In retrospect, I would have gone into urgent care on that Saturday night when I got my first fever instead of Sunday, but there are a lot of things you would do differently with hindsight. (For instance, I would have purchased property in New York City—with what money I’m not quite sure—when I first visited for my 10th birthday.) But—thanks to the efforts of the doctors who tried so hard to get me out of the hospital because my mom was in town and no thanks to the stubborn Klebsiella in my blood—I got out on Sunday, just in time to spend a little bit of time on the outside with my visiting mom for Mother’s Day.
It was a gloomy rainy day, and I didn’t have much energy, but we went to the Czech restaurant we always go to when she’s in town for a nice light Eastern European meal of halusky and Hungarian goulash, and we stopped by my community garden. “How long was I in the hospital?!” I wondered aloud when I saw the garden, which had totally changed in the previous week. Spring’s colorful tulips were gone and in their place was a purple palette of allium, irises, lilacs and even purple tulips. My hosta leaves had unfurled, and my allium were complemented by the white flowers from strawberries, bleeding hearts and lilies of the valley.
Getting out of the hospital was winning the battle, but there’s still the war. In my online patient portal, I took a look at the CT scan results. I try not to do that, because I’m not a doctor. I will know more next Wednesday before chemo. However, it looks as if the tumors are the same size as before and as if I have another new possible tumor, which I knew from what the doctors had told me earlier. We’ll see what the doctor has to say next week. As far as I know, the PRRT is approved but still not available as the insurance companies and hospitals hash out the money details. Even if it is available, I’m still not optimistic that it will work, and it’s pretty much one of the last things they can try at this point. These tumors are stubborn and I’m not seeing the improvement that I saw last month. I feel just the same as I did from January on, aside from those few weeks when I felt a little bit better.
Yesterday I met with my Hodgkin’s lymphoma oncologist for my annual check-in. Even though it’s the current oncologists that regularly deliver bad news, it was hard to see her. On the lymphoma front, I’m fine. Seeing her reminds me of all the hope that I’d had when all this started five years ago that I would have cancer for only six months or a year and then everything would be OK. It was like when I visited the fertility doctor I’d consulted with before the lymphoma treatment to say that I was probably dying and there’s no point in thinking about offspring I wouldn’t be around to raise. It was difficult to see doctors who I had previously seen with so much optimism and hope.
We’ll see what the doctors say next week. Until then, I’m still doing my usual routine of IV fluids (through a PICC line now that my MediPort is removed) and host of supplements, as well as an added half-hour of IV antibiotics.