How it begins

Well, really it began about a month ago when I went in for a routine CT scan (part of my regular checkup after having surgery for renal cancer in October of 2008. Without looking at the report from the radiologist, I can't remember the medical terms, but basically they found "spots" on both my left and right adrenal glands. They sit just "on top" of the kidney. I have no kidney on the left side having lost it to cancer in 2008. The kidney on the right has been "resected" and is now about 40% of its normal size. It seems to be working fairly well.

So, in December, they found these two spots, the one on the left being small and the one on the right (the more recent cancer site) being about 3.5 centimeters square - big! The oncologist (Glenn Wong) ordered an MRI and they did that and confirmed the existence of the spots (read "tumors").

On January 4 of this year, they tried to perform ("perform" - seems like a strange word, used medically) a biopsy of the right tumor. They were not able to do the biopsy due to the intervening organs (kidney, liver, etc.). They don't like to put the biopsy needle through other organs. The organs could recover from the "poking" (as the radiologist called the procedure), but there is a greater chance of "seeding" - recovering cancer cells in the target organ and seeding them into other organs when the needle is withdrawn.

After a week of consultation (doctor to doctor; I was not in on it), Glenn called me and said they thought I should have a procedure called endoscopic ultrasound - putting a tube down the throat into the digestive system with an ultrasound thingy on the end and taking measurements of organs. They combine this with "fine needle aspiration", which means putting an needle through the wall of the digestive system into the adrenal gland to obtain tissue for the biopsy.

All this on Thursday, this week at 9:20 am. More than the procedure, which sounds very uncomfortable (Glenn sez the alternative is surgical), is the feeling that having taken this step, I am now on the road to another course of treatment (chemo?) and recovery if that is possible. Having been here twice now (1988-1989 and 2008-2009), my remembrance is that it delays (if I allow it to) my life. And then I remember that this is my life, with its own twists and turns, its own lessons, its on joys and sorrows, and that (really) I (and you) have no alternative but to live it out for as long as it lasts.

That is centering and comforting. I am not a "cancer victim". I am a person living out his life and the things that happen are happening to me in real time. "Dailyness" as they say. I have had cancer, may have cancer again (could be the same cancer; cancer is very crafty), but so long as I am alive, I have the option to live.