Monday, Fun Day

Monday was “scan day,” that much-anticipated day where I get to spend most of the day at the cancer center, hungry and thirsty, until the time comes to drink the cups of CT contrast – and it suddenly seems like I can’t swallow even one. more. sip. The contrast is made slightly better by the addition of fruit punch flavoring (although doesn’t all that red food dye cause cancer? Do they think I'm a lost cause now?). After this comes the spa-like treatments, where you get to take a couple short naps while lying on various machines, most often covered in a warm blanket. You would think this all-day getaway would be relaxing, but all that sitting, swallowing, and reposing can really wear a girl out. Or maybe it’s the jet lag.

You may remember that we were waiting on these scans to determine exactly what’s been going on with the new pain I’ve been having just to the left of my original fracture in my T3 vertebrae. The MRI I had done in January showed something that looked like a crack in my fourth left rib, but we needed a CT to know for sure what’s going on. And Monday’s CT confirmed what we suspected: it’s a new fracture and a new spot that lit up on the bone scan. The radiologist’s report for the CT says there’s a “new nondisplaced pathologic fracture,” although it also noted that it is now a “healing fracture.” I like the sound of “healing” and I have definitely had less pain since we treated the spot with radiation, even while doing some heavy-duty traveling, so I think we'll call this go-round a win, especially since no other spots were identified.

A win. Huh. Who would have thought I’d be happy to only have two bones affected by metastatic breast cancer? Funny how your perspective can change…