Set in motion....

I apologize for not posting until now. This has been a VERY long three days and I have been emotionally exhausted for a lot of it. So, here is the update...on Sunday night, I emailed my oncologist and told him that Grant and I decided to go for it, do the surgery trananally, and focus on the 80% with no complications. I received an almost immediate positive response with an "!" in it. He NEVER does that. I take it as a good sign. :) Monday morning, I left a message for my surgeon with the scheduler and said, "I am so sorry that you have to take these kind of messages, but make sure you underline and emphasize the 80% part, kay?" "Absolutely, Angie." Monday, midday, I received a call back to tell me that my surgery is going to be the 23rd of March. I was like, "Okay, he said "soon". Is that soon?" Apparently, it is. She gave me all my instructions over the phone....packet to be sent....filter to be place....no food or water day of. "Okay?" "Okay." Here we go again with "okay". Funny thing...I still had an appointment set for chemo, so I decided to cancel the chemo part, but keep my appointment with my oncologist realizing that I have not really gone through all the tests result from the last week. Tuesday, I show up at 8:27 for an 8:20 appointment. No blood work is ordered and I go and sit down. I am called back at 9:50. Clearly, it is not a good day for them already. I sit down with my oncologist and we go through all the tests....CT scan shows no cancer, but my spleen and liver are showing mild stress...onto the liver ultrasound....liver is sluggish, but everything is going in the right direction....spleen is backing up because of sluggish liver. Why? Because of chemo. Can I do anything to make it better? Nope. Will it ever get better? Probably not. This is the down side of prolonged chemotherapy. Will this ever be a problem? Don't know. Well, this is just a ray of sunshine. Let's switch subjects! Onto the the PET scan....spot locations are still there in my lungs, but they are not glowing with cancer, so after I have my butt operation and healing from it, I will be back in chemo. No light chemo anymore. That is off the table since my butt tumor started growing again. I am not sure for how long, but if the past is any indicator at LEAST four treatments. So, the bad news is I will be hitting a YEAR of treatment - my longest yet without being in remission. The good news is for some strange unexplainable reason, my surgery was scheduled after a weekend away with my girlfriend for scrapbooking (this weekend), and before, but at the end of my healing process on my butt, Maui. Maui will be the first trip Grant and I are going ALONE on for more than two nights for non-medical reasons while I am feeling WELL since Mason was born - YES MASON, not Nolan. There are a couple other things coming up too and with careful planning I may just get all those of GOOD weekends. So, I will focus on the 80%, keep all my plans in place for now, and keep on movin'. Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts - they make a difference! Love, Ang