Hard Questions, Tougher Answers

   April is the month of Daffodils, the yellow flower that symbolizes the fight against cancer.  For me however, April is forever linked with either being informed I have cancer, or receiving treatment for it.  April is not my favourite month.  My latest news that I had cancer in my lung was, to put it mildly, a complete shock.   No matter how often I'd consider the possibility of recurrence, I never imagined I wouldn't be able to escape one more time.  For a time I would dwell in sorrow and despair, and that, for me, is the worst aspect of enduring this disease.

  I made another appointment with my Oncologist, I had to ask the tough questions and fully comprehend the answers.   The first question:  How long do I have?  The question everyone wants to know but dreads the answer.   "A couple of years" is what I might have.  There is no absolute measure.  I take that as a guide, knowing that the time is dependent on how well chemo holds the cancer at bay, and hope that there will be no further metastasis.   It is a grim number,  but one I'll work with.

  There is one other question I ask because it is asked of me:  Why don't I start chemo now?  A good question, because it seems logical you would want treatment before the cancer grows further.  As it was explained to me, and I accept it as such:  chemo won't make me feel any better right now.   Right now I'm breathing fine, I'm active, I'm capable doing normal everyday activities.  I can ride my bike just fine.   I have energy.  Whacking me with chemo will reduce my vitality without any apparent gain - no symptoms presenting, so no way to see if I'm getting better.  Plus there's  a catch:  what kind of cancer do I have anyways?

  My original diagnosis years ago was Colon cancer.   The progress of Colon cancer is through the liver and lungs.  Chemo treatments are targeted to specific cancers:  if it's a metastasis of the colon but presenting in the lungs, you use a chemo for colon cancer.  If it's a new primary,  I'll need a different chemo.  To determine what kind I have however, I'll need a lung biopsy.

  For the lung biopsy I would meet another new doctor.  My lung specialist had me do a breathing test first, I suppose to establish a baseline.   This test consists of being put inside a small plexiglass box and breathing though a tube  approximately the size of a car tailpipe.   A clip is placed on your nose so you don't accidentally inhale through that orifice as well.  The test doesn't take long, but it is repetitive.  I huffed and I puffed, doing my best Big Bad Wolf impression, and within twenty minutes or so I was done.  My next appointment would be with the lung doctor himself, to review my test results.

  Fortunately I didn't have long to wait -the very next day in fact.  I met with my doctor and he seemed to think I was breathing satisfactorily, no wheezing, coughing up blood or other issues of respiratory distress.   Then he showed my my CT scan.  Despite having had numerous scans myself, I've never actually seen the resultant images.  Today I would see the 3D tour of my lungs.   My right lung looked, well, lung-like.  My Left sort of seemed to be two smaller lungs jammed together, a narrowing that looked like someone was trying to make a balloon animal.  That's where the cancer lived:  in the upper quadrant of my left lung.  Apparently there were various lymph nodes, around my chest that might be suspect too.  But the one item that was terrorizing my life was apparently encroaching one of the airways to my lung.  That was discouraging.  Now we needed to find out what kind of cancer I have.  For that a Bronchoscopy and a biopsy will be needed.

  So Thursday June 18th, I'll be at the local hospital for another day procedure, with another tube being pushed into another orifice.   Who wouldn't want to look forward to that?!