A roadblock on the road to the transplant

I couldn't write this until I had a lot of time to mull over the news we received yesterday, a (pretty) good nights sleep and a strong cup of coffee liberally laced with International Delight Peppermint Pattie creamer brewed with my new Ninja Single serve coffee machine. Finally I have a coffee maker that brews coffee hot enough, I don't have to put it in the microwave after! I love it!

But I digress.....Bruce and I traveled to Omaha yesterday for yet another PET scan and we were cautiously optimistic because my blood tests had been getting progressively better and I was getting stronger. I've come to really detest the PET scan but I was so hopeful this one would be my friend, it was not.

It takes a long wait to get results but at least we get them the same day, Dr. Lunning came in and said "I'm going to cut to the chase, there is a suspicious spot on your sternum that needs to be biopsied." The rest of the scan looked good and this was not there 30 days ago when I did the last one. Before he could go on I told him that my first night home from the hospital I fell in the night, crashing into a kitchen chair and the fireplace and really injured my sternum. It was terribly painful for such a long time, especially since I had the rhinovirus and was coughing my head off, when I sneezed it felt like my chest was splitting apart. It still is a little tender and I showed Dr. Lunning the spot and it's pretty much the same place they saw on the scan. He knew I had fallen, didn't know the entire story so he went back to call the radiologist and came back with the news that it didn't look like a fracture injury and they have to know for sure. 

Bruce asked him what he thought the odds would be that it is not lymphoma and Dr. Lunninng said 5%. He said he has given me the strongest chemo that they have in their arsenal and I don't do well with it. He said I would breeze through the transplant if I ever get there. But he has to have another plan and that would be to try to control the dragon, not eradicate it, perhaps using a pill based regime.

To my credit, I've had so many set backs that I no longer burst into tears at bad news and I'm sure that is a relief to Dr. Lunning! We were very quiet on the way home, each digesting the new turn this is taking. Beth, Dr. Lunning's nurse, called and said they got an appointment for Friday at 10, it's nice to have a Dr. with pull, otherwise it would have been next week. We will have to wait a week for results but at least we are a few days ahead of the game. We stopped in Correctionville and shared a pizza, then home and at 7:30 we were both headed up to bed, emotionally shot. In the night I was playing musical beds, to the couch with Clyde and back upstairs with Bruce, lots of thoughts swirling around my head.

In the end, the sun did come up this morning, the temps have moderated, the snow is melting and I'm reminded of this poem, it says it all.

WHAT GOD HATH PROMISED

WHAT GOD HATH PROMISED

God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.

God hath not promised we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
many a burden, many a care.

God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain rocky and steep,
Never a river turbid and deep

But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love

Author: Annie Johnson Flint 

Edited to add, don't sympathize with me, that opens the floodgates. I'm now dressed and ready to face the day and the first thing on my agenda is to clean the upstairs bathroom since the cleaning fairy, once again, did not show up last night and do it!