carrying it around

it has been awhile, i admit. when i left for vacation it was summer here and when i returned home just six days later it had turned back into early spring and it has stayed there ever since. i knew the unseasonable taste of summer would ruin the flavor of spring but i indulged nonetheless. and now with the cool days and strong winds i find myself longing for 85-degree, still, humid afternoons and mornings warm enough to allow for the luxury of setting out for a ride in short sleeves and shorts. soon enough.

i feel like i have bigger fish to fry, but really, i don't have any cooking to do. i had mediocre scan results in march (i still remember the day i learned the definition of this word - "not good, not bad, just eh." and the "eh" part is said while sticking out your tongue like you just sucked on a lemon), similar to the mediocrity in january. there's something in my right lung and while it might not be anything at all, it might be something, and just because it is there where something hasn't been before, i am slated for a PET scan in may. i'm not looking forward to the PET scan. i haven't had one in more than two years and when i did have my last one it found cancer in all sorts of little places. sure, i felt really crummy back then. i can't really determine whether it was the cancer's return that was making me feel crummy, or the two years' worth of chemo i'd been on without a break, but i think it was some combination of the two. right now i feel just fine, no complaints - sleeping well, eating well, riding well - and i feel like this PET scan is going to come along and rain on the well parade. i do understand it is better to know than not to know. and i do understand this drug, the xalkori, or magic jellybean if you will, cannot work forever. i also know this might be nothing and my worries are for naught. but realistically, i cannot not worry, and i really do dread the thought of having to become more than a part-time patient again, for more reasons than my allotted room on google's server will allow.

i've known for quite some time now i am not privy to a life without cancer - i most likely will not ever be. there will be doctors appointments and scans and medicine for the rest of my time here. but it is somehow harder to stomach, the thought of it all, when i think, much of the time, there is nothing wrong with me. i don't want to come across as whiny - that's not why i am sharing this. i share it because this is what it is like - it doesn't ever go away, and it isn't something i'm capable of burying well in the months between surveillance scans.

in the meantime, i am very glad to have a nice stretch of time at home without interruption. no plane rides, no airport food, no baggage claims. spring is such a beautiful time here and it only lasts so long; all around town the trees are in bloom and the petals are falling with the wind. there are blue skies and puffy white clouds and it is pretty tough not to love it out there, even though, as i've hinted, it could stand to be a little warmer out there. so, i am trying to soak up all the good stuff while carrying my thoughts around with me. i manage it, but it would be easier to manage if i knew the news would be good. isn't it always the way, though?