More Bad News - But Not the End of the World!

Okay.  I've had a good cry, talked to a few wonderful people, and surprisingly - even to me - have bounced back again.

Failure is not an option.  I choose life, thank you very much.

Basically, the scan that showed up the 2 tumours in the liver, has also thrown up another shadow, in the pancreas this time.  Hence all the abdominal pains!

Doc said they were 90% certain that all 3 sites have the same cancer, but that a biopsy was the only way to know for sure, and even then, getting a sample is not always possible.  The tears started to flow at that point.  I shook my head.  I can't go through that again - being awake in a scanner while they force a needle through my abdomen to take a chunk of liver out.  We decided that we'd take it they were they same, i.e. secondaries as opposed to a new primary, and we'd see in the next scan what's going on. 

*big sigh of relief*  

The fantastic news is that I am getting the new tablet drug instead of IV chemo.  The side effects are diarrhoea (in some people), and a rash ranging from a patch of dry skin on your leg, to full blown facial acne in others.  Chemo was extreme nausea, hair loss, sitting in the chemo suite for hours on end... weeks lost to sickness and sleeping... constipation... 

I am, as you can imagine, ecstatic that I'm having the tablet.   My friend said last night, that the corner has been turned now - that I needed to focus on and believe that yesterday was the last of the bad news.  I used to think I needed to be a realist all the time, but the more I read and learn through this experience, the more I understand that it is only by abandoning realism that miracles can happen.  Without belief and that crazed faith in the impossible, no one would have ever tried to build the first submarine, or airplane, or any other technology.  So sod realism, and those horrendous figures that say I should be sorting out my affairs.  People have survived worse situations than mine, and no one can say how or why, but the one thing they all seem to share is an unbreakable belief that they would get well.  I am already on the mend!

Of course it's not all positive thinking.  We are what we eat and  I need to make a few more dietary changes, start doing some fitness work, and organising my writing day.  I great thing is that I can do all this now because once we get the pain sorted out, I'll have all the time in the world to crack on with fighting this disease.

Life is good.  Diclofenac seems to sort out the pain in the abdomen sufficiently for me to get on with things, and I've even been invited over to my friend's house to watch them (and learn about!) working a horse under saddle, and may get to ride if I'm well enough, and the weather is okay.  Hurrah!