December 5, 2007

Hurry up and wait

It often seems like cancer patients are forced to adopt this attitude/course when we are at a crossroads, as we are now with the treatment options before us. Are we being too passive in wanting to make sure that all the team members are on board for the next step? Should we, in this case in particular, just have the cyst drained this week and talk about it after with UCSF when my doctor returns on Monday?

To my mind that makes little or no sense. I have not only survived, but thrived, over the past almost seven years trusting the advice of the experts from UCSF, following that experienced advice and being measuredly aggressive in my/our treatment of the tumor(s). I think that my oncologist would agree with that assessment and I know that he shares my confidence in their expertise and values their input, while also sharing my/our desire to attack and continue to be aggressive in challenging the cancer.

We had the MRI scan sent up to UCSF yesterday. My doctor will look at them on Monday when he returns to the office. We meet with my local surgeon on Wednesday afternoon and will have a plan together by the end of next week to deal with the cyst. In the meantime we will stay the course; no matter how frustrating that will be, I believe it is the right thing to do.

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