Good news!
Back on the plane, gang. Thirty-three thousand feet up,
somewhere over the Atlantic. 9:30 pm Central Time. Sitting in my customary
luxuriously legroomy exit row seat. We just knocked back dinner – chicken
marsala, shrimp salad, red wine, Ben and Jerry’s cookie dough ice cream for
dessert. Not too bad, really. Before that, I finished the second half of “Jo Jo
Rabbit” after watching the first half on my flight to Atlanta. Very good flick.
Wouldn’t mind watching it again one day, minus the constant announcement
interruptions – in English and German, mind you. Just tried doing the sleep
thing. Didn’t work. Usually doesn’t. This time I even popped a melatonin and a
quarter-eye dropper of CBD oil. Nothing. Too restless.
Obviously, the trip home is over. And the trip was a
success! Wait for it… Tricia came out of Mayo Clinic on Thursday with really
nothing but good news! We got to the clinic early Tuesday morning, then Tricia
spent the next several hours getting poked and prodded and scanned and scoped.
Actually, no scoping. The alliteration just was too tempting. The worst of her tests
was the ultrasound to her eye. This is one of the most important tests they do.
This one gets the best pictures of the eye and the tumor, but unfortunately,
it’s a fairly painful procedure, with the technician pushing and poking around
on her eye with the ultrasound machine. It’s not a quick process either. After
some blood tests and some other scans, by mid-day we were ready to meet with
the eye specialist, her main cancer doctor. We sat in his office while he
looked at the ultrasound pictures. I was barely breathing. It was super tense.
I had my head down most of the time, writing down nearly everything he was saying,
mostly to keep my mind off my anxiety. At one point, Tricia asked me to move to
another chair where I could supposedly see the pictures better on the computer
screen. I moved but didn’t tell her that I had really zero interest in looking
at the pictures. I was way too nervous.
As the doctor looked at the pictures and narrated his
findings, the only thing that came from his mouth was positive news. Parts of
the tumor were the exact same size as before the radiation. Some were smaller.
Anything apart from tumor growth is a good sign. Tricia’s eyesight hadn’t
deteriorated that much. The pressure in her eye was normal. The redness that
remains in Tricia’s eye is actually a good thing, because it’s a sign that the
tissue is still alive. Still healing. Then onto the scans of her organs. All
clear. “Unremarkable” as the lingo goes. Not a sign of any cancer spread.
Again, nothing but positive news. What a freakin’ relief!
Then that was that. We asked a few follow-up questions,
like, “Is it okay to look directly at a solar eclipse?” – ok, not that question
– then left the office. I think we were both a little stunned. We didn’t know
exactly what to think. And we were both exhausted. Tricia, physically and
mentally. Me, just mentally. It was the news we had hoped for, not presumed
we’d get for fear of jinxing the whole thing, but definitely what we had hoped
for. The change in Tricia’s demeanor was like night and day. She was able to
finally breathe again.
So, for now, we’re able to enjoy our first bit of happy news
we’ve received since the initial diagnosis back in September. The next three
years will see Tricia going in for tests every 5-6 months, to monitor the tumor
and continually check for any spreading of cancer to her organs. We’re not
completely out of the woods, yet, but the future’s looking up. It feels great!
The rest of the week was nice. Tricia and I chilled out a
lot together in the evenings, eating home cooked meals, watching Netflix and
staying up to date on the whole Iowa debacle. Last night we met Casey and Grace
downtown for dinner at Brit’s. The only bit of down news this week was that the
flu and another bout of vertigo landed my mom in the hospital. She was still
there when I left today, but I think the prognosis was good for her to be
released in the next day or so.
So on to Spring in Bavaria. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll
be teaching this next week, then the week after that I’m off again thanks to
something in that part of the world they refer to as “Ski Week.” I plan to meet
Sammie in Berlin for a couple of days, then spend the rest of the week doing
what the Germans do. Skiing. A mix of Nordic and alpine in what I’m hoping for.
No concrete plans, yet, but I’m sure something will come together. Wasn’t sure
I’d ever ski in the Alps. Apparently, it’ll be happening, in just over a week.
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