2018
January 19 - GP referral to Breast Clinic
March 6 - Mammogram and Breast Ultrasound
March 20 - Breast biopsies
April 3 - Biopsy results (IDC breast cancer) CT scan and bone scan
April 4 - referred for fine wire lung biopsy (First indication of lung cancer)
April 13 - EBUS - for lung biopsy (because fine wire was taking too long)
April 30 - Biopsy results - First meeting with medical oncologist. Lung cancer Stage 3B - Breast cancer on the back burner.
May 11 - PET scan.
May 14 - Radiologist and oncologist - Stage 3C - treatment plan

Let me get the easy good stuff out of the way first and then you don't have read any further if you don't want to.

My meeting with my oncologist on Monday was less than 8 minutes. The suspected tumour has actually shrunk. Not disappeared but gotten smaller. His suspicion is that the nodule is inflammation and not a cancer tumour. So another three month reprieve. My next scan is at the end of January.

Photo Credit: BC Cancer Foundation

Well the real world strikes. Now comes the test of my attitude.

I wasn't expecting to have to send out an addendum this fast. I was so oblivious to my CT scan that I didn't even mention it in my last note.

Running and Writing

Is there such a thing as too much of a good thing? Maybe. I've been learning some lessons from two recent experiences. I have written a novel. And I have signed up to run a 5K race. (Remember I have lung cancer?) I tell a lot of people what I'm up to and the response is almost disbelief. Both of these accomplishments happened one small step at time. Let me show you how it works, if you will.

Birthday has come and gone. And as the old trucker's song says "Another day older and deeper in debt." But that is far too morose for the joy that this birthday was.
 

Mark your calendars!

I'm turning 62 on Saturday. And in my honor I'm holding a zoom party.

Two years ago I didn't think I would see this celebration but barring bus accidents, I will. Those of you who know me well know my story of spending my 50th birthday in the belly of a boat repairing a diesel engine. Best birthday ever! So for me to be this social and plan my own party is a bit of a stretch. But as I started thinking about it, I got more and more excited.

It's been a week.

After firing off my MAID missive late on Friday night, I awoke to ten email responses in my inbox to my pondering.  I rolled into my Zoom morning men's Bible study expecting to talk. MAID is not an easy subject and though I thought it would come up with the men, it didn't. I'm surprised at the people who have engaged with me on the subject. If there is any great revelation that has come out of the subject it is that there is a ton of gray.  

It's complicated.

Zoom has changed so many things in my life. Meetings across the nation. Places I will never go. Meeting people I will never see face to face. Family gatherings around birthdays.

One of the most difficult was a Zoom funeral a couple of weeks. Actually I have been calling it a wake in my communications. But search for a zoom wake on the Internet and you won't find much. That is changing as funeral homes get into the technology but how to create the sense of ritual, of memory, of closure, and celebration of life that modern funerals have become is new.

In one of those moments that I'm totally going to blame on chemo-brain, I realized that though this post was written four weeks ago it was never posted. There is a new one brewing that will come out in the next few days addressing my upcoming scan. In the meantime realize that this was written at the beginning of May after my last Doctor's appointment. My apologies for the confusion.

Virtual conferencing has become important as countries lock down to slow the spread of coronavirus. Virtual Conferencing includes Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams as well as a variety of other platforms. Several months ago I spent a few hours experimenting with the new kid on the block - Zoom. I had been doing conference calls for years. Since I was working in the remote wilds of Saskatchewan in the nineties it was very common. Skype calls were a thing for awhile and when my wife and I were apart it was one of the tools we used to connect.