Here we go again

Hi I wasn't sure that I even wanted to start this blog again. Since these blogs have been a way for me to deal with cancer and chemotherapy, starting up again means I am dealing with it again. Not only that, but I find that I have less interest in doing it this time for some reason. Maybe I am just being lazy though, who knows. After going back and forth for a few days, I decided to go ahead and dust this off and see where it goes. There is something therapeutic for me in doing this so I will give it another try. The way this went down was that they found some suspicious spots in the bottom of my lungs when they were doing a routine CT Scan of the abdomen. They called me back for a CT Scan of the chest and found "too many tumors to count" which we were able to see on the computer. Imagine a bunch of little pellets all scattered throughout the lungs. One was pretty large but the rest were small. This means that an operation is not going to work. Since surgery is not an option the other option is to try and hold them at bay with chemotherapy. What makes this diagnosis worse than the others is that before we were able to remove the tumors and then use chemo to hopefully prevent it from coming back. This time we are using chemo to try and shrink the tumors or prevent them from growing. This is a much more serious and dangerous diagnosis. The oncologist said that sometimes they are able to completely kill all the tumors but this seems like a very unlikely scenario. I think we are looking at this as a temporary fix for as long as I can manage to do the chemo and then when I am not able, or not willing, to do anymore then we will just call it a day and let things take their course. I am trying to keep a positive attitude through all this but my mind has moved on from trying to be positive about beating cancer to a different viewpoint. Now I am trying to get my head around the fact that this is likely going to be terminal and I don't have years and years to deal with this. I don't know how long of course but it is time to get my head and my heart to a place where it can accept what has been shown to me. I hope this does not sound like I have given up or am not going to fight because that is not the case. It simply means that the reality must be accepted for what it is and the best way to handle it (for me) is to come to an acceptance of it and then make sure you do everything you can to avoid it. I am off of work during this round of chemo. This is a good thing because it gives me the time to do the thinking that I have to do right now. We will do 4 weeks of chemo, every other week which will bring us to 8 weeks from now. Then we will do another scan and compare it to the baseline scan that we have now. It we are keeping the tumors from growing we will continue with another 4 weeks. If we are failing to keep them from growing I don't know what the plan will be. We will cross that bridge when we get to it. I had my first round of chemo on Monday, Oct 3, 2011. We went with a half dose for the first one so the body can kind of get used to it. So far the effects are as expected, tired, nauseous, etc. Later on the mouth sores, cracked skin, dizziness and all that crap will come but for now it is ok. Well thats all I have for this blog, I will update this on a weekly basis Please keep us in your prayers Love to all John