PET scan is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 8:30am.
I’m glad I could get it this week, I don’t know when I will have results, most likely the earlier part of next week.
I am grateful I could get in tomorrow as I leave with the kids for Vermont this Sunday and needed to get this done before we leave.
So, yeah!
xoxo

I’ve had some requests for an update. No scan scheduled yet. Insurance has yet to approve the scan request. They technically have 7 days to do this but hopefully it will happen by tomorrow. My local oncologist’s office has made a few calls to my insurance and I have spoken to them as well to try to speed things along but it’s insurance so…
Oh the joy joy joy of cancer and insurance!
xoxo

Scan results are in and they are a bit of a mixed bag this time. A small 1.1 cm something was seen on the liver right at the site of the resection (surgery). Three possible scenarios: 1- it’s a benign cyst 2- it’s a reaction to the surgical sutures which can appear a year or so post surgery (the time frame I am currently in) 3- it’s a very small cancer growth. It doesn’t look like my other tumors, it’s less dense. This could be because it’s not a tumor or because it’s such a small tumor. What next? A PET scan in Austin hopefully in the next few days. If the PET lights up in that area, we know it’s cancer and Dr. Curley (my surgeon) wants to do the same surgery I did a year ago, only it would be on a smaller scale. If nothing lights up on the PET I will do a scan in 2 months to see if it’s still there. There were no other areas of concern, lungs, lymph nodes pelvis area were all clear. So not the clean scan we were hoping for and more waiting to see what we can piece together but even worst case scenario seems manageable. Not desirable but manageable!
Stay tuned.
xoxo
Hilary

It’s been a long time since I’ve written. Three months since my last post. It’s 5:15 am and Charles and I are on the road to Houston for scans. To use a word my father-in-law favors to describe umbearable situations, it is a wretched process. Always. The people we encounter are kind, Charles is always with me which is deeply appreciated and much needed for both of us yet the weight of it crushing. Will this be the day that everything changes? Are we driving towards doom? What secrets is my body harboring?

Getting scans is like taking that little pesky worry/fear voice and treating it to an amusement park. It gets to run wild from thought to thought at warp speed like a sugar, adrenaline high, spinning and doing loops making your stomach drop. This would be fun if your thoughts were light fun ones but you do not want fear of death ricocheting like an amped up 3 year old all through your mind.
The takeaway here friends is that scans don’t get easier, at least that has not been my experience thus far. As my dear friend Martin, a fellow cancer outlier said to me the other day, scans actually seem to get harder. The more good ones you have, the more you are temping fate. This kind of thinking is not in line with the grace that comes with feeling grateful for where I am today. Scans turn me into the the wiped out 3 year old that doesn’t want to leave the amusement park and pleads with her parents not to make her go. She just can’t do it. It’s too hard.
Well I don’t want to do this, it’s too hard. I don’t want my life hanging in the balance every 3 months. I don’t want to watch my husband wrestle with it either. Last night after telling Charles through my tears that I don’t want to have to do this cancer thing anymore I said to him, you’re not the person that faces your own death, and he answered back, yes but I am the person who would have to live with it. Contrary to what it sounds like, we were not trying to one up each other. We were acknowleding that the stakes are equally high for us.
Scan time is the bitch slap that reminds us that life is precarious. As if we need this reminder…Maybe we do. My sister said early on in those dark days, knowledge is power. My friend, cheerleader and next door neighbor Julie says the same thing to me. I know my body is trying to heal. I have faith in it’s ability to do so fully. Whether or not something shows up today my job remains the same, keep reaching for grace. I love this quote by Jim Carrey, it speaks to me. “Take a chance on faith. Not religion, faith. Not hope, faith. Hope is a beggar. Hope walks through the fire and faith leaps over it.”
I like the idea of leaping!

Thank you for your continued prayers and love. I have been humbled really by the generosity of spirit you and those you keep in your circles have shown me and my family. Kris Soffa, a family friend whom I’ve known since I was 5 and her yoga group have kept me in their prayers when they get together to practice. Charlotte Hardwick has dedicated her yoga teaching classes to me many times and I know my mom has been on her knees in prayer for my well being. My name has been spoken in churches here in Austin, Vermont and Pennsylvania and those are just the ones I know about. My college friend Heather and her husband Jon (remember the boat created out of Christmas lights last Christmas in my honor?) designed their summer trip with their two daughters to launch here in Austin so they could spend some time with me and my family. There are too many ways all of you have continued to rally around us to list here, just know that these acts of love are fueling me every day.

Please keep my friend Susannah’s 12 year old niece Lily and her parents Lecia and Rick and Lily’s brother RJ and the entire Stanley and Jordan families in your prayers. Lily was diagnosed a few weeks ago with bone cancer. She has had her first round of chemo and it was rough but she’s already shown tremendous strength and wit that far exceeds her youth. Susannah and I grew up together in Chestnut Hill and I know our community has already rallied around Lily and her family. The Jordan’s are in those first initial weeks after diagnosis which are so tough. If you would like to follow Lily’s progress, here is where you can find updates. Their family asks that you use this site to keep informed so they are not inundated with other means of communication.

http://lilyjordanlove.wordpress.com/

I have 2 scans today (double the fun!) one is at 9:40 and one at 11:40 and we meet with Dr. Curley at 1:30 for preliminary results. We are doing it all in one day today so the radiology report won’t be in yet. Thank you Lisa Belcher and Mom for helping with the kids!!

I hope you are all enjoying the longer sunny days and remembering the power of love.

xoxo Hilary