Friday, April 02, 2010

Scan results ( Brivanib, the second year)

Stable but with possible growth of a mm to one nodule and 2mm to another. I was not too thrilled with that but my Onc was not concerned and was questioning how the radiologist could even say that as there is a 2mm deviation on CT scans due to respiration (took a deeper breath) and the CT scanner takes pictures at 2mm intervals. Because I'm on a clinical trial, he mentioned this. If I were a regular patient on a regular mainstream chemo, 1-2mm of growth would not even be mentioned as cancer usually grows a lot faster than that. In the past 15 months, the big nodule grew 2mm POSSIBLY. That is almost the rate of growth of a benign lesion sooooo, I wait for 3 months for the re-scan. My Oncologist said not to lose any sleep over it and my clinical trial nurse asserted it looked to him to be air and not to worry. SOOO...there is hope that these &*)*)& haven't really started growing again.
Things are on hold at ol Ma Bell. I uploaded a resume onto our career website and do check it daily for something I might be interested in doing. If I am forced into this then I want to be picky about my next step. Five years ago, I would have taken anything. Today, I am looking for quality. I don't want any old job just to have a job. I want a job that well, I want. For now, I'm doing my job until I hand it over to the overseas group. I still don't know who will get my government account as that cannot be done overseas but, we'll figure that out.

Emily starts Tee ball tonight. She was angry at me at first for signing her up. Baseball is for boys, she said. Today, she is excited and excessively irritating about when she gets to start. I think her new pink tee ball bat and pink cleats sparked her interest. Today, we get her a mitt and she is insisting she wants baseball socks. She will be playing for the White Sox BOOOO! So far, neither Kris nor Cass ever played for the Hanover Park Cub's teams dagnabit. Emily's father might be thrilled but in a house full of Cub's fans, I guess we'll just have grin and bear the offending uniform.
A couple weeks ago, I took some time and watched "Passion of the Christ" and I cried through the whole thing. I read the reviews of the movie and thought that many missed the point. They focused on the violence and only on the violence, called it violent pornography. Well of course crucifying someone is VIOLENT.. DUHHHH! The movie was about the SUFFERING. I say SUFFERING in capital letters because there is a big difference between SUFFERING like that and suffering with let's say a cold. It wasn't easy to make that choice to SUFFER. But, this man did. He, Son of GOD, also questioned WHY? Couldn't this have been done a different way? Why this unimaginable SUFFERING? Before He was taken into custody, He begged God not to have to do this but He did, took on the cross and carried it. I had to look away from the screen a few times. All I could think was WOW. Just WOW! And Mary, His mom, watched the whole thing. WOW! That must have been so excruciatingly difficult. She could have said no to all of this. Jesus could have said no to all of this. They didn't. Sometimes, we are called to do things that are hugely difficult. But even through this Passion of such HUGE SUFFERING, little bits of the compassionate God shined through. Why would it not for those of us dealing with our own suffering? Have a very HAPPY EASTER everyone. And to Sue, a blessed Passover. Many upheavals in many lives during this time of renewal. I hope that these upheavals will lead to a new and better life.

No comments: