Scanned

Yesterday I went for a CT scan, one of what will be a series of alternating PET and CT scans every three months. The CT scan shows better size and location resolution, while the PET is better at picking up tumor activity. It will be a few days before the results come back, probably. 

I've been saying "I'll think about that after my scan" to myself a lot lately. A good result of the CT scan would be "stable disease," which would mean that the cancer has not started progressing since I stopped chemo. And that in turn would mean that I might get a decent spell of what they call "progression-free survival" in which to do things, live life, and envision a future. If the result is not so good, it may mean that more chemo will dominate my near future.

Meanwhile, last week's tests all came back negative except for the blood test that said I had elevated cortisol levels. All that means, I think, is that being sick for most of a week had stressed me out! However, I continue to do much better back on the anti-nausea medication, which has the added benefit of being an appetite stimulant and thus helps me keep up my caloric intake. I can't say that I feel all that well, though—I tire very easily, for one thing.

In between spells of illness and fatigue I've tried to do some things out in the garden. My peach tree is yielding lots of peaches, though we have to cut worms (actually larval plum curculios, Conotrachelus nenuphar) out of most of them before we eat them. (At least the peaches are organically grown! Next year I might resort to pesticides.) In more pest news, this morning I seem to have gotten myself into a nest of ticks. I felt a slight tickle and looked down to find a whole swarm of nearly microscopic baby ticks crawling up my arm. At least the littlest ones don't carry diseases (I think), as they have not yet had a chance to bite anything that carries a disease. But it was an unpleasant experience nonetheless!

The first year of a good peach harvest. 

For those who have kindly asked about my tooth, it's been a situation of no big news. Neither the dentist nor the endodontist could find anything structurally wrong with it. The endodontist gave me a short course of a steroid medication to see if that would reduce the inflammation in the nerve. It did not do anything dramatic, though it might have helped a bit. The pain has lessened gradually over the weeks, however, and now it doesn't bother me all that much unless I eat something cold. Even so I am now able to eat some refrigerated foods again. I have yet to dare frozen food again, however: the summer is progressing, and I haven't been able to eat ice cream for over a month!