roller coaster

In the end the news was all good, but it was a bit of a rocky road yesterday morning getting there.

Val’s scan was December 19.  Friday tests are a drag because you don’t get the results till Monday.  This was Val’s first scan since chemo ended so we couldn’t help but assign it a certain predictive weight.  On Saturday the 20th a snowstorm hit Portland and we escaped in our snow-tired Subaru at five in the morning, slithering our way out the Gorge on I-84 shortly before they closed it down.

The rest of the week (while we were in Montana) Portland was immobilized by unprecedented snow and we heard nothing from Kaiser.

We spent two days driving back slowly across snowy Montana, Idaho, and Washington but were lucky to hit a warm rainy Sunday in eastern Oregon and made it home without incident.  (Except one spectacular and awful moment when a hawk in pursuit of a small bird slammed into the side of our car and broke its neck.)

Monday Val was scheduled for treatment (infusion of the two drugs she’s still on) and we were to meet with the doctor at 8:00.  TerriSue, bless her heart, called at 7:00 to say the scan results were fine.

But when we met with the oncologist, the numbers she gave us were perplexing.  I don’t have them to hand now, but basically she said that Val’s main tumor had shrunk significantly since the September scan, the larger dimension going from 6 point something to 4 point something.

But wait, said Val.  What about the extra scan in October?  [The one associated with our emergency room visit.]  I thought the main tumor was at 3 point something?

Oh.  Said the doctor.  Now that’s odd.  You’re right.  If those numbers are correct [an unsettling remark to begin with – “if” the numbers are correct?] then that would indicate renewed growth.  Hmm.  That seems odd.

Yes, odd would be one way to put it.  So would terrifying.  Stomach-plummeting.  Cold-sweat-inducing.

I think, said the doctor, what we’re seeing is a discrepancy in the way the scans are read.  I suspect it has to do with what parameters were set by the different radiologists reading the scans – did they include the lymph node or leave it out?  Where did they place the cursor?  That sort of thing.  Hang on…

To her credit, the doctor pursued clarity immediately, and I’m sure the hour and a half we waited for word from the radiologists seemed shorter to her than it did to us.  Meanwhile TerriSue explained that if the tumor showed signs of “progression” (growth), and if it had increased as much as 20% since the October scan, then Val would not be able to continue with the Apomab trial.  Instead she would be released from the trial immediately so the oncologists could proceed with chemo or other aggressive treatment.

We sat in the waiting room surrounded by people in head scarves, waiting for word.  I dumped out the pieces of a new puzzle and pushed them around.  Val sat in the rocking chair nearby and held on to her coffee mug.  We stared at one another and listened to time pass.

And then at 10:00 TerriSue wove her way through the room, knelt at our sides with her clipboard and said, It’s okay, it’s fine, you’re cleared for treatment, let’s get you started.

So we joined the ranks in the chemo ward, and they stuck a needle in Val’s arm and started pushing fluids into her.  Which was a good sign, as these things go, but we remained unsettled and wondering: is the tumor halted?  Is it growing, but just not by 20%?  Is it shrinking?

In the late afternoon, when we got home, Val emailed our questions to the oncologist, who replied promptly just before 6pm with the first clear information of the day:

“The radiologist reviewed things w/ me over the phone and firmly believes the main lesion, target # 1, is continuing to show regression. It was, as I suspected, that different radiologists are measuring things differently in that sometimes the mass and the lymph nodes are measured together and sometimes not…
Bottom Line: Very good news!”

She signed it, Cheers.

So we are scraping ourselves off the floor and trying to absorb the apparent fact that the news is truly good:  The tumor continues to shrink.  Val’s health continues to improve.  She continues to receive infusions every three weeks.  We continue our dance with anxiety.  Friends continue to rescue us with Thai food.  We have some truly fascinating conversations about the mind-bending lovely exasperating life we find ourselves living.

And here comes a new year.  L’chaim!

Deborah