All Clear

My two year appointment went well.  The MRI was shorter which I attribute to the doctor requesting less of an in depth look (and to save my body from the extra radiation).  The doctor looked through everything and said it was fine.  It never looks fine to me as there are large white blob like sections on the scans but he assured me that it is scar tissue.  I asked how they know the difference between scar tissue and tumor and he said they don't.  Great.  In any case, they look for other factors like a change in shape of the tissue, the folds of the brain showing pressure, or changes in my vision, balance and abilities.  My white blood cells still aren't completely up to snuff, but as he said -- they have been much much worse.  They decided to move my appointments out to three months instead of two.  All of these signs are very encouraging and are the exact words you would want to hear.


Despite all of this, I never seem to leave the appointments feeling a sense of relief.  I always harbor this small voice that thinks that they missed something or that I saw something on the scan that they didn't (as if I have a clue what I am looking at!).  I wonder if anyone who has been through a cancer diagnosis every really feels a complete sense of freedom or a complete release of fear.

Once I am back in reality, away from the hospital, I do forget again that I've been through all of this and I don't replay those days of surgery, recovery and treatment over in my head.  I live separately from that experience.

Though I never bump into walls anymore and the left handed vision episodes are very sporadic, one of the pieces that still lingers in my life is the ability to piece together mental puzzles.  I'm not sure how to explain it fully, but I can't organize my thoughts the way I used to be able to do.  I have to physically draw out how things relate to each other sometimes and I have to review schedules and lists and plans over and over and over again and sometimes even then I can't see the sequences or order of how it should all play out.  The amount of variables I used to be able to carry and organize is much smaller.

The second noticeable difference that I feel is from the medicine that I am on.  The medicine dulls areas in my brain in order to prevent seizure activity.  Through research and talking to a friend of mine who is a doctor, I have been able to explain that I don't have the same enthusiasm or mental energy that I used to have.  I'm sure this also comes with being a little older, but I don't feel as though I have the same mental way of looking at things.  Life feels almost muted and it seems logical to me that it is from the medicine.  I can look into other medicines and I might do that.

So, all in all, it was a perfect report.  I am grateful.