Getting to the point

Men frequently complain that women do not get to the point. They talk all around the subject (and keep talking about the same thing for far too long!).

Since Thursday I have not really had a great deal to say. Apart from telling the tale of the 'hi-jacked roti' to almost universal disbelief, reassuring because I was there and I had trouble believing it happened, I have been waiting again. This time was THE time. Seeing the oncologist was the big first step needed to have happen. Get a treatment plan in place. DO something for a change.

Sometimes it is amazingly difficult to get to the point. The subject is so large it sits on the plain of your consciousness like a city. It is confusing to figure out which road to take far less which gate.

And while I could write down the facts, each footstep leading forwards, with relative ease, it would not tell the story of how the world, cramped and uncomfortable with the certainty of cancer, chemo, and radiotherapy could become a universe, a beach where I am just one grain of sand, trying to fit the latest information into a context that does not leave me reeling, feeling like that astronaut drifting away from the space station, falling up into the stars, cold suns that will never warm my skin.

The push and clamour of emotion tends to crowd science to the edges of the mind, and it is as if there are two of me. Well three, because there is always the observer, watching without judgment (most of the time)watching and keeping me aware. But right now all of me is stunned. I cannot see the point. far less get to it.

I went to the oncologist's office yesterday. My sister went with me, as I wanted to be sure my memory alone was not the source of information.

The morning started with frustration because my X-rays and CAT scan had been signed out and Mr. H (the surgeon who performed my biopsy and had the films) was not reachable. We had given ourselves four hours before the appointment so we had him paged, left messages about what was needed and why, and although we still did not have them by the time Dr. S was ready to see me I did have my original chest X-ray and my MRI films with me, so it was not total disaster. Mr. H had picked up his page and left a message that the films were with X-ray. They were not.

The lab could not find the biopsy report. Nor the cytology results from the bronchoscopy. Still not disaster, just really annoying but my notes were there so opinions on the parameters of my treatment were ther to be considered.

So was the opinion that the mass in my lung is a histiocytoma.

Now while I understand intellectually why the lung is important this is drving me crazy.

I have known from the beginning that the tumour in my brainstem, causing all the disruption in my life, is inoperable. Surgery itself would do too much damage. So I do not particularly care if is a primary (possibly benign) or secondary(definitely cancer) tumour. It is malignant by virtue of its position. and I have embraced that knowledge since the first week of March.

I have been waiting and cooperating while the doctors to do their tests so they can tell me what we can do to contain and destroy the tumours in my brain. As most chemo therapies will not cross the blood brain barrier, the only possible treatment is radiation.

I finally truly understand why the lung tumour is important. Secondary tumours have the same characteristics as their primary source.

The lung tumour I appear to have is highly resistant to radiotherapy. There are treatments available, such as the gamma knife and stereotactic radio surgery where the tumours are targeted with pinpoint accuracy and superzapped with about 210 beams of gamma radiation. No scalpels, so therefore perfect for the type of tumours I have.

We do not have a gamma knife in Barbados.

Continued.