Today is the first day of 2011 and hopefully this new year's resolution to blog more often will be more successful than last year's one. I am pleased that I have a blog where I can go back and remember events that I had forgotten about or to help me remember the chronology of some events. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about how Emma would remember me if things don't go so well for me. She is only two years old and is probably too young to remember me just by relying on her own memories should I die. My blog would be something she could always use to help understand me and my relationship with her.
The reason I had been thinking about this was because the last couple of weeks I have had increased pain. My oncologist had told me that after the 3rd chemo session, if the scan results were not good and showed growth in the tumours, we would stop my treatment and look for a plan B. I had started to think about that Plan B. Knowing that I was currently on a treatment considered in Australia to be the best at the moment, my options were limited. For a while now, if need be, I had been planning to try to get onto the clinical trial that Farid is on. I mentioned it in my last post. If the chemo wasn't working I didn't want to waste any time. I was trying to think positively about Farid's results and how lucky I have always been with timing - at least with being in the right place at the right time when trying to park my car. This surely would be great if I could get on to this trial.
I was expecting this Thursday just past to be one of the worst days ever for me. While I try to stay positive, it is a struggle sometimes, I wasn't sure how well I was going to handle the news even though I was expecting it. The last week, every time I looked at Emma, it was a reminder that I might not be here for her.
I went to get the results of my CT scan. I was all focussed on discussing Plan B with my oncologist. But to my surprise he told me the results were good. There was moderate reduction in my tumours, he said.
Wow. That was a relief. It is amazing how much your thinking changes depending on how you perceive your future. It has happened to me quite a few times over the last few years. I'm on a roller coaster that causes sea changes to the way I think about the future. For the last couple of weeks I was finding it hard to do anything that required long term planning. As much as I was trying to stay positive and think that this next clinical trial sounds very promising, I just wasn't able to plan long term. And then in that one afternoon after seeing my oncologist, everything has turned around again.
I think in general I always kept a positive attitude no matter when I was told good news or bad, but always when it came to planning and doing the necessary stuff like organising my finances, I would always think practically of outcomes including of worse case scenarios.
I’ve rushed this post a bit because I want to get it in before midnight so I can have my first post for the year on January 1st. I just want to mention that I did an interview with the Sunday Herald Sun which should be out first or second Sunday in January but I'll keep you posted. I just wanted to get this post up because I thought for me, the results were such a great way to start the new year.
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