Head, shoulders, knees and toes

(Well, sort of.)

My daughter's kindergarten class has been doing the "head, shoulders, knees and toes" song this week, and she likes to come home and show it off to us.

The song was going through (what's left of) my mind during the three-hour spontaneous MRI today. Despite being "totally booked," the imaging center spoke with my doctor and managed to squeeze me in immediately for a marathon set of scans: brain, neck, upper spine, and lower spine. (So I was singing, "Head, neck, upper back, lower back")

At first I protested the brain scan, referring back to my August scan, which was good enough to earn me a pass until February. I explained that without a perfusion study and prior history, they may be confused by all the mess they will see in my head (like my resection cavity, fried mastoid bone, and a whole lot of scar tissue). The best I could do was give them my neuro-oncologist's phone number in case they saw anything that freaked them out.

This scenario gave me hope that perhaps I was merely dealing with a hyper radiologist who only noticed my glioblastoma history when he was writing his report after Wednesday's MRI, and who wanted to err on the side of caution when he couldn't tell the difference between a tumor and a transitional vertebrae.

(If that's not the case, he may have saved my life.)

So off into the tube I went, carrying thoughts of prayers being offered on my behalf (thank you!) and reliving precious memories with my family, to help take (what's left of) my mind off the pain as I lay flat on my back for three hours.

And between studies, as they would pull me out of tube to readjust frames or inject contrast media, I would always re-enter the tube with gratitude that I fit all the way in there quite easily!

I have no idea what this will reveal. But I remember what I told my son as he accompanied me for my MRI in August: "We will either learn that everything looks great--and that's happened a lot lately--or we will learn that we don't have enough information and need to do more testing, or we will learn that there is something new to take care of -- and it's good to know if we need to take care of something. "

Until we know, I feel like a teenage girl on a Friday night, sitting by the phone and hoping it will ring soon.

However, I know that this situation is in the loving hands of my loving Heavenly Father, and I trust Him with everything. I only pray that His will be done, and that I will know what to do. In return, I have peace in knowing that all will ultimately be well, even if this latest development gets ugly.

I still shed a tear or two this morning, as this is a time for emotions to rise to the surface. But these were not tears of frustration or anger or fear. Just a wistful feeling for my family, who must endure this with me. And sentiment about having to say goodbye to karate and clog dancing and bike riding and running a 5K...at least for now. Hopefully not for long.

My prayers to avoid complacency have definitely been answered!