The final word on the PET scan?

I got the call this morning that I've been bracing for. Unfortunately, every time Joe calls me lately, I am instantly in a panic, wondering if this is The Call -- the call that contains the final information on the PET scan, which is really the final word on his lymphoma (oh jesus, please let there not be something else, not more chemo and suffering and pain). It's a drag because instead of feeling my usual total joy at hearing my sweetheart's voice, there's also this spike of nausea and anxiety.

But I think I can be done with that for a while.

The ENT doctor (Dr. Chien, love his name) called to say that he had indeed spoken with the radiologist about Joe's last PET scan. For those readers just joining the saga, we needed to make sure that the little Something on Joe's right tonsil wasn't some residual uber-lymphoma, power cancer, that survived the chemo scorched earth treatment.

The radiologist said that the Something was nothing to worry about. In a regular person, one who hadn't had lymphoma, he wouldn't even mention something like this when reviewing the results of a PET scan. In a normal person, not even worth mentioning. It's nothing to worry about, he said.

So Joe's not having his tonsils out, and we're trying to get comfortable. We both wanted news that would make us jump around and shout and laugh and cry and schedule a big party, but I think we're still a little stunned - not feeling exactly elated, not feeling exactly devastated, either. Perhaps just another aspect of our shared Post Cancer Stress Disorder which I assure you is very real and present in us both.

But really, even though we're stunned and not sure what or how to feel, I know that it really and truly IS good news. Once cancer has invaded your life, it's hard to feel safe, get comfortable. But I know this is good news. I just can't quite exhale yet, even though I know it's coming.

We will have a party. We will jump around and shout and laugh and cry. It might just take a little while.

BIG LOVE TO ALL.

Cycle 1, Day 4: Cancer is a full-time job

The lovely Susan Jones, Joe's nurse at chemo, made us a calendar that details Joe's meds and doses, day by day, morning and evening, for this first week of Cycle 1. I love this calendar so much, not least of which because it's handwritten and I like how her handwriting reveals her upbringing in Holland, but mostly because without it, it would be so much harder to remember everything. It's got almost a totemic quality for me - I look at it and Susan's kind instructions are with us, filling me with calm.

It's 8:45 on a Saturday morning and Joe has gone back to bed. Normally, he'd be suited up and out on his bike with his buddies already, long gone out White's Hill after the meet-up at the Hotty Hut in Fairfax. But he's really tired today, so there he is, sacked out on my side of the bed. He was up just long enough for a bowl of cereal and some coffee, two Prednisone, 1 Zofran and 1 self-administered shot of Neupogen. Normally, I'd be at yoga, in a packed room in Sausalito with my friends, chanting and laughing and sweating and turning upside down. But I'm really tired today, so here I am on the couch instead, thinking about how much our lives have changed so quickly.

We both know that this treatment is short-term. Joe's chemo will be done in the first week of January. But right now if I ask him about it, he just says, "it's going to be a long haul." He never believed that chemo would affect his appetite, but for the last three days he's been largely unable to eat and tending toward the bland -- mac & cheese is really what he wants. It was a small triumph that he was able to eat a Michael's Sourdough #23 yesterday at lunch, at last something that was appetizing and didn't make him sick. And like I said, he's in bed right now on a blisteringly beautiful sunny September morning - that's all wrong!

It would be so easy to let the cancer take everything over. It is, seriously, a full-time job. It's such an interesting situation -- cancer forces a contraction, a pulling-in to hoard energy, a narrow singular focus on pills and survival, in the face of which I keep pushing for expansion: how can we grow from this, how can we get stronger, where is the Good? The answers to those questions are obvious, right, but still the pressure to contract, to get small just to get by, is so strong. If it's a full-time job, damn it, then we're getting paid for it -- paid out in love and the sweetness of simple things (eating a whole sandwich!).

Just now I heard some rustling down the hall and Joe just appeared in his kit, out to try a ride. Who knows what will happen, but we're going for it anyway, always expanding, getting bigger no matter what.