Results...

Today we received the results of my recent scan: Clean! No growth of the pancreatic tumor, and no spots showing up anywhere else...

It's the best possible outcome (though ANY other outcome would be the worst possible), and needless to say we are VERY pleased and relieved. The past week has been strange, I've been a bit numb as I awaited today's news, not worried so much as cautious, afraid to be too optimistic in case the worst was revealed...

The mental game is the hardest part of this new life I am leading... I feel healthy, I continue to follow pretty strict dietary and naturopathic practices, so I feel I am doing almost everything I can to fend this off.. but, I am not quite able to believe that I am cured.

So on we go... next scan late January!

Chainlink has been installed...

Yesterday I had my hernia fixed. Wire mesh was put both under and over the tear in my muscle, joined through the hole. I am now home recovering... and re-discovering the postures and sensations of my last operation...only this time the opiates are a little weaker and the pain a fair amount lower (in location).

I was able to put off the surgery till now, allowing me to get my classes to a place where my absence would be more manageable than those tender first few weeks of school.

So I'm putting in lots of sofa time, an ice pack in my lap, Vicodin in my belly and a stack of old Gourmet Magazines that I have been obsessively pouring over... salivating over recipes, 99% of which I can't eat. It's hard to explain, but I get some kind of perverse pleasure by reading about all these rich and currently restricted foods. I need my 5 year survival certificate before I can let some of that stuff slip back into my diet.

That's not to say that we don't eat well. We do. Flavorful, organic, fresh foods, whole grains... I just miss the richness of cheese and cream sauces, not to mention a little beer and wine... at least I don't really crave sugar, that used to be a BIG part of my diet...

My last visit to the Naturopath to discuss my treatment and go over the latest blood work, revealed that my uptake of some vitamins and one blood factor had fallen off a bit. That combined with unpleasant digestive issues I have been having since the operation in March led Dr. Belanger to suggest that my pancreas may not be aiding digestion fully after sustaining damage from radiation, and that I should look into taking a pancreatic enzyme through my primary care doctor. I've been taking that enzyme for 3 weeks with every meal and my digestion has returned to normal... our next meeting in a month will reveal if that was also responsible for the blood level issues.

I feel strongly that the diet and supplements I've been on though Dr Belanger has been key, in combination with conventional care and other approaches, to my still being around.

And I am very happy to have the naturopathic treatments continuing, as it gives me a structure to continue my healing now that conventional medicine has nothing more to offer me.

My next MGH body scan results meeting is scheduled for October 27...

School Starts...

After a quiet July that ended with a clean scan, I stepped into an August that was full of travel and activities... Monika and I spent a weekend in NYC for a friends thesis exhibit, then another weekend near the finger lakes for a photographers' gathering, before heading to NC for a week of friends and image making, then back home for a short camping trip before driving Lucas down to Goucher College... plus a couple of lovely weddings tossed in for good measure... I did more in the past month than I did collectively in the past year and a half...

Now school has started and the exciting routine of teenage chaos mixed with creativity has begun... It feels good to be back at my trade... All the events of the past year and a half have created a lot of grist to expand and inform my teaching.

Next week I'll see my naturapathic doctor to discuss results from recent blood tests and adjust my treatments accordingly. I'm still taking a daily bucketful of supplements so I'm hoping that the blood results show a continued payoff in my healing.

It turns out I have a hernia! For months I thought it was just some residual discomfort from the operation, but it turns out to be a hernia in my groin. October 1st I'll have outpatient surgery to repair it. They tell me I'll miss a week or two of work while I recover. I hope not. So now I have pre-op blood and EKG tests and an x-ray scheduled...

All these things serve to distract me until the end of October when scan #2 is scheduled...

Clean Scan

We met with my oncologist today and the scan looked good! The tumor is unchanged, and there is nothing new.

That is as good as it gets in my world... I feel relief and will stay the course till the next scan in another 3 months. My doctor wants me scanned every 3 months for the first year, then every 6 months after that for another year or so.

Apart from diet, exercise and naturoapathic supplements, I am trying to stay focussed on my mental game... it's difficult to embrace a "normal" life when I know that I am living very close to a precipice. This first clean scan, makes it easier to believe that I might just get through this... That's the plan.

The rest of the summer will be full of travel, picture making and family...

Taking the plunge...

I'll be getting my first scan early next week, and will get the results from my oncologist on Wednesday the 28th.

This will be my first contact with the world of MGH and my cancer team since the operation in March. I've enjoyed being in a sort of limbo, quietly enjoying the summer while having no contact or interactions with the medical world. I knew this first scan would be coming, but was able to keep direct thought of it somewhere off in the ether...

So here's my situation:

A. If the IORT operation was successful in killing all the malignant cells in my tumor AND I didn't have any metastatic cells floating around my body, then I'll have a clean scan and can rest easy for another six months till the next scan.

B. If I had metastatic cells and they have begun to grow in other organs they may show up in the scan. If so, I'll have few treatment options beyond more chemo, and I'll be in big trouble.

I'm hoping that all the work I've been doing with conventional and naturapathic treatments as well as diet and mind/body work will have kept the cancer isolated in my shrinking tumor, that it was killed by the IORT and the scans will bear that out.

They tell me that after 2 years of clean scans I can start to rest easy, and after 5 years they stop looking, since nobody with active pancreatic cancer lives for 5 years...

So this is scan #1...

Summer

The hectic last few weeks of school are over and the summer is here...

My plans are to hang with Monika and the kids as much as possible, to relax, and then make pictures as often as I can. We'll go camping at our favorite spot, take a road trip to NC for a week and a half, and otherwise walk the dog and hang in the garden.

I feel pretty good apart from some issues I'm having with back pain (a 10 yr condition that pre-dates the cancer), so things are pretty stable on the health front.

All eyes look ahead toward a September scan as I continue this process...

Until then I'll keep doing what I've been doing, trying to keep a balance between elements of my old life, and the rigors and self awareness of my "new" life.

Hopefully I won't have much to report as the summer unfolds, I know it's boring from a blog reading point of view, but I must say I cherish the fact that I've had almost nothing going on medically for so long...

Have a great summer!

One year down...

Today I turned 49. Birthdays generally haven't meant very much to me as I've never been bothered about getting older...

But as this is a birthday that I was not predicted to see, I'm happy to report that I'm still here, with no plans to leave. Now I can't take birthdays for granted so this one feels pretty good.

Soon school will be out for the year, and I'm grateful that I can spend the summer hanging with my family, making pictures, and taking a couple of road trips.....