www.cancermonster.net

Yes, we are in Portland at Kelli and Tim’s house. The hotel bills were eating a hole in our pocket and we needed a moment to step back and breathe.

Things are still up in the air.

And by “up in the air” I mean “up to the Lord.”

I have been looking online for a place to land and catching up with the laundry. Dan has spent the day on the phone making appointments and talking to old contacts for work.

And speaking of phone calls, we talked with Dr. ER on the phone this morning. She had the results of the CT and Bone Scan. . . It wasn’t the conversation that I wanted.

There are no new knots in my lungs, however four of the old ones had a growth spurt of sorts. A centimeter here and a third of one there. It doesn’t sound like much, but it was growth. The good news is that there is still no lymph nodes involved and no fluid where it shouldn’t be. Nothing seen in my liver…as was noted in my files (but not told to me…) The bone scan did show metastatic disease — progressing from the scan in November– in my skull and spine.

“rut-ro-raggie”

“The four spots that got larger… are they the only thing there? How many others are there now?”

“I don’t know that. I have not seen the actual scans yet. I’m reading off the report. This afternoon I will go to radiology and look at them with the doctor over there and I will get an exact count. It doesn’t say anything about other nodes.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I would recommend that we do more chemo. You’re maxed out on the Doxorubicin. The risk to your heart is too high. But as long as you are tolerating the Ifosfamide, we should do another round of that with something else added in. I will be presenting you to the team meeting on Monday. I will also get with the pathologist then. He has been going over your slides.”

“I would love to get a better diagnosis than ‘Poorly Differentiated.’ It would be nice to know exactly what kind of sarcoma I have.”

“Sometimes it’s just not possible to know where it originated. They were able to see ‘round cells’ so that might help.”

“What about surgery? Couldn’t we go in microscopically and take those four big ones out?”

“If we can get the metastatic disease under control again and shrink them all with more chemo, then, yes, we can go in and remove them surgically.”

“Do you have surgeons that can do that there? Or would that be better done at OHSU?”

Yes, we have sarcoma surgeons here, but there are also expert surgeons at OHSU. Have you decided where you are going to live yet?”

Hmmp. The question of the century.

“Not really. We are in Portland now.”

“You are?”

“The hotels were eating us up.”

“I would suggest that you make an appointment with Dr. R at OHSU. He and I work together on cases like yours. We send patients to him and he sends patients to us. He can do all the same chemo that we can do up here and there are clinical trials for sarcoma at OHSU that we don’t have here. I can send him an email and get you in there.”

“I was very comfortable with you and the reputation of the SCCA . . . It’s not that I wouldn’t want to stay there with you…”

“If you were my sister . . . Or myself. . . I would say embed yourself in Portland where you have family and get in with Dr. R.”

“You know that my surgeon is Dr. H. — he is partnered with Dr. R. in the sarcoma program here. I tried to get in his practice before, but the University turn me down because I had no insurance. But now that it spread and I have disability, it would just be a matter of transferring my case from Florida to Oregon (instead of Washington). I guess I should do that.”

“I will send him the email before the end of the day. Let me know what you decide to do. I would still get the PET scan done next week.”

I hung up. And I was still. Very still.

“God is still in control.” I reminded myself out loud. I looked over at Dan and his face looked a lot like mine. His eyes were as red as mine. “Yes, He is.”

I don’t understand exactly what is going on. I am stunned.

But I am still believing in God’s plan for me. Everything is going to work out.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 (New King James Version)

As far as a place to live. . . There is a perfect situation that COULD be the solution. We just have to convince the landlords to believe in the perfection of it as well. I won’t go into it now, but please pray that this certain couple’s heart be softened towards us and our housing problem would be solved.

It’s Friday night. We have so much to accomplish this next week. But the offices of the people we need are now closed for the weekend. In the mean time, we are still searching the classifieds for a place to live. (It‘s cheaper here.) We’re also searching for a charger to replace the one left in a hotel room that goes to the cell phone we bought in Seattle. (That was a mouthful.)

And we’re searching for a break. Lol

You can only laugh. Crying is too hard on the attitude.