Wednesday, February 10, 2010

The Power of Words.

There are quite a few words in the cancer world that you don’t really hear much in other places—or at least, you hope not to. Words like: recurrence, chemotherapy, radiation, advanced disease, immuno-compromised, neutropenic, transfusion, stage four, and biopsy . . . just to name a few. There are a couple of words and phrases in this arena though, that are music to the ears of the cancer patient and their families. These words . . . words like: stable, benign, and remission, give you hope.

Another word that you hear all the time in connection with cancer is “cure”. As in “Race for the Cure”, “he’s so smart he could cure cancer”, “searching for a cure” “finding a cure” etc. etc. etc. But this is also a word . . . the “cure” word . . . that you will almost never hear from an oncologist. They just don’t trust it.

Today, my oncologist, Dr. Gary Frenette, said, “We will never call it that . . . we won’t say you’re cured, until you die of something else.” Both Jason and I thought that was hysterical and completely appropriate. We were in Dr. Frenette’s office to get the results of my “6-month” scans. Everyone I know from the cancer world dreads scan - week. It’s just so full of anxiety . . . and hope. Of course you want the scans, and you want to know the results, sort of . . . kind of . . . I mean, if it’s good, you want to know, but, if it’s not, then, well . . . not so much. Still, you have to go. And sometimes when you go, the words they say . . . make you cry.

Today, the words Dr. Frenette said were : NO EVIDENCE of DISEASE! Otherwise known in cancer speak, as N.E.D. The best damn acronym in the world if you’re a cancer patient. (It doesn’t mean cure . . . there might still be some cancer cells lurking around in there somewhere . . . but they couldn’t find any, and they looked in a lot of places!) And so I cried, and laughed, kissed my husband, and danced a little, smiled a lot, and cried some more, had lunch with Jason, went to a company meeting, came home and hugged the red-haired boy, said some thank you prayers . . . a lot of those, sat down and wrote this to you . . .and stopped for just a moment to think about the power of words, and how it is the little short ones like love, and hope, and n.e.d. that can change your life.

POST SCRIPT:

No, I am not yet done with the oxygen chamber (another week or so!) and the radiation necrosis is still a bit of a problem (it’s possible that it may require a graft or some other procedure down the road but that is yet to be seen.) Yes, there is still some pain, but it’s manageable. Yes, I will still have doctor’s follow up at least every 6 to 8 weeks and still take 5 or 6 pills daily (for a long time probably) but that’s not a problem at all. We won’t actually scan again until early August and if those scans look good . . . then we will go to a once a year scan schedule . . . and normal regular old follow up.