Results On Thursday
Another Round Of Chemo For My Mom
For the last five months, my mom has been undergoing treatment for Marginal Zone Lymphoma at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. The level of care and facilities have been amazing. The people at the Huntsman are truly wonderful. And since I’m in Salt Lake City a few times a month, it’s been great to see her nearly every week. We’ve enjoyed meals, talked about Trump, and watched while my dad cleaned up the dishes at the Hope Lodge.
She was first diagnosed in September of 2006. It’s been an up-and-down lymphoma journey (Hodgkins, Non-Hodgkins, Marginal Zone). Rounds of chemo. A traumatic nursing mishap. A stem-cell transplant. Another round of chemo that might not have been necessary. And now the latest — six in-patient infusions, each one lasting five days and then a two-week break before it all starts over again.
Tomorrow morning, we’ll find out if it worked.
We call it scanxiety — the time between the PET scan and whenever the doctor can deliver the interpretation of the scan. Honestly, there’s no better way to describe it. It’s exactly as it seems, nerve-wracking and difficult to talk about. I suppose that’s why I’m writing about it. Because it’s hard to talk about something so uncertain and so undefined. Everything could be fine. It’s possible that she’ll be completely cancer-free. But it’s also possible that she won’t.
This isn’t a dreadful post, though. The last 10 years have been over-stuffed with life for my parents. New grandbabies. A week in the Adirondacks. Another on the Chesapeake Bay. Long weekends in Brooklyn. Escapes to Washington, DC and Wyoming and Oregon and Idaho and Kansas City and so many other places. Lots of naps. Train trips and more than enough baseball games. Uno and Skip-Bo. Concerts. A few months with the good people of Kerman, CA. It’s really been something. But don’t you dare read this as a eulogy. I’m not thinking that. I’m not writing that.
I don’t know what I’m writing. Can we be honest about that? I’m writing this because I need to do something and there’s nothing to be done. The doctors have done their work. We’ve said our prayers. Now we just wait and I use the time to decide whether or not to click Publish.
Scanxiety. How do you pronounce it? Is the “a” long or short? If you know, please tell me.
