Cancer day, all day tomorrow...

Tomorrow is another one of "those" days that all cancer patients dread. Tomorrow I'll have my usual battery of scans and tests to evaluate how my cancer is progressing ... well, hopefully NOT progressing. For the last 3 years, I've had a chest x-ray; CT scan of the chest, abdomen & pelvis; bone scan and multiple blood tests every 3-4 months. If the cancer doesn't kill me, surely the radiation will! Once, my doctor allowed me to stretch the interval between scans to 6 months because of my encouraging results. As (un)luck would have it, something questionable showed up on one lung, so my next scans were moved back to 4 months instead of 6 months. So here I am at the end of that 4-month stretch.

As any cancer patient can attest, these days are not fun. They are long and unpleasant with long periods of waiting. If the department is running behind, the waiting can be even longer. You're not allowed to eat for 3 hours prior to the CT scan, but you must drink the barium contrast which is a fruit-flavored chalky liquid -- lots of it! You get injected with a radioactive substance, then later you get injected with an iodine-based contrast. Oh and at the same time you get the contrast, you also get a barium enema. Doesn't it sound like a blast??

For the most part, I have "good" test days, which for me means (1)they only had to stick me once to get my IV, and (2)everything runs pretty much on time. But I have had a few "bad" test days, which involves multiple needlesticks and excruciatingly long waits. Long waits while Kim has not eaten in several hours does not make Kim a happy camper! This is quite the understatement!

Hopefully tomorrow will be one of the good days!

Thanks for reading ...