A Spring of Joy

So, I spoke with a doctor today… finally! He was very pleasant with his British accent and calling my Bri a “clever fellow” because he was impressed with how much Bri actually understood about what was going on with my radiation and half-life and nuclear medicine. I glowed and bragged about how intelligent my husband is, because, well, he is. Extremely intelligent. In fact, there are days when I just sit in awe of how much he knows. He’s the brains, I’m the beauty… well, except for the fact that he’s beautiful, too. So I guess he’s the brains and the beauty. I just waste time frying my brains watching the train wreck that is The Tyra Banks Show. Did I just say that? Seriously, y’all. I watched her one time. One time. And I think I lost half my brain cells. AAUUGGHH!

Where was I?

Oh, yes, the doctor. He said my scan looks good. No tumor spread beyond what they had originally seen and are treating which is a very good thing. There is residual radiation that will remain in my body for 80 days, and I’m not allowed any mass transit. He told me if I tried to fly, Homeland Security wouldn’t be too happy with my radiation levels. Heh.

I will do more follow-up in March with my endocrinologist about how the treatment is working, future scans, etc.

In the meantime, I see my medical oncologist in a week and a half for follow up on my breast cancer treatment, and I am facing some scans again soon to watch for recurrence there. So life is returning to “normal” in the sense that I only have scans and tests facing me. That will become my new normal now, every six months or so. A necessary evil in my life. No, a necessary good. I promised Stat this morning when I dropped her off at the airport that I was done having cancer.

I am aching to hold my babies and my Brian again. When I return home I will still have to maintain distance from them; however, the doc told me that I can hug them quickly each day. In fact, he said, “If they fall and hurt themselves, you go to them and you hold them. You will hurt them more by not doing that then you will by hugging them.” I love that he understood a mama’s heart. It’s the prolonged contact that I can’t have, and he said I cannot be too careful with them because I don’t want to damage their growing cells. Ugh. (We will have help with childcare in order to help protect them. Can I just tell you how awful it feels that my children have to be protected from me? The thought of inadvertantly harming them about does me in.)

I can be around adults fairly normally, although the physical contact thing comes into play. In fact, Bri’s been banished to the couch, and we didn’t even have a fight. Because, well, we never fight. After all, he is beautiful and intelligent and I am brain-fried on daytime television, what would we have to fight about?

February 19th. That’s the date. The radiation will have reached the “safe point”, and I will be able to live life “as normal” with my family again. I will hold my babies. I will snuggle with my husband.

Until then, I will fry my brains.

I have been isolated too long.