Chemo is painful. Cancer is deadly. Watching and waiting is torture. Or should I say, "watching and waiting is enhanced interrogation techniques?" But that's the best thing to do right now. If the node gets bigger, than I'll definitely alert the right people. If it gets smaller, you may hear a huge "Huzzah!" from Houston, Texas, home to one of the few places in the world that still does a "Huzzah!" instead of a "Hoorah!" It makes for one really long weekend but I feel like everyone at MDA is aware of the situation and the best thing to do is to keep an eye on it. From my limited knowledge, cancerous nodes usually have to be a minimum of 2 cm for docs to even consider it cancerous. Since we never switched over to the metric system, I'm not exactly sure how big 2 cm's are but I think it's just under that size right now. Hence, the decision to watch and wait. Painful as it is. Once again, people with imaginations shouldn't get cancer. They should get other things like gunshot wounds. Quicker. More decisive. Less room for interpretation.
I was also informed by one of the numerous stem cell transplant Physician's Assistants (PA) that there are other options such as more chemo or radiation before saying that all is lost. Now, that may sound like good news on the surface but you should know that PAs are often wrong. As far as I can tell, most hospitals are employing PAs and for good reason. They can relieve a busy doc's workload. I like them since they're much easier to talk to than docs. But around here they have a tendency to want to be the smartest kid in the class. Probably because they were the smartest kid in the class. Maybe in my younger years I would have had complete awe and admiration because they're so smart. But not anymore. Something happened to me after I met Leonard Lavin.
Leonard Lavin is the founder of Alberto-Culver. He's eighty or ninety and most likely a billionaire. For some ungodly reason, he wanted TDH to do an ad for his original Grecian Formula, the stuff that guys used in the fifties to slick their hair back. Alberto-Culver had an agency of their own but Leonard wanted to show all his marketing people how you do great work. So we worked with him and needless to say, his project fell flat with a huge dud. As I walked away from A-B for the very last time, I thought this dude, this bazillionaire, was sort of pathetic. He would go to work every day and sit in this dark office without windows and call meetings about stuff. In these meetings, nobody would listen to him and often treat as a child. He was mean and egotistical and he was destined to get even more so because nobody really cared.
Now I'm not saying that any PAs are as demented as Leonard Lavin. But I am saying I have a higher bar for my awe and reverence in my more experienced years. If Leonard Lavin doesn't impress me, some cyborg with straight A's isn't going to right away. I thank you for the information and appreciate the encouragement. Now, when do I see the doc?
By the way, the answer to that question is almost always, "Soon." In the meantime, I watch and wait.
It's posts like this that keep me coming back here. As one of the great unwashed masses who was never even close to the smartest in the class, it somhow maks me feal good dat the smart wonz arnt all dat. Perhaps this makes me a bit shallow and petty, but screw it, what the hell do I care?
ReplyDeleteWe were supposed to play baseball last night in your fine town, but considering we would have needed an ark to get there, it was cancelled. I was quite looking forward to spending some time at some of Bartlett's finer establishments such as Black Jack's Gentlemen's Club and Herlehy's Brothel. Oh well, maybe I'll get there during football season after your triumphant return home.