Gratitude & Grace

 It's hard to be 'grateful' for PET CT scans. I have them every eight weeks or so. Overall, they're not really that bad. I can't eat that morning which on any given day is no big deal and on another is a bummer. It's time consuming. But I live really close to the medical facility, so it's not that bad. And they're always on schedule (we all know that's pretty miraculous). It's one of the many occasions I get poked at with a needle each month - which for anyone is never enjoyable and for me can be a challenge. Especially if you took away my ability to hydrate. 

Not the worst experience, certainly...but grateful....that's probably going a tad too far. 

With that said, I became grateful for my most recent PET CT scan. Because it highlighted another area of concern. One that most certainly would not have been found until whatever it ends up being was much more than whatever it is now. 

A mammogram in the fall of 2024 didn't catch it. Maybe it wasn't there then. A new mammogram in April 2025 (requested because something was lighting up on the PET CT scan) didn't really give anyone additional concern. Neither did an ultrasound of the same area. Everyone kept saying (I'm paraphrasing here) 'there's something there, but it looks like nothing.' 

Just not 'nothing' enough to stop the testing, scanning, and poking. 

The cancer treatment I'm on was doing a good job. Actually, if treatments had feelings that would cause offense. It's doing a great job. My pain had decreased immensely. No more nausea. And the most recent scans showed a 'quieting' of the growth of the tumors. 

I'm now grateful no one told me it might not have worked at all. I guess that seems obvious in hindsight; but it never occurred to me it wouldn't work. I've been more consumed by how long until it doesn't work anymore. 

A few days before the next test, an MRI of the right breast, the pain in my liver started creeping back into my life. So did the nausea. And if you've ever had a breast MRI you know the position of the scan puts you face down. My upper abdominal area didn't appreciate that. It's just 23 minutes of scanning. But getting up off that machine was a challenge. 

Getting a call that same evening was unexpected. I suspect that's half the reason I hung up the phone after learning I have a suspicious mass in the right breast that will need an MRI guided biopsy, and sobbed.

It's not my nature to pick up the phone and call someone for support when I'm sad or scared. Not initially. My MO is to sit quietly, to settle into my own thoughts and feelings about something. And maybe more profoundly, my choice not to involve anyone is most definitely because I never want to create drama - particularly around an unknown. And at this point, there's still unknowns.

But I called someone who has become an incredible friend, someone who I subconsciously knew would probably drop everything and beeline for my house without my having to ask. And she did. 

She let me cry and she held my hand and she allowed me to release more than four months of sadness, fear, pain, and disappointment into the room. Despite the unknown. Despite the fact that even if this is yet another terrible challenge I may be faced with, it was caught early and won't be nearly as awful as what I'm already going through. Her grace in that moment let me feel all that was rising to the surface and spilling over. She assured me it's okay to have reached a point where it's all too much. 

Which allowed me to see: