Those who hike in mountains or other areas with cold winters are familiar with frost-rivened rocks and boulders such as this one. They dot the landscape, showing the effects of years and years of water alternately freezing in minute cracks, expanding and putting pressure on the surrounding rock, and then melting leaving larger cracks or significant fractures. The process is repeated, over and over again; large boulders are reduced to piles of rocks, those rocks, in turn, to pebbles, the pebbles eventually to the sandy components of soil. So, what does this have to do with what's up with me? In my last post, I talked about the worsening back pain I had been experiencing and the fact that a PET scan had ruled out my cancer as the cause. I also indicated that I was to have an MRI to find out just how bad things had become in my neck due to degenerating disks. While the MRI showed the extent of the disk disease, it also showed something new in my first thoracic vertebra -- a fracture, compression and other evidence of metastasis. All that was confirmed this past Monday by a radiation oncologist. I have a tumor in my first thoracic vertebra. It has grown inside the bone and not unlike the action of frost wedging a rock apart, has applied pressure and caused it to fracture in at least ten places, collapsing a bit and pressing on nerves -- the source of the pain! The treatment is pretty direct and began Monday afternoon. Radiation is applied directly to the tumor cells, hopefully frying the little buggers and shrinking the tumor. As it shrinks, less pressure should be applied to bone and nerves and the pain should be reduced and the bone, unlike the shattered rock, given the chance to heal the fractures. If all goes as planned, I should finish radiation on January 12 and begin my new chemotherapy regimen a month later -- it looks like concerns about immune system suppression may prevent an earlier start.
"If all goes as planned . . ." Lately, little seems to be going that way, and I continue to learn to expect the unexpected. It's easy to say that, but much more difficult to live through. This recent detour -- we are beyond bumps in the road at this point -- has been especially tough, both physically and emotionally. I have had to work hard to follow my own advice about attitude, to do my daily affirmations, to be thankful. It's worth the work though. I may feel beaten up by all of this, but I'm not yet beaten.
Peace,
Don
