Black Friday...

I was a good candidate for a trial that is being done at OSU by my oncologist. She is adding a new drug to the usual chemo cocktail for this type of cancer. I wanted in - not only because I want an extra advantage over this if it works - but I learned from watching Scott at the Cleveland Clinic a few years ago that you get *really*good*care* if you are accepted into a study or trial.

I needed a bone scan to ensure that my cancer was not advanced beyond beginning Stage 3 - otherwise if I were staged later I would be kicked to the curb with the study and tossed back into the usual "standard of care treatment". Which is not bad - especially at the James Cancer Center - but I am a little alarmed at the speed of this thing and when I heard there was a trial to help curb that nano-speed reproduction of bad cells, I wanted it. Badly.

Dr. Bauer, my oncologist "fellow", had explained the cancer cell growth pattern - you start with two cells and the next day you have four.. Except now I had 500,000 which means the next day I have 1 million -- and you do the math - within one week I can have the whole freakin population of China snugly fit under my left arm with Chairman Mao overseeing ever-living devastation in my lymph chain system.....

So I say it again - I wanted in.....

The bone scan was Friday at 1:30, and by the time they were done it was later in the afternoon. We decided to stop on the way home and tell my 90 year old mother about this cancer - who I was hoping I would not have to tell any of this to, because she is 90 - and while there I got the call at 4:30, Friday afternoon - when all special tests are shut down tight for the weekend - that there were 2 spots on my bone scan that needed a followup MRI. One spot was on the spine, one was on my "5th finger".... hmmm... I grasped at the 5th finger idea as I knew that was pretty ridiculous, and if that was ridiculous then so must be the spine spot.

Not so.

Long story short, my new BFF, the trial-scheduler-nurse Julie called soon after and apologized for the sequence of events and how I had found out - she could hear that I had been crying - but said it could be one of three things: arthritis, degenerative disc disease or, of course, cancer.

My "hope" meter was low on this spine spot thing. Nothing with this whole thing has stopped where I had wanted it to stop - an ultrasound showing a lump in your breast came with an add-on lump in your arm pit. And knowing enough to just be dangerous - I instantly knew if it was on my spine, it was more than likely in my organs.

I.was.devastated. Throughout all of this I had clung to some hope - the fact that I could make it through this with my life was one of them. In a flash - that hope was crumbled.

I wept. And I wept. The whole way home. Scott just drove and patted my back, but I could not come out from under the blanket of despair that had been thrown over me....

With a nice little pill, Scott put me to bed and I finally slept. I could feel him hovering over me at times, praying. I didn't wake up until 3am.

I woke with a peace and knowledge that God had touched me - my fear was gone. What that meant, I didn't know, I just knew that whatever the outcome, God was close-by.

We had to wait until Monday's MRI to determine if it was a cancer spot or other and when BFF Julie called, I could hear it immediately in her voice - it was degenerative disc disease.

My levels of what we call blessings in this life are dramatically and quickly changing.

Big out-let of breath.