Surviving Two Cancers – Page 11 – Couldausedanotherday

Road Trip

Diane and I got home Friday morning just as the sun was rising. Thursday late evening we decided to keep driving instead of finding a bed for the night.

We were on a road trip to do a little living while things are good. A couple more days in southern California would have been nice, but it felt good to head home.

In Anaheim we drove past the apartment building where we lived forty years ago. FORTY YEARS?! Yes, forty years and twenty pounds ago. We found and ate dinner in the restaurant where I proposed.

We looked something like this when I proposed

It wasn’t as nice as we remember. It wasn’t the same building, it wasn’t even in the same town, but it was still Don the Beach Comber’s.

We reunited with some old and dear friends, even Disneyland felt like an old friend. Napping on Laguna Beach felt warm and relaxing, and the Sawdust Festival and the Art Festival were fascinating.

*What happens when someone leaves the keys in their car*

There was some really beautiful artwork there, but you can also take the silliest notion, put it on a clean white background, frame it and call it art (someone will apparently pay a lot of money for it).

The Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters was pretty amazing. I wish they would allow non-flash photography (as opposed to NO PHOTOGRAPHY).

Diane had tickets to a taping of THE PRICE IS RIGHT Thursday morning. She got on the laptop to verify things and discovered that taping had been cancelled so we slept in and left at check out time.

The doctor’s office called my cell phone Thursday on the drive home; my first contact since the bone marrow biopsy. I have an appointment Monday at 2:pm.

No Bad News Is Just Like Good News

My Aunt Florene called to say my 99 year old Aunt Emma has recovered enough from her broken hip to return home. Most old folks going home from the care home are probably going to their eternal home, not back to S. River Street. Good for you, Aunt Em.

I called my Oncologist today to hear my test results. She said the full skeletal survey looked good, no tumors found (every time I feel a tweak in my back now I wonder if it’s a tumor). The MRI showed a severe compression fracture @T8 – but no change from the last MRI.

The 24 hour urine test shows some protein, but she didn’t sound concerned. She said to wait for bone marrow biopsy at the end of June, which will tell the real story.

My three Canfield brothers each called today to tell me our dad died. He was 80 years old, living (dying) in the Philippines. I don’t remember him as a dad; he and my mother divorced when I was three years old.

I knew who he was, I would see him now and then, but I got to know him as an adult when I worked in his cabinet shop after Diane and I were married.

It was odd to be daily in the company of a stranger who was my father. I’m glad I got to spend time with him, and got to know him some..

One Test Brings More

The good news is: I get to officially raise my lifting limit from 10 lbs to 25. I hoped to turn that authorization letter in at work, impressing everyone with my advancing improvement, but that is balanced against the bad news my Oncologist called with today. My Spep is now 1.2, a very small increase, but a continued increase.

I’m on the calendar for another MRI. My Oncologist also wants another skeletal survey to see if there are more tumors under construction, and on June 29th, another bone marrow biopsy.

That procedure is a top contender for the most pain I have felt, so I asked for this one to be done under sedation. This biopsy will determine if its time to begin treatment, or if there’s more precious time to continue smoldering.

*This is me heading home after a minor disturbance at a local establishment. Okay, not really.*

The officer in the reflection was on my volley ball team. She stopped in her patrol car one day when she spotted me walking home from work. She needed to ask about our game schedule. When she got out of the car, I asked, “Please, Please, can I put my hands in the air and lean against the cruiser?” If you do, she answered, I’ll have to put you in the back seat!

The Grand Canyon

I think my family thought seeing the Grand Canyon was on my bucket list. I don’t really have a bucket list; I do have an unfinished projects list.

Diane and I, Grandma and our friend, Judy met our younger son, Robin and wife Aubrie in Las Vegas. That place is a smoker’s paradise! You don’t even have to light up to smoke a cigarette.

We rented a van and drove to the south rim. Robin and Aubrie’s friends, Kampie, and Philipp joined us there. The canyon was awesome. “Grand” is quite an understatement. It was a beautiful sight, and a real bonus there was the night sky. I’m glad we got to do that.

Over several weeks, I had been noticing my kidneys. I’m not usually aware of my kidneys, but I was experiencing an increasing awareness to the point one day of borderline discomfort. I called my oncologist. She said to bring in a urine sample. I did and it turned out to be nothing.

Maybe it was psychosomatic because I know this cancer can affect your kidneys, and also, once you’ve had cancer, every little bump and gurgle may be indicating another cancer.

I should have stuck with “plan A,” wait the weekend and see how I feel before calling anyone. I did ask the doc if we could increase my lifting limit at work, its ten pounds. If we doubled it, I would appear to be making progress. She said ask the neurologist, he said “Come and see me.” At least the ball is rolling.