I may live a bit longer than I thought.  When we walked into my doctor’s office at 4 o’clock she was smiling.  The CT scans had shown no cancer in my body (apart from the lesions on the spine).  The lymph glands are enlarged and the spine has holes in the bone from metastases but it may be coming from an ill-defined mass wrapped around the spine.  To my uninformed mind it seems more manageable if it’s all in one place.

John is so relieved he thinks the cancer is curable and I may not even need an operation.  I am not that optimistic but have renewed hope.

I rang my son and daughter and told them my news but said it was not too serious, requiring a simple operation, maybe radiation.

This morning we walked to Aqua Fit but didn’t stay for coffee as we had so much to do.

I spent the morning preparing a lunch for visitors.  Our friends go way back to when they lived in our street for a year on a sabbatical from an English University. They have now settled in Australia permanently and have adult children and grandchildren here. Their granddaughter attends Wollongong University so they were visiting her in her new digs.

Our friends arrived late as they had become lost in the university campus. It has grown tremendously since they lived here nearly forty years ago.  They cooled off in the air conditioning, aided by a beer or two.  John and I drank zeros as I had become very conscious of what I was putting into my body. We discussed medical problems like old people do, and enjoyed the food.

After dropping them at the train station we drove on to see the Neurosurgeon at 4.45 pm.  I made it to the desk just in time while John parked the car at the back.  After I filled in some forms the doctor came out to greet us. I had given the copy of the CT scan and the blood test report to the office, so he had time to check through them. He also asked me walk on tip toe and on my heels which I could do easily.

I had to lie on the bench while he pressed in various places.  He seemed surprised that I had not had more pain.  He also said he was going to talk to some other specialists and ring me in an hour.  When I asked him what he thought it might be he said he couldn’t be sure but there were some signs it could be Multiple Myeloma. Of course, I googled once home and found it is:

A cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow that causes abnormal, cancerous cells to multiply, crowd out healthy blood cells, and damage bones and kidneys.  While generally incurable treatment can induce long-term remissions.

Finally, the much-anticipated phone call arrived.  The Neurosurgeon said he felt he was not the best person to deal with my case as operating on the back would not get to the source of the problem.  I will get a call from a Medical Oncologist (a specialist who diagnoses and treats cancer using chemotherapy, immunotherapy and targeted therapies) on Monday so that he/she can arrange an appointment for later the same day.