Cancer and Coals

This is a quick update. I still look to the hills for my help. Nothing new there.

When I received the news about my cancer not showing up on the PET scan the nurse who shared that news wasn’t as excited about the information as I thought she should have been. So, last week I called her and asked her about it.

“Why, if the scan showed no cancer, weren’t you excited about telling me the news?”

She said the scan shows cancer activity, not cancer presence. The scan lights up places in your body where there is activity. If the cancer is active, it shows up. If it isn’t, it doesn’t.

So, I asked, “Are you saying that the cancer that was there last year could, and probably still is, all there? It just isn’t active?” “Right,” she said.

“What is it doing if it isn’t active?” She said, “It was like if your house catches on fire and the water knocks the flames down, but there are still very live coals hiding underneath things…waiting. Eventually, the water will stop, and the coals will light everything back up.”

So, I asked the next question, “So that’s why I need to continue to take the medication for the rest of my life?” “Yes,” She said, “But also, the cancer will eventually get around the medication so that it will become ineffective. And then, without other treatments, you will die from the cancer.”

I asked her how long that will take. She said she knew of lots of cases where it took several years. I asked if she also knew of cases where it didn’t take nearly that long. “Yes,” was her answer.

This explains why the doctor in Spokane was so interested in starting another kind of treatment in September or shortly thereafter. He mentioned immunotherapy and a different kind of scan called a PSMA PET/CT scan, which is much more accurate than the PET scan I had last month. He also mentioned again that there are a lot of trials being run that have shown very positive results.

So, I’m not cured. The cancer is still there. It’s just snoozing. Snoozing is good.

The side effects are increasing, more tiredness, pain in my hip and back are more consistent and intense, less desire to do anything, and even a bit more emotional.

But God is good, and his grace is sufficient. I’m having a good time overall but when I’m not, it lets me see how things go with folks who suffer as a way of life. Although that is actually me, I just keep thinking that someday things will go back to “normal.” I know it won’t. But glory is something to keep in the cross hairs. And this helps that.

Image by diddi4 from Pixabay