Out of remission

Rob's last PET scan was suspicious, and the most recent one, taken this month, was worse. Our doctors did a biopsy, and we received the results today. Rob's cancer has indeed come out of remission, although at least it hasn't reached his bones yet. He is starting an immunatherapy trial at Mayo Clinic next week. Read the details here at our CaringBridge site.

We had waited until tonight to share the news with the girls that the last PET scan was bad because we wanted them to get through their finals first. Finals are over, however, and they have both been told.

52 Week Collage: Weeks 15 and 16

I have been waiting to post these until we told the girls the latest medical results.

Week 15: Pain
Everything hurts.



Since Rob's heart was damaged by chemo, I have been doing all the shoveling. At the first snowfall, doing the job, I hurt my back. Badly. Ice and painkillers and pillows and baths and ow and tears. It really, really hurt. At the same time, I have been fighting off depression (in the Victorian language of flowers, marigolds are associated by some with grief or despair). It has been very difficult to deal with physical pain, combined with the anxiety of job hunting, combined with the bad cancer news. This card is tied, symbolically, with the marigolds, to a card in my Soulcollage deck, The Woman Who Listens to Ravens.

Week 16: PET
Rob undergoes testing at Mayo Clinic.



I cut the words and the picture of a patient undergoing a PET scan from the various educational brochures we've received from Mayo (really, they will give you a brochure about anything under the sun). The blobby shapes draped over the words are photographs of some glassblown art hanging from the ceiling in the large atrium at Mayo Clinic (printed out on tracing paper, which is the first time I've used that technique). Here is a picture of the installation, in situ. Very pretty, if you look at it one way.

But every time I look at those shapes, I think they look like cellular structures. Even like tumors.

I suspect that impression is intentional.