My Birthday

Well, today is my birthday. First, the good parts. Alex and Camila took me to lunch at TGIF, my favorite place. I always order the flat iron steak with Jack Daniel's glaze. It was good as usual. They gave me roses (from Colombia), and Camila brought me a pretty porcelain box from Colombia, along with a string bracelet in Colombia's colors. When I got home there were tulips from Emily and roses from my sister Helen. Wow, three flower gifts in one day! This morning Arthi gave me a porcelain box she brought from her recent trip home to India, it is very colorful. I didn't have any porcelain boxes, now I have two. I will use them to store earrings.

Now, the not so good part. On Monday I had a PET scan done. I have CT scans every 6 months because of having ocular melanoma. OM tends to be an aggressive cancer with a high incidence of spreading, usually to the liver. My oncologist decided I should have a PET scan this time instead, and I'm glad she did. When I saw my pulmonary doctor Tuesday a.m. he shared the PET scan results with me. It showed uptake in the right maxillary sinus, indicating a possible malignancy, likely mets from the eye. This morning I had a CT of the sinuses and saw the ENT surgeon. Well, my sinuses show no infection or sinusitis, I have a tumor in the posterior maxillary sinus on the right. I have been having a lot of facial pain and assumed it was dental, I have a dental appointment next week. I'll have to cancel that for now because I am having a surgical procedure next week to get a biopsy. I will have more surgery but just what depends on the biopsy. If it is recurrent melanoma we are hoping we can get a vaccine made. Melanoma doesn't respond well to chemotherapy. I will probably look for a clinical study if this is melanoma. So much to think about. Cancer, the "gift" that keeps on giving.

I see my oncologist tomorrow a.m. I have the very best medical team. There aren't many places where you'd have a PET scan one day, report the next, and everything set up the third day. For that I am very thankful.

Then Friday I go scrapbooking for the weekend. My favorite The Scrapbook Shop of St. Paul has moved to Lexington/Circle Pines. It's about 20 miles away, it used to be 2 miles away. I'm staying overnight at a motel so I can scrap two whole days and forget cancer for awhile.