The plan

Just a quick addendum....I met with the oncologist yesterday.

I will have a port placed in my chest for the chemo sometime in the next week and a half.  I will start chemo on 1/17.  I'll have 12 rounds of chemo in the course of 5 months.  First I'll go in every other week for 8 weeks and then I'll go in every week for 4 weeks.  When that's done I'll do 6-7 weeks of radiation, 5 days a week.

I feel shaky and scared.  She gave me a "number" and I think the intention was to make me feel better about chemo.  It really just ended up scaring me.  The worse part about the whole appointment was her telling me that if I die from this, it's going to be from a distant cancer - somewhere else in my body.  When I asked how we screen for that distant cancer, then answer was we don't.  We have to wait until I'm symptomatic.  That's not what I wanted to hear.  I wanted blood work, tests, other screenings, which she said just don't work.  So she said I have to put my complete faith in this aggressive chemo and that it's killing any and every little micro cancer cell that may be in my body right now. 

Here's to 2013.