WooHoo!

Before

The Amazing Bob and I finally had our appointment with Doc Abramson to review the results of his latest biopsy and talk fresh treatment plans. Now, we got the news that he has a spot near, not on or in but close by, his pancreas back in January. For those of you not on the Gregorian calendar, that’s FOUR full Moon orbits ago.

The doc said this little bastard needed to be watched and they’d look at it again in a few months – see if he’d fattened up at all. The March scan showed that, yes, the fucker’d gotten a smidge bigger so, biopsy action, here we come. Cancer was back onstage, doing a wickedly unwelcome encore. The good doc had said, pre-biopsy, that the growth was small and that, depending on which brand of lymphoma, it could likely be treated with a magic pill versus the Big Bad (chemo). He said he wasn’t worried. K.

We thought we’d see Abramson a week after the biopsy but time expanded. One week became four. After ten days had passed without a ring-a-ding, Jen began phoning the doc’s office regularly. She hounded them for a call back with our appointment time. Jen’d been through the same no-word-back Hell in her cancer days and still carries the scar.

In those four long weeks, the spot became, in our minds anyway, a ginormous, marauding tumor. TAB became certain that it was on his pancreas not near. I kept repeating the good doc’s assurances but, with no word from Abramson, my words rang hollow – even to me. As time piled up, we began bracing ourselves for more chemo.

After

And then we got the call. The appointment was set and it was yesterday morning. TAB and  I were both sad and mega fearful. We’d had four seemingly endless weeks to imagine the worst. Before we left the house, I became Mike Ditka – yeah, not so pretty but necessary.

We can do this and we will – together – as always.
We will get through this – together.
We will triumph!
and
You know how we’ll get through this? I’ll tell ya – with CAKE. We’ll hit Saint Fratelli’s after we get the news. We’ll have either Happy Dance Cake or Solace Cake but there WILL be cake.

On the long slog through the morning rush hour traffic, I asked TAB what kind of cake he wanted. He allowed that it depends on the news. If good – something light and airy. If bad – mega heavy. OK then.

Our appointment was for 9:40 AM. Abramson entered the exam room at 10:30 AM. By now we were both rock solid blocks of frazzled, frenzied nervosa. And then we got the magic words. It’s so small that we may opt to, at this point, do nothing at all. We’ll do a PET scan (what? why does he want to scan Rocco and Coco?) next month and the results of that will dictate treatment. If no growth, no treatment. If it’s increased a tiny bit, you’ll take one kind of pill, four times only. If it’s grown a lot – a different kind of pill on an ongoing basis.

NO chemo. NO big dealio. NO death. We're in, at absolute worst, Magic Pill Land.

YEA!!!! We hit Saint Fratellis and we hit 'em hard. A light airy cake for TAB, cuppycakes for me, their awesome lasagna for din-din and, to top it all off, mini cake bites. Yeah, I feel a few extended trike rides are in my immediate future.