I’m Not Dead Yet (I.N.D.Y.)

The last couple of days I have been experiencing a growing sense of dread and anxiety.  I had a “re-staging” CT today and I was amazed at how stressed it made me.  I was next to useless during this morning at work, as I could not focus my attention on anything but the CT.

The reason for this scan begins last October when I visited with the in-laws in Cincinnati.  While I was in Cincy, I had an attack of diverticulitis and I ended up in the emergency room of Jewish Hospital.  The doctors there ran a CT test to examine my abdomen and, apparently, upon review, the doctors there noticed something questionable on my liver.  I showed Dr. Kauh the images and he called the “thing” a “vascular blush” — suggesting that it was possible that the scan was taken just as the dye was moving through the liver blood vessels.  To be sure, though, Dr. Kauh put in an order for a follow-up CT.

As the days passed and today drew closer, I began to become more stressed about what the CT may or may not show.  In fact, I realized today that I was experiencing levels of stress that were similar to when I first was diagnosed.  A fact further enhanced when I met up with Cindy and her husband in the Radiology department at Emory.

Cindy was diagnosed with pancreas cancer a month before me (in March of last year) and had her Whipple in April, 2008.  Her Whipple was successful, in as much as there were negative margins around the tumor.  When the surgeon removed her tumor, he also removed some tissue around the tumor.  Getting a negative margin means that there was no cancer cells in the removed tissue around the tumor.  This is a good thing.  Unfortunately, Cindy also had evidence of the cancer in two lymph nodes.  Cindy underwent Gemzar follow-up chemotherapy (needing to take it every other week, like me, because she could not tolerate the more frequent dosing).  She had a follow-up CT scan recently and, regrettably, she found out last month that her cancer had metastasized to her liver.

In addition to just the saddness I feel for Cindy and her husband (I believe they do not have kids), her experience leads me to wonder whether I am fated to have the same experience.  Now, as with my Dad, I realize that we are separate individuals and there is no reason to think that Cindy’s experience has ANYTHING to do with Merle’s experience; having said that, though, there’s a part of me that worries.  I’m sure I will be better tomorrow (though, I won’t get the results of my CT scan until later this week or next week), but today I’ve just been out of sorts.

As I have tried to do previously, I will leave you with an image.  As I have said, I try to look for different perspectives when I take my pictures.  I want to try something new, though.  I want to post the image and see if you all can guess what it is (and no fair participating if I’ve already told you what it is).  So take a look and leave a comment with your guesses.  I’ll post the answer in a couple of days.  Enjoy!

Merle

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