To my Family and Friends at CVO,
I am amazed how quickly this year seeks the New Year ahead. And yet, it's so strange that the path Sue and I are walking has developed a skip or a loop that keeps bringing us back to the fork in the road that started this bumpier path we find our selves on now. It's been a little bit of time since my last update, sorry, but the truth is, I've been holding out for better news. Oh well, so goes the wait. This busy old world really is a hard place to (learn to) wait. I've always been a, (as I put it, A Spaz-o-matic) kind of, Let's get it done, Let's Go, or at least, Making the Plans for the Next Road Trip. It's so different now, I only seem to have plans for the days that contain Doctors appointments, or Lab Tests, or some kind of scan or another. My last few appointments have been in the Oncology, Chemo-Therapy or Radiation Department. As I sit there and wait, I notice all the new faces that are my fellow waiting room adventurers. Many of those folks that are a perfect mixture of race, creed, color and age show their own kind or type of battle scars and wounds that they have endured during their own private war against their own private enemy. Some show that they are new on the roster and are now up for the battle that lies more ahead than behind. All seem so quiet and still, some have companions and some alone. All clearly show by the brightness of their eyes that they are alive still and nothing less than who they are and have been since the start of their battles. Some are reading, but not books or periodicals, mostly their own clinical paperwork or reports. Nearly none look around at others and nearly no eye contact one to another. On those brief eye to eye, the look away is the only thing that goes fast in this waiting mode that I'm sure is at time is as big an enemy as the beast we all fight. What I have been brought to and yet still only understand slightly is that during the hour to hour and a half that I've spent in this type waiting room in my past 3 visits, is that every chair is full and as one person is called that chair is in turn filled again by another example of the suffering that goes on every minute of every day in every such waiting room. This war is much wider than I every really knew. And like any war, there is those that are KIA's (killed in action), MIA's (missing in action), POW's (prisoners of war) and also Those that make it home have their variations as well. Of those that make it home, some show or not the scars, wounds and disabilities they continue to endure while they wait for follow up appointments to see if life has given them a pass until the anticipation of the next check up builds it's pressure for the waiting for those results of the newest tests that were scheduled. The hope is for good news or at least better news. For some it is better news and there are those that have to start all over or the news isn't even that good, but rather the news comes that there is nothing more that can be done. But still, there are those that are told that they have won the war and a cure has been achieved, Oh happy days!! But wouldn't know, this old world won't let you enjoy those days fully either, it seems that with the best of news comes a nagging fact that have been given the name, (Survival Guilt).
I am still waiting for the Vermont VA Hospital appointment with the Chemo department, I'll know on the 29Th of this month if the VA has a different verdict for me as far as chemo goes. For now it's still to early to know just where I'll be in this lineup. But at this point with the re-hashing that the Tumor Board did with my case this last Tuesday it doesn't look as though I will have any changing news any time soon. As it turns out that Tumor Board is with the same group of specialists that said that they wouldn't operate on me. So, with that in mind, I can still have hope that when the Boston VA Hospital finally calls with an appoint for me to see their Radiation Department I might have a different outcome than the Hitchcock Hospital had to offer, which is really no offer at all. If the offers are different, I'll have to ask how it could be, and what is it based on, something new or the same stats that have been shown to me right along? The truth that I have to understand is that my cancer Thymic Carcinoma is so rare that there really isn't any test book charts to refer to or follow. In fact, all the statistics are based on a 29 person study done on 29 people with Thymus Cancer. Thymus Cancer has 2 types of cancer, Thynoma and Thy mic Carcinoma. In America there is only 500 to 700 people a year that get Thymus Cancer and of those only 1% get Thymic Carcinoma. That really means that I should have bought a PowerBall ticket the same day I was diaognosed. lol
I asked a simple question of the many specialists that I have seen in the past several weeks. None would give me and answer. My simple question was; When or where is the line crossed from simply being depressed after recieving depessing news such as my diaognosis, and that sinple feeling of being depressed has stepped into the level of full depression? Well, finally I was given an answer. LOL, Now, I said I was finally given an answer, I'm not sure at all that it is "THE" answer. LOL But, anyway, the answer I was given is, If you have a bottle of pills and the typed instruction on the lable says, "take 2 pills twice a day for depression", Well you have depression. LOL, That sounds more like a Jeff Foxworthy stand up than an answer I'd expect from a Doctor. But for now this funny train chugs along.
I'l write again latter.
You and yours, Have the Merriest of Christmas and the Happiest New Year Ever
love,
Dad, Sam chappy
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Topic: I might be down, but I'm not out! (Read 249516 times)