The Final Stage

Well, this is it. The final phase of my crazy climb begins tomorrow. My last chemo treatment was 9 weeks ago, the holidays have come and gone, and now it's time for me to forge forward and reach the top of my mountain.

My CT/PET scan is scheduled for 8am tomorrow morning. The point of this scan is to see whether there is any sign of cancer anywhere in my body. This will be my first scan since last June when they did one just prior to my surgery. At that time, the doctors could see that the tumor had shrunk significantly (to the point of being almost gone) but it still showed up slightly. Now, however, there is no reason for the scans to be anything but normal since my surgeon removed any remaining tumor tissue during that surgery, plus some extra tissue surrounding the tumor so that I had clear margins. As far as I am concerned, the Bitch is long gone and I am feeling really well and so I cannot believe that I will get anything but good news from the doctors tomorrow.

And then, assuming that there are no surprises on the scans, I will have my Colon-Part II surgery this Friday. My doctor told me that I'll likely be in the hospital for 4-5 days, so hopefully home by next Tuesday. My friend asked me today if I am nervous about my upcoming surgery. I guess I am a bit nervous, which I suppose is normal. But more than anything else, I am just annoyed. I have had a small taste of normalcy these past 9 weeks and I am dreading having to take a few steps backwards in order to finally be done. I just want to keep moving forward and enjoy life again. I don't want to be back in the hospital smelling the stinky bleachy-smelling linens and not being home with my family. I don't want to be in debilitating pain again for the next few weeks. I don't want to go through the process again of relearning how my digestive tract works. I just want to live life and be done with this climb. But alas, I have no choice. And so off I go...

I will write an update as soon as I get my scan results and, like last time, Pete will write an update on Friday afternoon once I get out of surgery, so stay tuned.