginormous device is like being the target of several unrelenting jack hammers. Could they not find someway to insulate the chaos of offending noise?  Oh, wait they did - tiny foam earplugs.  There was a small break in the procedure - a nurse with a gadolinium (contrast) injection.  Does this not sound like something that will GIVE me cancer?  

CT Scan up next, pretty uneventful.  Then the bone scan that I got the nuclear-powered injection for.  The nurse wheeling me back to the waiting area assured me all was safe, "we do this all the time," she says, as she handed John a card explaining that I am radioactive for the next four days.  We needed to keep this card handy, she explains, in case I get stopped at a border crossing, airport checkpoint, or by an anti-terror screening device.  By the way, if you are pregnant, you should steer clear of me until after Christmas.

After an EKG, and visit to my Oncologist (sans chemo :)), we had our last appointment of the day with my Orthopedic Oncology Surgeon.  He and his team came in to meet us after reading through my voluminous scans.  The brilliant, and dare-I-say miraculous conclusion of the scans is that the tumor is DEAD!  Not only is the tumor dead, but the accompanying edema that had been abundant and dangerously criss-crossing my bones three months ago is GONE!  

My surgeon (one of the most respected, serious and accomplished surgeons in the world) hi-five'd me after explaining my scans!  What we have, in effect, he explained was a shell.  Imagine a turtle dies, the live parts of him are gone, sort of shriveled, but we still have the shell.  So it is with my leg.  There is a shell where the tumor once thrived.  Although, we still need surgery because my leg is unstable, the team is considering a less drastic, Plan B.  Plan A is to remove most everything from my lower thigh bone to mid calf, and replace with bionic parts.  Plan B is to remove only part of my tibia (the dead turtle part), down through mid-tibia.  Plan B, is a far more appealing prospect to my way of thinking.  My surgeon will meet with the radiologist and his surgical team to decide.  

This is a very, very unusual outcome after just three rounds of chemo, we are told.  This is a very aggressive and resistant form of cancer.  Here is what I know, prayer works.  Fr. John Yonkovig gave me a prayer card of a saint I thought I knew, St Peregrine. I knew that He lived in the mid-1200's as a wealthy man who actively opposed the catholic church until later in his lfe when he experienced a conversion and became a Friar.
Here is what I was surprised to see.  The card had a picture of St. Peregrine on the front, lifting his cassock to show his left tibia.  This saint had cancer in the same exact place as me! The day before his leg was to be amputated because of the cancer, he came before the cross and had a vision of Jesus touching and healing his leg.  He was cured, kept his leg, and lived until age 85.

I have kept this prayer card with me constantly.  When I go to sleep, when I wake, when I turn over in bed, or start a new chapter in a book, I pray my St Perergrine prayer.  It is possible he helped to heal me so he can return to eternal rest without my nagging him.  Whatever the case, I know that he, St. Damien, Mother Mary, and your prayers, were all conspirators in asking God for this humbling outcome.  The road ahead is still a grueling one, but what I know for sure right now is gratitude, and more gratitude.


Okay and a little sassy..."and THAT is how Mary Lincoln enjoyed the rest of the play!


More on St. Peregrine and the prayer I pray:
"http://www.servite.org/pereg.htm