7-21-09 And We Start Again

I had a regular 3 month checkup with my oncologist this morning. Dr. Brooks is the one who always tells me that I am BORING. I did the blood test stuff and sat in the little exam room waiting for him. After much waiting, Dr. Brooks opens the door and asks how I am. I told him that I was great! To which he said, "Well, what's the deal with your liver counts if you're great?" That's when I heard the proverbial other shoe hit the floor. He showed me my blood test results. My ALKPHOS (translated liver) is at 502, with the normal range being 25 to 150. For the previous 4 tests it has been at 139/129/141/134, so that was a red flag to him.

He asked all the questions: Have you been around anyone with hepatitis? been sick? started new medicine? No, no, no. Then I remembered a little 'catch' I've had the last 2 weeks in my right side, so I told him about that. He examined me and poked especially up and under my right ribs. Ouch! yes, that was tender. Dr. Brooks immediately left the room and went to order a CT-scan to see what's going on inside me.

His nurse came in and put a syringe thingy in the top of my left hand and brought me two tall glasses of that barium junk to drink in the next hour. They were squeezing me in between 11 and noon. The barium settles where the cancer is and lets them see it, as was explained to me, from the top of your head downward. His nurse then walks me down to the CT-scan place.

Everything was going just fine until the CT-scan tech has to give me the COLD dye stuff through the syringe in my left hand. When he did that, I yelled because he hurt me!!! He apologized profusely and said that the line came apart on him. The top of my hand is still swelled up from that damage. Hope they don't have to do that again tomorrow. . . . I'm not supposed to have any blood drawn or anything on my right arm because of the mastectomy.

About 4 p.m. Dr. Brooks called with the results of the CT-scan and told me that it looks like the breast cancer is back, that there are multiple large tumors in my liver. To be absolutely sure that's what kind of cancer it is, we're doing a biopsy tomorrow at Medical Center. David & I have to be there at 9:30 and the biopsy is at 11. I don't know the time frame we're looking at for the results. Dr. Brooks told me that whatever it is wasn't there on April 29th when I saw him last and now it is huge, which is exactly how my breast cancer was. So it is almost 100% sure that it's the breast cancer again, that has travelled to my liver. He said that from there he will decide what treatments we need, that he will be very aggressive with the treatment.

Emotions of all kinds have ran through my head since this morning. Fear---of the known and the unknown. But also strength that I've done this once and I can do this again. Regardless of what we face, God is always there to carry us in His hands. One of my favorite quotes from my last treatment was from Sir Winston Churchill:

Success is not final, failure is not fatal.
It is the courage to continue that counts.

I pray that God will give me the courage to continue.