Silver linings

A good friend recently pointed out to me that if there is one silver lining to the cancer adventure, it's that I've had the opportunity to connect and re-connect with friends like never before. It's true. People talk about how some friends start to avoid them when they get sick, and I'm thankful that I've experienced the opposite. I'm very lucky to have great friends that want to hang out with me despite my deathly pallor and stories of lung catheters.

Also, I am thinner, less hirsute, and seemingly no longer allergic to blueberries.

Plus, waiting for my CT scan yesterday I got to catch up on my reading with this gem, the June 1993 issue of the official magazine of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Sure, Major Kira was kind of foxy and all, but come on... Nineteen Ninety fuckin' Three! That's older than OK Computer. Kurt Cobain was alive when this was published. I've hired students younger than this magazine. Folks, don't just donate your stem cells, donate some magazines to the Ottawa Hospital, general campus.

And, finally, I got some unexpected good news from my GP today. I wasn't supposed to get my CT results yet, but she got two of my three scans back (abdomen and pelvis, chest will come in next week). It turns out that my giant spleen has shrunk, my pancreas is showing "no residual measurable disease", and, at least as far as my abdomen goes, I'm showing "significant improvement and treatment response". There's "near total resolution" regarding my lymphatic system and "no newly developed lymphomatous involvement of the abdomen and pelvis". Some of that reads like gibberish, but the bottom line is that things on the inside are even better than I'd dared to hope for, and this gives the stem cell transplant a better chance of success. I hope the rest of the scan shows the same. 

I will celebrate by demolishing some pizza. Yes, I've already abandoned the ketogenic diet after just two weeks. Something to do with the lack of peer reviewed research, no real positive case studies, and an absence of pizza in my life...

That's it. People tell me my blog is a downer so I'm just sharing my glass half full kind of day.