Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Cancer--My New Full-Time Job

I thought I was a busy person in my BC (before cancer) days, but honestly, cancer is a full-time job for those of us taking a proactive approach to our cancer treatment. I spend so much of my time these days doing research via the internet, reading books relating to cancer treatments and nutrition, planning and cooking healthy meals, concentrating on getting proper exercise and vitamin D (either via a vitamin D lamp or natural sunshine), relaxing, getting proper sleep, going to Dr. appointments, getting blood work done, getting PET/CT scans, working in my garden to grow even more organic produce than I did previously...the list goes on. Just preparing my breakfast takes approximately 20 minutes out of every single morning. Gone are the days of dumping cereal into a bowl and sloshing milk over it.

As mentioned in my previous post, I had a PET/CT scan performed on May 2. I'm horrible at explaining technical things, but Patti over at Mom's Story
gives a wonderful explanation of it all. If you want to know the hows, whys and whats of a PET/CT, check out her post.

Anyway, my blood work, according to Dr. J, looks great. He also stated that my PET/CT looks good. The PET/CT report states that there's "marked increased activity within the right lower pelvis which appears to correspond to the right ovary. This could be related to a recently ruptured follicle or follicular activity. There is otherwise no abnormal activity from vertex to midthighs to suggest recurrent or residual lymphoma. A right axillary lymph node and several mesenteric lymph nodes are all relatively stable..." This is all good news, however a repeat PET/CT is recommended in 6 months time "as a precautionary measure" to keep an eye on that activity in the lower right pelvis.

The friend in California with melanoma that I mentioned in my last post sadly died on May 10. He was an amazing person.

Take care of yourselves folks!

2 comments:

  1. hi there and thanks for your posts to my blogs -

    if you want to go back to the beginning, i started my blog in november of 2007 and became cancer free in february of 2008. I still write on my blog because of getting posts like yours and I also have a rare type of lymphoma called Burkitt's. More about that later.

    How is the virgin coconut oil working for you? it tastes really good to bake chicken with, but i like the taste of coconut already. you can also use it to massage areas before bed that may be painful.

    When do you plan to start treatment? I don't know your e-mail, so I'm going to give you mine... I would love to hear from you. My name is Brad and my email is hibrad@me.com.

    Just based on the fact that you mentioned Hershey Medical Center makes me think you must live somewhere around where I grew up. I was born and raised in Ephrata, PA (Lancaster County) but moved to NYC in 1987 after high school.

    I was first diagnosed with NH Lymphoma in 1996, this past fight was my third fight with cancer.

    I have my good days and days where I turn paranoid of every ache and pain. Know you are surrounded by people who love you and there is so much hope. Reaching out to other survivors has really given me a strong network of people who I can really relate to.

    We may not have the same type of cancer, but I am a good listener and have learned alot through my experiences and would love to hear from you.

    Cheers and hope to hear from you,
    Brad
    hibrad@me.com
    www.cancerisboring.com

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  2. My father has Lueukemia (sp) and they say it is untreatable, I hope that they have a breakthrough with treatment for you and soon.

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