Yesterday marked one week since the surgery. I have been healing up, but Tuesday was one of the most painful days of my life. I was out of medication that actually helped (can we talk about how useless Tylenol is for pain?) and my incision was screaming. It was awful. But toward the end of the day, the MyHealth at Vanderbilt app sent a notification. My pathology report was in.
I feverishly scanned the six pages and understood maybe three words. I saw one that looked ominous – seminoma. A quick Google search showed that it was indeed a form of cancer. Well, I thought to myself, that just took the surgeon’s 99% cancer estimate up to 100%. It was all at once terrifying and relieving. Now, I just needed to wait for the surgeon to call and review the report with me.
So, back to yesterday. Stay with me, we’re time traveling. I started the day with good intentions – I was going to do some work, do some school work, cheat on my diet with some chocolate, maybe read a book, play some Nintendo…you know, the normal day-to-day stuff. And then my phone rang. It was Vandy. I answered and my surgeon Dr. Moses got straight to the point.
“Well, it was definitely cancer. Seminoma. It’s germ-cell, it’s the one you want. We got it, you had clear margins. I’m taking you from Stage 2 to Stage 1. We might be able to just do surveillance. I’ll see you on October 11.”
I wasn’t sure what to say. It was a shock. I asked, but what about the lymph nodes? He said that’s what surveillance was for, and it would be a years-long process, but I would be doing scans very frequently to keep an eye on them. If they noticed a change then we can act on it with chemo or radiation or whatever we need to do.
I hung up the phone and every emotion I could imagine hit me at the same time. I called Katie to share the news. It was good news, we were excited, but why was I still worried? I have really tried not to be an armchair doctor but it’s kind of impossible not to look things up online. Any abnormal lymph nodes seemed to be a big deal. I reached back out to ask for an oncologist consult.
And that’s where I am right now. Cautiously optimistic. It’s uncharted territory for me, and I know that the doctors know this like the backs of their hands, but if I’m not advocating for myself then who will? For now I am celebrating the fact that I caught this early and that the medical team pushed me through as quickly as they did. I couldn’t be more grateful and thankful.
So happy for the good news ❤️🙏
You will be a little anxious every time you have a scan. It changes our perspective… but prayerfully you will get to celebrate clean results often!!! I am celebrating with you today