Good news, it seems, is all about perspective. One person’s terrible news is another person’s good news.
When our adventure began, it took just a single appointment with a doctor to go from planning our future to hoping for future. That’s dramatic, but the first news of “it appears you have a rare cancer” does play tricks with your head. Weeks (and many medical tests later), what makes up good news is greatly changed.
Ewings Sarcoma is, as the kids might say, some bad shit. The doctors call it “aggressive.” Because of that, the treatment is equally aggressive. Traditionally — if you can can find tradition in something rare and with little research — treatment involves chemotherapy, surgery, then radiation if the instance of the cancer is localized.
At the time of the last meeting with the Medical Oncologist, we were cautiously optimistic about it being localized. Assuming it is, we would undergo an aggressive chemotherapy. 17 cycles of therapy at 3-week intervals. Basically a year, if everything stays on schedule. The schedule can change from cycle to cycle based on my health, white blood cell counts, etc. The doctors are confident that the surgery to remove the mass and salivary gland got all of it, so we do not see a need for surgery. Radiation is still uncertain; the Radiation Oncologist is asking, “what’s left to radiate?” So, at this time, if localized, we set into motion a plan for the chemotherapy.
Meanwhile, we were waiting for the results of a biopsy of a mass inside my right arm bone. If that turned out to be Ewings, treatment would be…different. And desired results would be…different. So, we waited. It was a few days where I seemed to hold my breath. Kathy and I had just landed in Las Vegas to spend some time with my sisters. We got a message that the pathology report was in, the doctor would be calling me when he was done with some other surgeries. I felt like I swallowed a bowling ball. On our way to dinner, he called.
Enchondroma. Benign. The Orthopedic refers to it as a freckle — something you can see and observe, but it does nothing. Nothing to worry about. We won’t even remove it. It’s doing no harm (except for my stress levels to date), so we leave it alone. I made him say it twice, so Kathy could hear it, too. I mean, I am hard of hearing, and you don’t want to miss this. It felt like everything relaxed at once. So happy, I cried. This was GOOD NEWS. I’m still floating on this. I woke this morning and thought, “enchondroma!”
The good news is, a year of chemotherapy. A chemotherapy administered likely every three weeks. A mixture of six drugs administered at different times in the process. Some treatments will be outpatient where I get the treatment & go home. Some will be in patient requiring a 5-day stay at the hospital. There will be days I don’t feel well, there will be days I’m fine. We will be able to schedule around important events — my nephew’s graduation, some ALA meetings, etc. These things are important to me, and we will do everything in our power to keep them. Keeping them is part of going about life, and going about life with a purpose is important to healing.
It’s localized. We’re going for “cure.” This is our goal now. Cure. I can withstand a year or so of chemotherapy with cure as my goal. I can withstand losing all my hair with cure as my goal (and because I know people who will help me figure out how to wear a scarf or pick out hats). I can work through whatever horrors chemotherapy brings because cure is our goal.
Chemotherapy and just having Ewings is it’s own special kind of scary, but it’s become our good news. And I have two and a half more days in Las Vegas where the Sun is shining and warm and a light breeze blows, during which I can float on this good news and stop holding my breath. This weekend, we exhale.