Back to business

Yesterday I returned to Hopkins as an outpatient following my mini-hiatus for the holidays. This was to be a basic check of my blood counts though there was thought that I would need platelets while I was there.

As it turns out I did not need platelets yet. My white blood cells are back on line and the reds are holding steady in the low-but-unremarkable range. I was sent home after about 1 or 1.5 hours!

My next trip to Hopkins is Monday. If all goes well I will have my follow up bone marrow biopsy and, I believe, a follow up CT Scan to check the current progress of my treatment regimen. This sets up my first "Envelope" Day for some undetermined date following the analysis of these tests. I must say I'm already anxious about it. Will the news be good as I suspect it will be? Will the bone marrow be responding more slowly than the lymph nodes have been? What if the news isn't good at all?

Many questions will be answered by these tests and, in my experience, plenty of others will be generated in their place. I've come to realize that there are many unknowns with cancer. There isn't a path that cancer patients all travel. First, we start with a common diagnosis and based on our specific type of cancer a treatment plan is devised using the current literature and thinking of the medical community. From there, everything, the treatment plan, the patient, the family, the medical team all need to be prepared for a bit of a roller coaster ride as treatments and processes and timings change with the patient's response to treatment.

I suppose the roller coaster analogy can be extended to include my earlier "Unremarkable" post. My goal, and perhaps the goal of most treatment plans, is to have a pretty boring roller coaster ride. We all get that first hill to climb as we learn of our diagnosis but after that the drop may be steep or short, the twists may jar you a bit, or be fairly smooth, or even non-existent. Other hills on the ride? Perhaps, perhaps not. Corkscrews, loops and any other roller coaster mechanism for turning a cancer patient upside down is to be avoided but can be dealt with. The only problem with this analogy is that roller coaster riders are looking for thrills. Cancer patients are thrilled with the absence of thrills. The roller coaster rider in me is bored by the ride I'm on while the cancer patient in me has both hands in the air and is hollering at the top of his lungs. One thing they can agree on, however, is that neither want to ride this ride again.

--Russ.