Not the most compelling headline, but it's the way we're looking at the world right now. People have all sorts of chronic illnesses that are shocking to deal with at first, but which gradually become a livable part of the scenery.
In May we had an appointment with specialists at the London (ON) Regional Cancer Centre. They retested Malcolm with radio-tagged solutions that are heavier-duty than Toronto's and came up with no visible tumours, though there may yet be micro tumours. They also recalculated a critical number that our Toronto doctor had been scaring us with, and came back with a much lower and happier number. They told us to get on with our lives, go off the Sandostatin and that all was well.
Not content with unfettered happiness, however, we had a conference call a week later with a researcher in Louisiana who is well-respected among the patient community. He told us that the confusing and somewhat worrisome Toronto results and the London happy-happy results weren't actually as far apart as they appeared to be. He felt Malcolm should stay on the Sandostatin, but he agreed that we should feel okay about getting on with our lives. (The medication suppresses tumour growth and also suppresses the tumour's release of damaging levels of serotonin.)
So, here we are. Malcolm's doing well, the kids are doing well, I'm doing well. We're used to this now, and we're feeling confident about life again. We have a level of residual mental and physical tiredness left over from all the excitement of the last year (heck, the last three years, really), but that's fading, too. Like diabetes or MS, we have a chronic disease to monitor and manage. But we have jobs, playdates, wiggly teeth, camping trips, a garden and other things to think about, and it's good to be able to pay attention to those happy little mundane things again.
