It looks like I forgot to post this from March 8th 2022. Go figure.
It still boggles my mind when I think about it. I just doesn't seem like it has been long enough for me to be almost 10 years cancer free. I think I need to plan a party or something for that day or do something to mark that date. I'll think about it.
So lets recap the fall of 2012. It was a beautiful fall day on Saturday September 29th. I was with my co-workers at the Innsbrook Corporate Games and we were kicking some corporate ass in goofy races. It wa a lot of fun, but I digress, I had just lost quite a bit of weight and I could feel a fair sized lump in my right arm. This lump was just above where I had a previous Melanoma removed about 2.5 years earlier.
I had a friend and co-worker check it to make sure I wasn't just imagining it. The look in her eyes said it all. The following Monday I called the office of my Surgical Oncologist. He was on vacation. They gave me an appointment 3 weeks out. I basically cried on his secretaries ear until she got me in as soon as he got back.
I was shoehorned between patients October 3rd. He took one look at my arm and said I couldn't leave until the pathology folks came down to get a sample. At this point we both knew what it was. It took Pathology about 45 minutes, I think, to come see me. This was a fine needle aspiration, which means they take a needle attached to a syringe and they try to pull back on the syringe with a little gun while stabbing you in the arm 100 times. It wasn't bad until they poked all the way through the tumor. That hurt like hell. They take the tissue and smear it on a slide and dye it to see what it looks like. I am still kicking myself that I didn't ask to take a look in the microscope. So I went back to work and waited for the call. My arm was producing quite the impressive bruise and it hadn't even been an hour.
About two hours after I got back to the office, I got the call from Dr. Neifeld. It was in fact, melanoma. This time it was a tumor about 1" in diameter. He wanted me to come in the following week to get scans scheduled.
I got off of the phone with my Dr. and called home. Mom said she would be on the next plane out. I tried to argue that we didn't know enough as my Dr. wanted a scan before scheduling surgery. Dad told me to shut up and that Mom would see me Friday.
True to my parents word, I picked up Mom at the airport late Friday afternoon. I packed her and my dog Abby up and we headed north to Maryland to see some friends. It was a nice break before things got real and Cancery. You can look back at my first post from 2013 for further review.
Today the folks from Massey Cancer center came to my office to interview me as a former clinical trial participant who is still kicking ass and doing really quite well. It was not the most comfortable thing to have a camera pointed at me while recounting my cancer journey. I'm just not an in front of a camera kind of person. Anyway, we had a very nice chat with me stuttering the whole time, (what can I say, I get nervous, I stutter,) then they took a few pictures with me at my computer working and grabbing drawings from the printer. They took video of some paintings. I hope the edit out the bulk of my stuttering. The camera man was tickled to see my Fuck Cancer Cross stitch framed on my cube wall. Thank you Gabriella! I still get a warm feeling every time I look at it. Then I say "Fuck Cancer!," and laugh. It is still my mantra.
No comments:
Post a Comment