News from the PET scan

This entry in my blog has two subtitles. The title line should actually read:

News from the PET scan

The Brotherhood

The day my golf game went to shit

To make this as confusing as possible, I'm going to address these titles in reverse order.

My brothers and I got together at my mom's house on Monday night and hung out. I had been wanting to get together with them once before the radiation and chemo process started. Both Graham and Clay took the day off work on Tuesday to come up and play, so thank-you guys for that.

We tried to find a place to play golf on Tuesday, but the closest two places we called were essentially closed. One was on the honor system, and the other was taking reservations on an answering machine but had a rope across the driveway. Our answering machine reservation was not honored.

We eventually decided on The Dream. It's a course that's located between St. Helen and West Branch on a road that we have always called “the old way to West Branch.” The actual name of the road might be M-55, but don't quote me on that.

The course was beautiful and was extremely well maintained, especially considering how late in the season it was. We played the back nine with a cart for $25 each.

I was playing pretty well on the first two holes (well for me, anyway) and then it happened.

Kelly called me and said that my oncologist's office had called her and they had the results of my PET scan. They wouldn't share any of the results over the phone but wanted to meet with me at 3:00 in St. Ignace. Of course, this stressed me out to no end. My tee shot on the next hole went about 30 yards to the right before hitting a tree. On the ensuing Mulligan (do-over), I went even farther right and hit another tree.

The rest of the round went a lot like this as I was spending half the time trying to find my errant shots and wondering what was going to happen at the meeting with the oncologist. What if they told me that there was more cancer? What if they stopped using the word cure and started talking about prolonging life? How would I tell the kids? All kinds of thoughts were running through my head, and not the cheerful, good news type.

I have been very careful to avoid thinking about stuff like that and yet there I was, entertaining the worst possible scenarios and trying to keep it together in front of Graham and Clay.

The Brotherhood

Looking back at it on the drive up north, I'm sure Graham and Clay knew exactly what was going on with me. I told them about the phone call, and much to their credit, they kept things light and made fun of me when I hit a bad shot, and tried to keep my mind off it.

Graham is four years younger than me, and Clay is four years younger than him. They are very different personalities, and I am blessed to have them as my brothers.

Graham is one of those people who has supreme confidence in himself and he is very firm in his convictions. I often envy him in that regard. He has the ability to talk to anyone and is a natural leader. He has an iron will and can often get things done on that facet of his personality alone. One of the things that I like about him the most is his sense of humor. When we're together, we spend most of our time laughing and joking around. I could tell you a lot of stories to make my point here, but probably the one that I think about the most is a time when we were playing football up at the soccer fields in Roscommon. He was playing quarterback for his team and I picked off a pass that he threw. I was running the interception back and dodged a couple players and then it was just me and Graham. We made eye contact and I started to smile. Then he smiled and before I knew it we were both laughing out loud and the play just sort of stopped.

Then there's Clay. Clay is one of the few people that I know that I believe is doing the job that he was born to do. He is a DJ for a very popular radio station in Flint and he does the morning show. I've listened to him on the air and he's good at it. Really good at it. He has a lot of responsibilities at his station and always takes my teasing gracefully. I always make fun of him about only working for four hours a day because that's how long he's on the air. His job actually requires about 70 hours a week.

Clay also has the ability to talk to anyone, but he's different than Graham. Graham draws people to him somehow, while Clay has a knack for just going with the flow. I think in a different world, Clay would have been a great surfer. He has that mind-set that whatever's going to happen is going to happen and we just need to find a way to roll with it. When I told Clay I had colon cancer, the first words out of his mouth were, “I'll donate my taint if you need it.”

They have both been extremely helpful to me through this process and I have drawn on both of them. Graham's force of will, and Clay's “don't stress” attitude have shaped my attitude about dealing with the cancer.

We don't ever say the words, but Graham and Clay, if you're reading this, I want both of you to know that I love you and that of all the blessings that have been bestowed on me in this life, having you two as my brothers ranks high on the list.

So, on to the PET scan.

I recently went to my family doctor because I had a knot on the back of my neck. I've had it before from time to time ever since I was a kid. I have a cyst back there that sometimes fills up and needs to be drained. It got to that point about a week ago and I told them about it when they did the PET scan. The nurse said that she would tell the person reading the scan about it because it might show up as a positive reading. It did, and there was a communication breakdown somewhere because my oncologist thought that the cyst was more cancer. When we went in to talk to him, he asked about it and I told him what was going on and he said that he was really relieved and that other than the original cancer, my scan was clear.

I can't even tell you how good it felt to hear those words come out of his mouth. It was like someone had just lifted a piano off my shoulders. The road will still be long, but not nearly as long as it could have been.

I have an appointment with the radiation people tomorrow (Thursday) and we'll see what they say about when I start that part of the journey.

 

I Will Win