The Ex's scan results: Hurry Up and Mooz!

Some days zoom by. Some don't.

Family reunions, travel days, shopping and fishing? Zoom.

Root canals, dancing recitals, jobs you hate, and scan results? Mooz. The exact opposite of zoom.



Luckily, I was busy with work (at a job I love), but it still seemed like three o'clock would never come.

We arrived a little early, as usual. It was 2:50 p.m. when we checked in with Sunshine Cancer Central... uh, I mean, with the oncologist's receptionist.

As the waiting minutes crept along, I began to feel like I was waiting for someone to start a eulogy.

Ava Maria was playing softly in the background, along with the sounds of gentle waves, slooowly rolling onto the beach, birds twittering over God's shimmering shores, the rrrring of the phones, and the occasional whiny whir of the office shredder.

At just that minute, I got hot. Not just a little hot. I was BIG HOT. This was the proverbial HOT-ON!

The personal heatwave erupted in my lumbar, as always, and curdled its way up my body until I was glowing red and wet from the waist up. I looked over at the Ex, and beads of sweat were growing on his brow, too; perhaps he was suffering from my radiant heat.

I picked up a couple of magazines, chosen first for their suitability as a hand-fans, and secondly for their content. A woman mid-hot-flash knows her priorities.

So, we fanned and the birds tweetered and the waves rolled and AaaaaaVAAA MaaaREEEEEaaaa droned on... 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 MINUTES!

I doubt waterboarding has anything over on this. We're being tortured. We're being slowed to death, MOOZED in this...this... this horrid Waiting Room for GOD!

Finally, a good 35 minutes after our appointment, we were FREE! Free! Free! Thank God a'mighty! We were free at last!

After a few vitals, we were led to the examining room with the dim fluorescent lights that always hurt my eyes. I hate this room. I don't know why they don't fix it. Maybe we're not free... It's just a new kind of torture... where we sit, and wait. Moozed yet again.

Finally, our scan results! Gee, it's only 3:45! At least we don't hear funeral tunes and birds and waves in here. I must write The President and tell him about The Waiting Room Boring Torture, or perhaps the Examining Room Light Sensory Deprivation Torture.

The CAT scan results were pretty clear. The reading doc analyzed every lymph node, every cyst, every lesion and compared it to the previous report.

Unfortunately, it was a very long list of many little things, some of which have grown and some of which have shrunk. There's been some kind of a hoe-down in there, but it's hard to say if the good guys are dancing the most.

Overall, there has been only mild to moderate improvement in the primary left upper lobe lung mass. Some lymph nodes grew, some shrank.

There has been mild improvement in a spot on his liver, thought at first to be a cyst, but now they're not ruling it out as a possible improved metastasis. So -- maybe he's got cancer in his liver, too.

There have been changes in the primary tumor -- it now has cavitation (bubbles, I think) caused by necrosis, with an air/fluid level!

Well, YAY! Right? Necrosis of a mass is a GOOD THING.

There's less compression of the tumor on the left superior pulmonary vein, but compression is persistent on the left upper lobe pulmonary artery.

There has been new degeneration in some of his vertibrae, but the tumor on his spine did shrink a little.

They said his spleen was stable. That's good. He had it removed about 25 years ago. Esophagus, thyroid, all good.

Other than that, there doesn't appear to be any NEW mets, but damn if it doesn't seem like the cancer is in little spots everywhere in his torso.

As for the MRI, we got a written report, but it's confusing, because sizes of masses quoted to have shrunk were said to be larger than they were in the prior report. The MRI-reading doc interpreted the scans without benefit of having the earlier scans with which to compare.

We sent that one back for a re-do, and arranged to have earlier scans available for the good doctor's prudent and proper review. (If we'd gotten it at Wal-Mart, I would've taken it back for poor quality workmanship). We'll have to see what happens with that next week, i guess.

Next, we're off to six more 3-day-every-three-week courses of our 1st line of defense: 6 hrs of Cysplatin and 2 days of 3 hours of VP-16, whatever that is.

We're to see the radiologist again and see if he thinks more zapping is in order. I am concerned about the degeneration of those disks! Will radiation damage them even more? Cancer is bad enough without having to suffer degenerative back disease as well! I just can't imagine how much this hurts!

It'll be another couple months before we are forced to be mooz-tortured in the waiting room. I'm going to try and schedule another trip home between chemos.

I have some docs of my own I probably should see, and I am a little home-, hubby- and dog-sick.

Thanks again for all your prayers, friendship and support. If you follow my journals and the adventures of ETC and The Ex, don't be a stranger. Won't you please join my circle of friends?