Denise, I'm so sorry that I forgot about our phone conversation.  I guess I shouldn't answer the phone when they pump in the happy juice.  At least it is a blessing and allows me to sleep through the process of chemo.  The down side is that my brain goes into chemo coma mode and cannot remember a darned thing.  So, So sorry!

 

Ok, about the results of my tests.  I was hopitalized two weeks prior with what the hospital determined to be pneumonia.  This spot of pneumonia also showed up on my scans.  It glowed.  Glowing is

not a good thing.  It is usually a malignant thing.

 

In the hospital, I asked my doctors if this could mean that my cancer had spread to my lung.  All assured me that no, there was no tumor only a small amount of liquid, called pleurosy (sp) and that this would clear up on its own after a while.  So I put that on a back burner in my brain and let it simmer.

 

When I was at my gynecological oncologist's for the follow up I asked the same question due to the fact that there was some "glowing".  I was reassured again that it was probably residual pneumonia and nothing to worry about.

 

I went home and did a bad thing.  (depends on your particular perspective).  I looked up on the internet pneumonia, lung cancer, ovarian cancer progression, and symptoms.  I learned that lung cancer or a tumor in the lung presents as pneumonia initially.  Now I panicked.  I guess that is a bad thing too.  I left a message for my doctor to call me back so I could ask a few more questions.  I had not looked up any info prior to my follow up so I did not know what to ask. 

 

Now, I am usually a great human being with a more than average amount of intelligience, but boy did I feel stupid after voicing my fears out loud.  Please don't get the wrong idea.  I love my doctor dearly, He has my complete admiration, and obviously my trust because I keep my life in his hands...  but when he replied that he hated the blankety blank internet, told me to calm down, did I have anything I could take? (medication) Trust him and continue on with treatment.  He is trying to keep me alive with somewhat a quality of life interwoven into this process... I know he puts his heart and soul into every single one of his patients.  I know he truly loves his patients and he has bent over backwards to keep me alive with all of the resources he has access to, but I am still afraid!  I am afraid that nothing is going to work.  I do not belittle the fact that I have had more time than any other doctor before him had given me.  I was not expected to live after my first surgery.  They did not expect me to survive my hospital stay.  Well, it goes to show that only God knows when someone's life is going to be taken from this earth and carried into His waiting arms in Heaven.  But I still need, I still want more time!  I cannot control this fear that grips my heart and makes the tears flow uncontrollably down my cheeks.  I hide in my room so my children don't see me crying.  I carry this mostly alone.  I talk to my husband, but that has to be getting old, too.  I don't know how he continues to be so strong and unwavering.  I thank God that he is.  But inside, I am not always strong.  I am a scared woman, unsure of my future.  People can try to comfort me all they want to about everyone being in the same situation.  They tell me a car could crash into them that day, or a heart attack, or something else.  Yes, I know that these things happen.  But these people don't always have to live with these thoughts over their heads every single day.  I live with cancer every single day.  My children live with cancer every single day.  My husband lives with cancer every single day.  Even though we do the best we can to continue a normal life and environment, I cannot erase the weekly hospital tests, the hospital admittance every couple of months, the chemo treatments that hit me non-stop.  It is little hard to keep these things a secret or to protect my children from every single aspect of this cancer that has invaded our lives.  I only hope and pray that God will keep His promise that "everything works towards the good to those who love the lord."  That He will protect my children and allow this to become a blessing in their lives instead of a reason to become dysfunctional.  Everyone has to overcome something in their lives.  We do too.  Cancer is just a little bit noisier than other circumstances, as well as a little more scarier.