The One Where I Get to Post Good News

Apologies to those of you who aren’t on social media and haven’t heard the good news from my scans (yes, I said GOOD news!) – the tumors in my liver are gone! Gone! I can scarcely believe it. In my almost-seven years of treatment, I have never gotten news that anything disappeared. I have gotten lots of reports that nothing has grown (they call that “stable disease”), but never has anything gone away.

You may remember from previous posts that having my cancer spread from my bones to my liver was a big deal. Bone mets (short for metastases, meaning tumors in my bones) are painful. They can cause bones to crumble, collapse, or crack; I have several fractures in various parts of my spine, pelvis, and ribs. I spend a good deal of time managing pain from these fractures (more on that to come in a future post). But bone mets don’t actually kill you.

Metastatic cancer kills you when it spreads to an organ and inhibits its function to the point of shutting down. In breast cancer, the spread is usually to the liver, lungs, and/or brain. So the news I got six months ago – that my cancer had moved into my liver – was really hard. And the most recent news – that these tumors are gone – is almost unbelievable! 

What a miracle! All praise to Him from whom all blessings flow, the Giver of every good and perfect gift. I can exhale a little now, shelve the anxiety for another three months, until my next scan. I’m not cured, and I’m not healed. But I live to die another day.