Crossroads...

I spent the weekend at one...sadly I wasn't smart enough to bring anything to "conjure" with.

I saw the radiologist on Friday. He seemed to think I was a great candidate for stereotactic radiation, though there was a "small" chance I might react to it, a slight chance that with them doing 5 doses because the tumor is behind my rib that the rib might become brittle and be easily broken or "cracked". I told him that life wasn't exactly easy right now, and that I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I lose any more lung capacity.

He said he would contact the pulmonologist this morning (her first morning back after a spring vacation) and would call me on Tuesday.

After telling both boys what was going on, I did a bit of research on line and found a case history of someone they tried this on in 2008 who was in the very early stages of IPF. He had been through chemo, his lungs were just beginning to show the scarring from the fibrosis and he seemed fine after they did their radiation treatment. When they did the follow up he had developed radiologically induced pneumonia and that kicked off the fibrosis; he went from not being on oxygen at all to where I am now.

So I didn't have a good feeling about it after reading all that!

This morning when the phone rang, Dottie was getting ready for work. I was still in bed, only vaguely noting the ring and that she had answered it. A few minutes later I heard her in the bedroom doorway as I turned over and snuggled back down under the blankets (it was below zero here this morning).

She said the phone call was the radiologist; he had called the pulmonary doctor and she told him "hell no he couldn't do radiation on my lungs", it would kill me.

So now their consensus is that I should go back in 3 months and have another P.E.T. scan so they can figure out if the cancer is spreading again or not.

Though life isn't "easy" at this point, I'm not really ready to "give up". I do dread where it all goes from here...

In the meantime, I've done what I need to this morning and I'm going to heat up some chili for lunch, then crawl under a blanket on the couch and watch a movie or play a video game. While I dealt with the first of the month stuff this morning I caught up on the latest on Ukraine/Crimea/Russia and it's time to escape for a while!

I hope each of you are warm, and that the week is kind!

alan