Cancer Update

Julie had another full-body PET scan this week, and the results were negative - no cancerous cells anywhere. It's been about a year now since she finished her treatments; just four more to go until she is considered "cured". Which is really an aknowledgement that you've been cured the whole time, but we weren't sure until now. Very inconvenient system, but it's the best they've got. Of course, there's still about a 20-25% chance that there's still mutant cells somewhere in her body, just laying low until they decide to start making tumors again. And if they do, well, that would be really really bad. So, every few months we'll be going through this, worrying and scanning and then worrying more.

Unfortunately, not having any cancer doesn't mean she's free of the consequences. Between the cancerous lymph nodes being taken out and the scarring from the radiation, Julie gets a lot of swelling in her chest and arm as fluids build up and can't drain efficiently. It can get very painful, and pretty much the only thing that helps is for me to massage the affected areas. It may get somewhat better with time, but for the most part she's going to have to deal with it for the rest of her life. I was talking to a friend whose wife underwent treatment for leukemia about seven years ago, including a bone marrow transplant. We agreed that if ordinary people were coming down with these kinds of chronic issues, it would most likely be labeled a major health issue and billions would go for finding cures. But since it's cancer, the medical industry shrugs its collective shoulders and says "well, it's better than being dead isn't it?" Yeah, it is, but that doesn't make the pain any less.

Cancer sucks.