black and white and gray

I was a science major, B.S. in Biology degree, so I do find all this interesting. I was also a certified Cytotechnologist working in the Pathology Department, diagnosing cancer, mostly from Pap smears. Identifying HPV before most of you had even heard of Human Papilloma Virus or a vaccine for it. There is a lot of "gray" area in medical diagnosis. Fitting cells into what they most closely resemble. I had always hoped they were wrong on my original diagnosis, just maybe it was something benign that appeared malignant. But when my first lung metastasis was diagnosed the same Sarcoma as my original retroperitoneal tumor, I realized they must have been right. This is my scan... so the reality sets in. This growing nodule is in my upper lobe, close to the blood vessels that come into my lung. Conventional surgery would mean taking out the upper lobe, completely. I don't want to lose my upper lobe, or any lobe at all. I've been researching alternatives.... "Cyberknife", a radiation technology, utilizing robotics. I think it's the way to go for me. I'll have the Doctor "zap" the tumor, all Star Wars and all, because it is a war... a war against cancer. And I'm going to win.

"You gain

strength, courage and confidence

by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror.

I can take the next thing that comes along.'

You must do the thing

you think you cannot do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962

quote from my cancer surviving friend at "my half-glassed life"

fighting back