moderately bad news and good news

It was a beautiful day in Seattle today. Mark and I got to spend lots of time just walking around around enjoying the fall weather, the beautiful architecture, and the interesting people.

We liked Swedish a lot. From the receptionists to the docs, everyone was friendly and up beat.

Here's the good news:
1. My PET Scan showed no cancer involvement with other major organs.
2. My PFT showed my lung function, despite the cancer and the infection, to be at 89%.
3. The docs are pleased with how fit I am and that I have no history of things like smoking. Nor do I have a family history of lots of cancer.

The moderately bad news is this:
1. The cancer is stage 3A. some of you will recall a story I have told about a doc well over 20 years ago when I first had pneumonia. He told me it looked like I had "aspirated a peanut" into mu lungs. I thought that was dumb - how could I do that and not know? And he just shrugged it off. The mass is about the size of a small tangerine and todays doctor said it had been growing for a long time.
2. a couple of lymph nodes in my bronchial airways got lit up during the PET scan.

The path forward:
1. We are skipping the visit to Virginia Mason. It will just delay moving forward.
2. We will have 2 more biopsies tomorrow at Swedish (I go in at 3 and they will do them at 5:00 pm).
3. There is always a chance that the lymph nodes are reacting to the cancer and the infection and not cancerous themselves. The results of the biopsies will determine what we do next.

My advice to you:
Even though I have been diagnosed with asthma, have had a bronchial infection here and there NO-ONE has ever done a chest X-ray between the one in Mount Vernon and the one this February. It would not hurt to ask, when you have  chest-involved illnesses, if perhaps that is something you should have done.

I have pictures of the sweet men who are doing my procedures tomorrow. I just can't get them downloaded right now. Plus I need to go eat, before they cut me off in a couple of hours... I don't want to be a Snickers commercial tomorrow!

I love hearing from you! The texts and the comments left here really and truly are helping us get through this every day. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.