PET (scan) Sounds

Prior to Karen's fourth round of chemo this morning, we got the results of last week's PET scan. The results were mixed. On the one hand, the none of her tumors showed any growth. In fact, a number of them had actually reduced in size. Arresting and/or reversing tumor growth is basically the whole point of this exercise so that was pretty nice to hear.

One one hand, and on the other hand....

Then again...there's that pesky 'other hand.' So, on that other hand, the PET scan revealed that the activity rate of several of the various cancer sites had increased a great deal. So while they aren't producing new cancer cells they are furiously at work trying to. This is the not so fantastic part of the results. Especially when you look back at the great response Karen enjoyed from the crizotinib which not only shrunk her tumors but shut those cancer factories the fuck down.

Mixed results like this are pretty standard so we can't really mewl about it too much. If we're going to do that sort of thing, we should really focus that energy on how terribly chemo went today. Karen was absolutely poleaxed by nausea and intense abdominal cramping during her infusion. After unplugging her IV for the fourth time so she could wheel the thing into the bathroom while she vomited, we opted to stop plugging it in and let the battery carry the load for the last few bags of drugs. The plug for the thing was awkwardly located behind her chemo recliner and it was just a pain to get it back in while tiptoeing over her IV lines and all. Happily, we were in the chair right next to the bathroom--not because we had some kind of foresight but because my antisocial tendencies had me homing in on it since it was the furthest away from the other patients.

Karen has spent the rest of today in bed, sleeping most of the time. That said, she did muster the energy to watch the latest episode of True Detective with me. We watched on the TV in our bedroom since she didn't want to walk into the living room to watch on the big TV, partly because of the peripheral neuropathy she's developed over the last few weeks. The neuropathy is a clear side effect of the chemo and it is essentially nerve damage that is occurring in her hands and feet. Her hands get achy but it's her feet that are the real problem. If she's off her feet, they itch like crazy and no amount of scratching helps. If you, like me, have had to wear a cast for a broken bone and had an itch just out of the reach of a bent up wire hanger, you know what that's like. Walking is worse. With shoes on, her feet hurt some but she can get around. But shoes make her feet even itchier. Barefoot, the pain when she walks is much more intense and she is the embodiment of wobbly, clutching onto chair backs, counter tops, walls, and the people around her to move around the house. It's like having a toddler in the house all over again.

Brain Drain

Karen had another MRI this afternoon and right afterwards we met with the doctor to find out the results. I was in a pretty good mood since I had just beaten three levels with perfect scores in Pixel Junk Monsters while I waited for Karen to finish. What could possibly put a damper on my day?

Not her MRI results, that's for sure. The three metastases had shriveled up dramatically thanks to the radiation. One of them was almost gone it had been so thoroughly zapped. Even better, there was no evidence of any "seeding" of new mets. Really, the only drawback to the radiation was that Karen somehow failed to develop any superpowers. Or perhaps they just haven't manifested yet....

That's one big test down, one big test to go. Karen will have another PET scan on Thursday the 20th and we'll get the results of that right before her chemo treatment on Monday the 24th. We are crossing fingers.

This, apparently, is what Karen's soul looks like.

In the meantime, Dash is on break from school which means he has a lot more free time to play GTA V online with his mother kibitzing from the couch. Which means I can expect to hear a lot more of the following:

"What now, Mom?"

"Kill that guy and take his money."

"Say no more."

Nice Man, Bad Wig

What a pleasant day.

Traficant, King of the Bad Wigs!

Although it is allegedly winter, the temperature in these parts was flirting with 70 today and it was lovely out. We were still basking in the warm afterglow of one Mr. Neal Rosen's 4.5 day visit with us over the last several days (he left on Tuesday). We also had the major portion of the latest swath of ruined flooring repaired early this morning and the guy did flat-out fantastic job. Since Dash has been borrowing my mountain bike to get to school everyday, I rolled up all my loose change and purchased a road bike so I can ride on the paved trails around here during the week. What more could make such a nice day even better?

Apparently, a visit to a funeral home. That, it would seem, is what passes for the cherry on top of the day's sundae for Karen and I.

