But, underlying all these joyful times was a pulse beat, counting down. 2 weeks, 10 days, another week.... See, back in June, at a routine 6 month scan that I assumed would confirm that I was still cancer free, "something" was found. They never name these things. Something. We would need to figure it out, tests, PET scan, yadda yadda and it became clear that this something was cancer again. Tiny, no spread, nothing else anywhere. OK. Surely such a something (the size of an M&M) could be removed easily and I would go about my business. And, it seemed that this would be the case. While in my booth at Syracuse, a call came in from Roswell and a PA told me that they had had a conference about me and it was determined that the something could be plucked out and I was to come in a week or so later to discuss the details. My surgeon was jovial and confident, maybe we could even do this with a scope, a tentative date was set. It seemed like our original vacation plans could stand. Then I got a call from another doctor, from a different clinic, making me an appointment to see if I "qualified" for the surgery. Huh? I will spare you the convoluted road to understanding what was going on. Apparently, my initial surgeon, while discussing my case with others, came up with a plan. It would have been nice to know this when I went in for the appointment, but so be it. Turns out that there is an elective procedure for patients like me that actually has a high cure rate. Cure is not a word that they use very often in cancer treatment. Not that it doesn't happen, but they don't want to get your hopes up. I'll make this quick. If you are healthy and there is no other disease than the tumor they are removing and that tumor appears to have sprung from a cell left behind as opposed to metastasis within your system, they can do this procedure where they remove the tumor and anything else that looks the least bit suspicious, make your innards "squeaky clean", put a chemo solution right in the abdominal cavity for an hour or so, flush it out and you are done. That kills any other cells that might be ready to sprout. So, they scheduled it and we quickly re-did our vacation plans. It hung over me all those weeks. But we had fun and we got back the day before surgery and I took a deep breath and plunged in and we did it. It's been 5 weeks now and I am almost myself again. The procedure was successful so now we just wait and see. It was not easy, I will admit. They did a hysterectomy also since ovaries are tumor magnets and I had a couple of "iffy" spots in the uterus. I had OK'd this ahead of time. I wasn't gonna use that stuff any more anyway. My Dr is very happy. He says I should be the poster child for this procedure. :) So, that is where I have been. Life goes back on track. I have 2 shows coming up and a granddaughter coming very soon. So much happiness on the horizon. Guess I better get up to the attic. It missed me.
