When I was dying...

I've been meaning to write this post for awhile. But it's a hard one. Hard to think about and hard to talk about.

Last summer I was sick. So sick I was in the hospital for a month and then in a live-in physical therapy center for awhile after. At various points my friends thought I might not make it. My doctor thought I might not make it. Even I thought I might not pull through. But I thought we'd done an okay job conveying to Brynn that while I *was* very sick, the doctors and I were fighting very hard to get me better.

None of my friends took a picture of me during that time. I think that's one small way of knowing they're good friends. Jason Isbell sings a song with the lyric "One thing that's real clear to me, no one dies with dignity." And it's true. When your body gives out on you, it's ugly and shameful and very, very undignified.

At first I'd tried to ban my friends (and especially The Boyfriend) from coming to see me. The doctors had catheterized me and I was peeing in a bag. I didn't want *anyone* to see. I was even ashamed in front of my nurses. But I kept getting worse and my friends knew that even though my pride might be hurt, I needed them there. So they came anyway.

They kept coming too. They watched over me and watched my stats. They watched me get worse and my muscles get so weak I had a hard time lifting a teaspoon. They told the nurses when something wasn't right.

And Brynn came to see me. We tried to time her visits to where I would be alert and able to communicate with her, but it didn't always work out that way. I was so sick.

And so when I found this picture on Brynn's iPod a couple of months ago, I asked when she'd taken it.

She'd labeled it "MY MOMMA"

I assumed she'd say "when Katie brought me to visit" or "the day Valerie and I went to TJ Maxx then came to see you." I was not prepared for her answer. She said "when you were dying."

Not when you were really sick. When you were dying.

Cancer is so hard on the person who is going through it, but it's just as hard on the people who love that person, if not harder.

Brynn has been through so much since I was diagnosed when she was just 7 years old. I've been sick for almost half of her life. Think how scary that is! All the uncertainty of thinking the one constant in your life, the person who takes care of you, is dying.

And in that moment, when she really thought she might not see me alive again, she took a picture. Because even though my friends wanted to preserve my waning sense of dignity, Brynn just wanted one last picture of her momma.

The In-Between Scan

For those of you who have been following along, you know my last PET/CT scan showed some new activity (a spot) and that I was going to have a follow-up CT in a month to see what's going on.

Well it's been a month!

I went Friday for my CT scan. They're a little different from a PET/CT. When you get the CT alone it's a much quicker process. Instead of getting the injection of radioactive sugar (like during the PET) they give you an injection of something that makes you feel warm all over. Your throat feels especially burn-y and you also feel like you've peed your pants. Luckily you don't *actually* pee yourself, but it sure feels like it for about 30 seconds.

I'm told that the solution they inject into your arm is heavier than blood and shows up a different color grey on the CT scan so they can differentiate your circulatory system from the rest of you. See, on a PET/CT the doctors see the results in color, based on how much of the radioactive sugar is absorbed by each part of my body (with cancer lighting up really brightly). On just a CT everything is in grey scale, so it's more difficult to decipher (at least for Hodgkin's).

At first the radiologist thought the spot looked like it was possibly bigger. That's what the report states (not that it *is* bigger, but that it might be bigger). Well Dr. Essell is not one for mights and maybes. He marched right down to the radiology department, found a radiologist whose competency he trusted, and together they looked at my last 4 scans side by side.

It seems this spot has actually been there for awhile, and it's been the same size each time. Since there is no growth, Dr. Essell says it is likely not cancer. We didn't discuss it at the office, but my guess is the spot didn't show up on previous PETs because it's not cancer and only showed up on this last PET because I was sick and the spot was aggravated. That's my (optimistic) guess.

But does any of this sound familiar to you guys? Do you remember another spot I had that showed up, but then didn't grow for awhile so we thought it was nothing to worry about? Well that spot eventually DID start growing and is what kicked off my second move from Florida to Kentucky and my second stem cell transplant.

So I'm a little skeptical about spots that show up but then don't grow. Call me jaded. I can't help it. I do not like spots. Even static ones that my doctor says not to worry about. Spots=bad.

That's my pessimistic interpretation (and the one I will not be able to extract from my heart and my dreams) for the next three months. Then we'll get another PET/CT and we'll see how that looks.

Don't get me wrong. This is *good* news. If this scan had confirmed a growing spot, or found new spots, we'd really know there was trouble. I'll take good news every time, even when I'd prefer no spots at all.