ARCHIVES - 1996 to FOREVER

I stayed home today, of course... it took her about twice as long as usual to get herself ready to go to the hospital.

She got the blood drawn and then the chest x-ray... the x-ray wasn't too much changed from the one three weeks ago.

And when we talked with the doc, he decided that we needed a CT scan, so we went down and did that... it looked OK, as far as the main mass, and the best part... there were no obvious nodules in either lung... !!!

And the oncologist wants to do radiotherapy on the main lesion; he didn't want to do it before, because he would have had to radiate both lungs, and when you do that, patients die.

Tomorrow she will get a PET scan... unfortunately, our PET/CT scanner isn't up yet... another coupla weeks for that to be ready.

And, making a great big assumption here... the PET will be negative, except for the main lesion. And the radiotherapy will proceed, and kill the tumor.

Karen's official staging is, of course, IV... but if there are no active mets, it will compare favorably to a stage II, which has much greated longivity.

During the consultation, he talked Karen into using the O₂ that he had prescribed... her red cell count was really low, and she really needed the O₂.... but she didn't want to carry it around.

So we stopped and got her several tanks of O₂ on the way home, and she's gonna be OK with it, I believe. She was using up so much O2 just walking across the room that her sats would go down into the low 80s... no wonder she would get dizzy!

They were supposed to come over and set up so O₂ here at home, but they didn't... I hope that's not an indication of their trustworthiness....

As we were on the way to the hospital, I asked her if she would consent to riding in a wheelchair, and she was adamantly opposed to that idea... like the O₂, I think that she saw it as a sign of weakness.

But by the time we got done with the CT scan, she was OK with a wheelchair... the treks down the long halls plumb wore her out.

She's now at the point of facing reality, I believe, and accepting help where it's offered... finally!

I've used up a lot of very good vibes so far, but I'm asking for more, of course.

And we sincerely thank you all for previous vibes.

Knowing that so many people care for Karen is what keeps her (and me) going through these days and months.

And it will keep us going for years and years.