And calling the visit we paid to the Hull's Chapel the highlight of the day isn't ironic. It more or less truly was. This has been the last bit of ugly business we'd been putting off since this whole mess started. I'd done a lot of preliminary calling and online researching several months ago and had more or less decided that Hull seemed like the right call. But we'd need to visit to know for sure and when Karen surprised us both by feeling fairly chipper this afternoon, we got in the car and drove right on over.

Behold an even less convincing toupee!

The funeral home is not all that far from the Walnut Creek BART (convenient for guests! and tons of parking, too!) in a part of town we rarely visit. Karen was concerned that we didn't have an appointment but I reasoned that while they probably don't get a lot of literal "walk in" business, we were unlikely to be the first surprise visitors.

Hull is a family run business, kind of like Six Feet Under but with sons that are nowhere near as dreamy as Michael C. Hall and Peter Krause. We met Mark Hull III and he was unfailingly warm and gracious and extremely patient and helpful. He was also possessed of a rather unconvincing toupee. He explained the whole process which was great since we haven't had to bury anyone legally before (the drifters in the crawlspace obviously do not count). We did our level best not to stare at the unsteady tilt of his wig as he spoke.

Sorry, Chuck. No one's buying it.

It's probably a little counter-intuitive to feel reassured by making plans for your spouse's/your own demise but that was the takeaway from our visit. If nothing else, just having an idea of how the whole thing works was comforting in a sideways kind of way. We just wish the place had wi-fi so that we can stream the eventual service for those that cannot manage to make the trip when the time comes. That said, I'm guessing one of our more technically savvy friends might be able to come up with a solution for us.

I've been trying to figure out why we actually enjoyed our visit and the best I've been able to come up with is this. Basically, this whole cancer thing is an unending series of terrible mysteries. You don't see what's killing you, you don't know when it's going to do something horrible to you like migrating to your brainmeat, you don't know if your treatments are working, you don't know anything. The one thing you do know--that there's going to be death--is still stuffed with uncertainty since you don't know when that little treat is going to happen. So something like this, something like planning a memorial service, something that is concrete and tangible and controllable...that gives you a small bit of certainty that at least one thing is going to go according to your wishes.

And that, I guess, is what passes for comfort right now.

Holding Unsteady

Now that's a headache.

Chemo round #3 took place this past Monday and true to form, it took about a day and half for the meds to catch up to Karen and play the knockout game with her. She's been in bed pretty much nonstop since early Tuesday evening. She's terrifically nauseated, her body aches, and she has a constant, brutal headache. Pain meds and more weed than your typical Phish concert have failed to make any kind of a dent in her, well, misery. We're hoping that the side effects will ease up after a few days but, to be honest, we are not terribly optimistic about that. The pattern--albeit over a relatively brief time period--has been that recovering from chemo gets about a week harder/longer each time. At least we'll have an idea if all this terribleness is worth the trouble in a few weeks: we've gotten her follow-up PET scan and MRI scheduled for the week of the 17th. We are both looking forward to and dreading the tests.

In other news, our home is not so much a Lifetime movie heartwarming story of quiet triumph starring Meredith Baxter Birney these days. As Miranda succinctly put it the other night, "It's so sad here. Everyone is sad all the time." And that's pretty much true. While we're not all glooming around with a personal storm cloud bobbing over our heads, there is a palpable oppressiveness that sucks the air out of the house more often than not. We try to be positive, we try to enjoy the time we have. We want to be the good cancer family. But it's beyond hard when one of us is essentially bedridden and not making any sort of noticeable gains. We've all lost our temper, lost patience with one another at least once. Except for Karen although I'd like to think now and again that she'd like to tear through us like a bulldozer with rabies just once if she could muster the energy.

I won't speak for the other denizens of the ward, but I will confess that even though these upsets are actually very rare I grapple with intense shame over it. I think we want to pull together but sometimes our nerves are so raw that we cannot bear to be touched, physically or metaphorically. And definitely not by Woody Allen. Ick.

And just so we don't end on that terribly downbeat note.....we are very excited that one Mr. Neal Rosen, my college/post-college roommate, will be dropping by for a visit starting this Friday. We intend to show him the entire Spoils of Babylon mini-series because it is comedy genius and I heartily besqueech you all to watch it.