Thank goodness it's April 2nd...

I'm so glad it wasn't April Fool's Day today, because I didn't want to be waiting for a punchline if I heard anything I didn't like. We did joke, though, about the blood pressure monitor, which kept acting up on me. Maybe the machine thought it was still April 1st.

The good news was that today's MRI results were "good". The scan looks almost identical to previous scans, so anything still remaining may just be scar tissue or something like that. Of course, next time (in 8 weeks) I get to do a spectroscopy scan to know for certain. I was assured that the spectroscopy was not ordered because of anything worrisome, but as a routine practice every six months. Neuro tests were minimal, which was a good sign. (Didn't seem necessary to evaluate clinical effects if there was no evidence of disease progression.)

The bad news is that although my treatment seems to be working well, it is becoming less tolerable, at least as far as my bone marrow is concerned. I'll know the results of my labwork tomorrow, and that will dictate what we do next for treatment. Ideally they wanted me to be on my current treatment for a year and then put me on a maintenance program, but I learned that many patients can only handle six months of this regimen. I might get to squeeze out a couple more months if my blood cell counts can bounce back up. Meanwhile, I may have to postpone or pare back some of my treatment. We're not sure how this will play out, and in our discussion I also learned some things that I'd rather not think about. So I left with an uneasy feeling for the rest of the day, although I was somewhat relieved that at least for now things were better than they could have been. But I think I'm just haunted by previous bad news, and I'm creeped out by more exposure to the gruesome realities of what seems inevitable, although hopefully not until sometime in the far distant future.

What helped a lot was a small voice that kept whispering to me, "Trust not in the arm of flesh." I have a great oncologist, but despite her expertise in this matter she is not all-knowing. She has no cure for me (yet) but she has some good tricks up her sleeve and she may only be one of many tools that the Lord is providing. None of us knows all that will be accomplished in my life, and how long I have in which to get it done. None of us knows what is around the corner -- good or bad -- and while sometimes we are hit by tragedy we can also be surprised by marvelous miracles. (&& --Fingers crossed for the latter.)

Speaking of miracles, we had our family home evening lesson this evening on the Easter story, and the ultimate miracle of the Resurrection. As we spent our time immersed in this topic with our son, it was a sweet reminder of the hope that remains constant, regardless of whatever happens with this nasty cancer. That's what I can rely on, even more so than what good clinical experts might conclude.

And meanwhile, even though there's a residual icky feeling that wants to linger, I'm happy to know that at least for today I'm still in the game.