The Results are IN!

Well, the wait is finally over. There's good news. Amazing news. So here it is: Chemotherapy has worked. There is necrotic tissue on the lymph nodes shown in the CT scan. The tumor shrank significantly, as well. What are the next steps? Where do we go from here on this roller coaster ride? Well, I'll tell you.

Surgery is scheduled for July 2nd since the rest of June is pretty busy for us right now. They are hoping to do everything laparoscopically, like they did for my partial hysterectomy. However, there are risks in doing it this way. From what my oncologist said that were the lymph nodes that were infected nodules are, it's risky. The Lymph Nodes are literally smaller than one's fingernail, but that's not the difficult part. Where the nodes are, I have other organs in the way. So they may need to make a bigger incision. Now, depending on how big the incision is, I may have a hospital stay. If I stay in the hospital, it could be anywhere from three to ten days there. Which I wouldn't be happy about. We haven't told the kids yet; I'm afraid to. If I don't come home, I'm disrupting the entire household. There will be chaos ensued by four children. There will be crying and whining, and I apologize to my family in advance. Whenever I get home, there will be a four to eight-week healing period. No lifting, no rough housing, and being escorted again for a bit. It hurts my pride that I won't be able to help during this time period. I'm also missing the remainder of Summer. Gone, in the blink of an eye. I won't be able to do much, and it hurts my soul. I wanted to do fun things this summer, but it doesn't seem like that'll be happening. I hope the kids can still have fun without me. I hope that they can forgive me one day.

The next step is to do a PET scan to see if there are any trace amounts of cancer left. This will be on a microscopic level. If he gets everything out, there is still a possibility that there may be fragments left over. This will give us insight if there is still cancer or not. From there, the next step will be radiation. Now I'm not sure a hundred percent if radiation will be a thing if there isn't cancer. However, it is my understanding that it will happen anyway. Once you cut into cancer, it can spread like wildfire on the inside. It's another risk of having surgery. So to keep that from happening, radiation will start. It'll be every day for about twenty minutes to a half an hour. That will put a strain on the car and gas; I'm not looking forward to that bit at all.

The anxiety, I thought, was quelled on this news. However, I was wrong. When I received the news, it hadn't hit me. However, at 3 am last night (June 10th into the 11th), it hit me like a brick wall. I was so riddled with anxiety that I actually threw up. It took over an hour to get out of the anxiety monster, and it came back today. I have a feeling I'll be riding the anxiety roller coaster until after radiation. I've never had anxiety this bad before. I don't know how to handle it. The next few weeks, I need to be calm and collected. I cannot afford to get sick because of the anxiety.

I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, I believe. I'm hoping by New Year's, that this horrible nightmare comes to an end.