Prayer Needed

Dear Friends,

I have not been posting on the blog much, since I have been cancer free almost 4 years now. Not sure if anyone still reads it anyway! But I do need prayer.

I had my scans at Lankenau, as usual, last week. The MRI's of abdomen and pelvis were again clear, but the CT scan of my lungs came back Tuesday and showed 3 very small spots. :-(

I was SO SAD!!!!! SO SAD!

One spot is 2mm, two of them are 3mm. There are also 2 spots that are too small to measure - about the size of a pencil dot. One of the now 3mm spots was on ALL of the prior CT scans - since my surgery actually. It has always been 2mm and was believed to be a benign scar spot or something from a foreign body maybe? or an old infection? But, now that one is 3mm. Is it due to a different slice on the CT scan which hit the measurement differently? Or is it an old benign spot which has become irritated or gathered congestion or something? Or is it a growing mets - along with the other four? :-(

I held on until Thursday (barely), and saw Dr Haas, my oncologist at Penn. She compared the actual scans, not just the reports, with the assistance of a Penn Radiologist. That radiologist said that my chances are good that the spots are NOT cancer, even though my previous metastasis was to my lung. Many people have benign spots show up in their lungs that are really not serious, such as from inhaled / aspirated particles, congestion etc. I have some reflux and post nasal drip things going on that maybe could account for something other than cancer speckling my lungs. Maybe......... Seems unlikely to ME, but they insist this is really more likely than lung metastases. :-/ The spots are too small to needle biopsy and much too small and deep to try to remove surgically, especially if in fact they are not cancer.

So, I have to wait till the last week of June, try to get the reflux and allergy (?) stuff more controlled, take good care of myself, and see if the spots grow or shrink or stay the same. If I start chemo now, and they shrink, we will not know if they would have shrunk on their own without chemo. If they shrink on their own, we will know they either were not cancer, OR my body / immune system is fighting them if they are cancer. If they grow - Dr Haas assures me that they are SO tiny there is no way 11 weeks is too long to wait to start chemo, A scan in 6-8 weeks would not show changes significant enough to be measured.

If I do need chemo, several new drugs for kidney cancer have been approved since I took Sutent. Not sure if they would try Sutent again, since maybe it worked before. Or not, since maybe it didn't work before?? :-/ Can you tell this is all a big unknown for me right now?

So, obviously, it is going to be a long 11 weeks, waiting for the next CT scan results. Please pray with and for me as I come to mind. I do not relish the thought of being on chemo again. It was HARD. And even more so, I do not want to die! I had gotten to the point of really expecting clear scans - silly me! The oncologist says I really have to look at myself as a life-long cancer patient. When the scans are clear it does not mean I am cured, it just means nothing is growing...... She gave me quite a pep talk about caring for myself and having a positive attitude and really believing I can beat this disease again if it is cancer. And meanwhile, trying to assume it is not cancer until we know otherwise.

I still know that God has had the number of my days in His book since the beginning of time, and that all of this is for His purposes, that should I die of cancer sooner or later or never have cancer again, God is STILL GOD. And I am here to do what He asks of me, one day at a time. It isn't always easy. But He never promised that!

Please also pray for Charles and the kids. These scary doctor appointments are hard on us all!

Love and thank you so much!
Karen
Prov 3:5-6